Cartoon conventions

Noel is reviewing a collection of Laurel and Hardy shorts this week. These comedies and their ilk were the models for many of the Warner Brothers cartoons I watched obsessively as a kid.

In "Tit for Tat," L & H have a feud with a neighboring business owner.  Each time they leave his grocery store after dealing him a reciprocal humiliation, they pick up marshmallows out of a display box near the door and pop them ostentatiously into their mouths.  At one point, the store owner picks up a canister that the close-up tells us is POWDERED ALUM and sprinkles it on the marshmallows.  As anyone who has ever seen "Long Haired Hare" could predict, the next time L & H eat the marshmallows (going back for seconds this time for good measure), their mouths pucker up such that they can't speak, and they have to spray seltzer in each other's mouths to recover.

Alum is one of those gag items that seemed to me in my youth to have no existence outside of cartoons.  It's used in pickling, Noel tells me after a quick look at Wikipedia, and as a hemorrhoid remedy, among many other household uses.  To me it occupies the same realm as the anvil (familiar in a bygone age of blacksmithery, but not exactly a common sight thereafter), "Those Endearing Young Charms," and yes, the seltzer bottle.

What props or plot devices populate the comedies or cartoons of your upbringing, without a chance of being glimpsed in real life?

Glory days

For the last couple of years, I've spent my summer writing about a sitcom that was never a big hit (and hung on for a couple of years at the bottom of its network, ratings-wise). Episode by episode, season by season, I have been working my way through NewsRadio, a NBC comedy that aired from 1995-1999. If you weren't a television aficionado, a Saturday Night Live fan, or a Kids In The Hall follower at that time, you might have no memory of it.

But for my money (and I'm not the only one), it's one of the pinnacles of the half-hour situation comedy genre. Now, granted, that's a genre I think is well worth paying attention to -- a format in which great art is genuinely possible. Not everyone would agree. Particularly in the twenty-first century, when laugh tracks seem to be on their way out among the cognoscenti.

Week after week I find it immeasurably gratifying that a loyal cadre of readers gathers to comment on my write-ups and offer their own observations about the quality of the episodes discussed. It's one of the defining primordial Internet experiences, one that we might find ourselves forgetting as we move farther way from the birth of the web: Strike out alone, and find a community. All of us were watching back in the nineties, or someone helped us out with tapes between then and now, or we've caught up on DVD or online in recent years. And we all find this semi-obscure show worth talking about and thinking about.

The season I'm writing about this summer is Season 4, the consensus best season of what we would contend is one of the best shows the network system has ever somehow fortuitously allowed on the air. If you remember the show dimly or fondly, tune in to the coverage. If you've never been initiated into the club, find yourself a box set or Hulu. We're having an amazing time celebrating TV comedy that approaches perfection more often than any of us have a right to expect. And we'd love to have you join us.

Not getting it

My wonderful friend and colleague Scott Tobias wrote a quick news item on the A.V. Club today about the announcement that Neil Patrick Harris has been tapped to host this year's Emmy award ceremony.

I'm a great admirer of NPH. Although I never watched Doogie Howser, I have deep respect for his star turns on Broadway (in Stephen Sondheim's sublime Assassins, no less!) and masterful comic gusto in films like Starship Troopers and television shows like How I Met Your Mother. His performance hosting the Tony awards a few weeks back can best be described as "gleeful," and the song he belted out over the credits was sheer, unadultered delight.

But I admit that I fixated on a particular thread in the ensuing comments where readers confessed -- no, perhaps the right word is "boasted" -- about how they've never found HIMYM funny. It's a recurring theme on our boards in relation to any show whose cult status is not yet established, whose hip credentials might be suspect, which has a fervent advocate on the A.V. Club staff. The same thread occurred in a news item where Noel alerted readers that the strange and wonderful ABC comedy Better Off Ted was returning to the air this summer. Commenters speculated about whether the show was actually any good, described their ambivalent reactions to what little (if any) they'd seen -- sometimes just to the ABC promos -- and simultaneously declared that no show could ever be described as funny after Arrested Development and angrily attacked anyone who dared suggest a comparison to Arrested Development.

It's undeniable that you have to be open to a certain type of comedy and perhaps train yourself into a certain frame of mind to enjoy some shows. For that reason, it's dangerous to praise them to your friends, since inevitably they'll tune in for a sample and just not see what you see. That said, there are moments or even whole episodes that are so perfectly brilliant, in a way that transcends the feel or tone that gives context to the show's humor, that I really can't imagine someone claiming not to get it. The little singing exchange between Ted and Linda on this week's Better Off Ted ("Are you reaaady? Yes I'm reaaady!" "Is your report reaaady?" "No it's not reaaady!" "Maybe you should have your fish wriiiite it!" "He can only write Mooooe-Moe!"); the list of celebrities, collectibles, and Canadian sex acts from the "Old King Clancy" episode of HIMYM -- these are not just funny if you've matched your brain waves to the show's vibe. They're funny, full stop.

I understand that not everyone is going to be able to take traditional sitcoms seriously, nor will they take the time necessarily to allow a quirky comedy to find the sweet spot. But denying that the shows could ever be funny -- or that anyone who claims to find them funny could be telling the truth? Folks, we're laughing over here because we're enjoying ourselves. And if you'll let us find the right clip, we'll show you how you can join us.

Roasted

Aspects of my life and work that were mocked during the Honors Professor Roast staged this evening by The Laughing Stock, the student comedy troupe:

• my blog
• my writing about pop culture
• my advice to students to embrace the disreputable
• my 2004 pregnancy
• my intimidating demeanor
• my piercing, unblinking, lizard-like gaze
• my tendency to attract acolytes
• other stuff that I was laughing too hard to remember
  

Fix it!

We watched the final Saturday Night Live Thursday edition last night. Then I read my colleague Nathan Rabin's post about it this morning.

I'm not sure I saw the same episode, to be frank. I don't believe I've laughed more at any SNL-produced piece of television in the last year. Part of it, I'm sure, is just a difference in perspective. For example, while I understand why Seth Myers rubs people the wrong way on Weekend Update, I have a very different experience, because I filter his performance through Amy Poehler. I trust Amy Poehler. I believe she's funny, and she knows what's funny. I think she has a great sense of humor. And because she clearly enjoys what Seth Myers is doing, I tend to give Myers a huge break.

But the part of Nathan's review that really runs counter to my perceptions is his accusation that Kenan Thompson's economics commentator character. He describes the shtick as a one-note idea that has been run into the ground by having him appear three times in a row. No clips appear to be on YouTube, so if you haven't seen it, you're out of luck. The character, upset about the economy, demands that somebody "fix it!" He offers a three-step plan. Step 1: Fix! Step 2: It! Step 3: Fix it! Thompson pronounces it more like "Fiss it! and yells it in a screechy staccato of frustration.

Yes, there's only one joke. But it's precisely because the economic news gone from bizarrely bad to bizarrely worse that the repetition of the gag week after week strikes me as brilliant. When Thompson came on this week, he was trembling with fear and anger. What can any of us do in the face of this massive boondoggle but yell to "them" to "fix it!"? Thompson's impotence seems to speak volumes at this moment in time. And without the recurrence of the bit week to week, that fuming, combined with the inability to offer any particular plan, is exactly where all us viewers find ourselves.

Looking for comedy

With the grant approved and on its way, I was able to turn my attention yesterday and today to a no less vexing assignment. Tomorrow is our annual Family Day for Honors students, alumni, and their families. We gather for coffee and browse the photos and memorabilia of students who studied abroad or did internships this summer. Then there's a program of entertainment.

That's where the trouble comes, for me. Inevitably I think of some great idea for a funny sketch to do with another faculty member. (Jane and I were the team while she was here; now I'm hoping Phil will be my new partner.) Then I have to write it.

I'm not all that funny. I don't think anyone who knows me would describe me as a comedian. Fairly outgoing, sure. A person who enjoys a good joke, absolutely. But funny? Nope. I'm not known as the person who cracks everybody else up. If anything, Noel is better at that than me -- and his written work proves it. I craft a laugh line that I'm proud of maybe one in four times I'm trying to write something funny. Noel can make me laugh just about every time he tries.

And delivering the comedy? Also not my strong suit. I'm no actor -- I'm just a ham. About the best than can be said for me on stage is that I'm loud and don't suffer from stage fright.

So I stared at my screen for about three total hours yesterday and today to come up with a couple of pages of lame comedy about the two Honors residence halls, Farris and New, engaged in a dialogue based on the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. About 20 minutes of that time was spent lamenting that I couldn't simply shoehorn in my greatest comedy triumph: the line "I could totally make a bong out of that." Cheap laughs, but they were long and loud. I doubt my awkward evocation of the trouble Farris Hall residents have with flaking paint on their walls will be as well received.

My only hope with that Phil, whom I know for a fact is much funnier than me, will punch up my tired stabs at jokes before we deliver this thing, unrehearsed, tomorrow morning. If I win (or is it lose?) the pie-in-the-face charity penny jar competition, then at least I'll get one reliable laugh when the cream hits me on the schnoz.