No, I am not going to write about violent ways to acquire a trophy wife. Dewey’s courtship methods do not work in a world fairly far removed from the Middle Ages, and Dewey the Goon is a cartoon villain anyway. This post is going to simply be another in a long list of posts where I bend ideas like pretzels in order to justify the spurious claim that this is a humor blog, and therefore, I can truthfully claim to know how to write something funny.
It can be argued that somebody like me can’t possibly be a writer of good humor simply because I am too gosh-dang smart. (And those of my friends who use this particular criticism on me, tend to actually use country-bumpkinisms like “gosh-dang” way more often than is considered merely foolish.) I admit to using multi-syllable complex words to sound funny because they sound like boobly-doobly-doo gibberish to listeners who have no idea what a word like “bumpkinisms” actually means. And I might add, the listeners don’t usually go to an Oxford English Dictionary (unabridged) simply to be able to laugh at a big word.
I recognize that being an intellectual and having a head full of proven-but-useless facts is actually a disability. You can’t talk to anybody and be fully understood. Talking to somebody who can’t make logical connections between ideas is like walking over a wooden bridge built by an idiot who doesn’t know how nails work… and there are sharks in the water under the bridge. People will pigeonhole you as a “nerd” and treat you like your intelligence makes you radioactive.
So, the logical conclusion is… to be funny you have to act dumber than you actually are.
This man is trying to write humor using chemistry. Beware! He is likely to blow you up if you hang out with him!
Humor can be volatile. Sometimes it insults people. Sometimes it shocks you with things you should be outraged by, but you see the irony and laugh instead. (Preferably without needing someone to throw a steam iron at your head in order to make you see the irony.)
It is probably inappropriate to suggest that kids should go to school naked. Even parents would make other parents uncomfortable by suggesting such a thing. But as a former teacher, I can tell you that most middle school and high school kids are naked in school almost all of the time. Of course, not literally. They are metaphorically naked. Not capable of keeping anything personal a secret. Most of them would never want people to see them literally naked. But they go to great lengths to show you their emotionally naked selves. You can’t keep them from doing it.
And seeing kids emotionally naked is mostly an uncomfortably icky thing for mature adults to contemplate. But teachers have to deal with it. That’s why so few good teachers let themselves become mature adults.
By this point, if you are still reading, you are probably saying to yourself. “Mickey, you are just recycling the same old pictures and lame jokes.”
You got me. That’s what the stand-up comics all do. They tell the same set of jokes over and over, only changing the city they are telling them in.
So, now you know the truth. Writing humor is hard. And most of us who practice it are only pretending that we know what we are doing. You have to be smart, but pretend you are dumb. You have to shock and offend your audience, but only to the point of making them laugh, and never reaching the point where they all grab torches and pitchforks.
So, there it is. Today’s humor post. I said a bunch of things I should not have said. So, rotten tomatoes in the comments are expected. And, please, no pitchforks. I do not know how getting a pitchfork into an internet comment is possible, but I do know that there are Trolls out there with some real skills.
Catch a Falling Star 
I Love to Laugh
“Mickey, why can’t you be more serious the way smart people are?”
“Well, now, my dear, I think I take humor very seriously.”
“How can you say that? You never seem to be serious for more than a few seconds in a row.”
“I can say it in a high, squeaky, falsetto voice so I sound like Mickey Mouse.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“I can also burp it… well, maybe not so much since I was in junior high.”
“I distinctly remember getting in trouble in Mrs. Mennenga’s third grade class in school for pantomiming pulling my beating heart out of my chest and accidentally dropping it on the floor. She lectured me about being more studious. But I made Alicia sitting in the row beside me laugh. It was all worth it. And the teacher was right. I don’t remember anything from the lesson on adding fractions we were supposed to be doing. But I remember that laugh. It is one precious piece of the golden treasure I put in the treasure chest of memories I keep stored in my heart.”
“I always listened to the words Groucho Marx was saying, even though he said them awfully fast and sneaky-like. I listened to the words. Other characters didn’t seem to listen to him. He didn’t seem to listen to them. Yet, how could he respond like he did if he really wasn’t listening? In his answers were always golden bits of wisdom. Other people laughed at his jokes when the laugh track told them to. I laughed when I understood the wisdom.”
“Laughing is a way of showing understanding. Laughing is a way of making yourself feel good. Laughing is good for your brain and your heart and your soul. So, I want to laugh more. I need to laugh more. I love to laugh.”
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Filed under autobiography, comedians, commentary, goofiness, goofy thoughts, humor, irony, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, wisdom
Tagged as Ed Wynn, Groucho Marx, Moe Howard