The Sunday Memory Drawer - How Do You Get So Funny?

 

After people get to know me, I frequently get asked this question.

"Where did you get your sense of humor?"

Hmmmm.

Well, first of all, thank you for recognizing I have one.  So many people around me don't.  But, of course, this all prompted me back into the recesses of my mind.  Well, as you know it every Sunday, my Memory Drawer.

I can remember the very first time I got laughs.  I must have been no more than five years old.  One of those "Kids Say the Darndest Things" moments and I don't even remember completely the actual comment.  Only the situation.

We were on vacation.  My parents and I were staying at the Beach Haven, New Jersey home of my father's cousin, Helen.  Being the only kid around, I was naturally bored shitless.  Sitting around the dining table and listening to the adults gossip about other family members.

Suddenly, the subject turned to my grandmother's sister-in-law, the infamous Tante Emma.  They were talking about how lonely she was and perhaps she could use a companion for the rest of her life.  Out of sheer boredom, I was dying to participate in the conversation.  So I chimed in with my own inane comment.

"Maybe Tante Emma could marry the pastor."

Or something like that.  

To this day, I don't know why I said this.  And perhaps there was some family subtext that I didn't know or understand.  Because this got huge laughs from my audience.

My mother laughed so hard that she peed her pants.  Literally.  My father had to go out to the porch to compose himself.  Cousin Helen was mid-swig-of-beer and it wound up streaming out of her nose.

I sat there amused and confused.  I loved the fact that I was making these folks laugh themselves to death.  Except I have no clue why.

Answering my pal Diane's question, I would have to say there was no single human influence that helped to form my sense of humor.  Dad could be wry and sarcastic.  He didn't say much, but, when he did, the words counted for something.  He was verbally economic.  I can't say that my mom really was funny.  The only time I really recall her laughing out loud heartily was when we were watching the episode of "All in the Family" where Edith Bunker went through menopause.  Perhaps she was identifying with this at the time.

Indeed, the indirect influences on my developing sense of humor were my grandparents.  Not that they were particularly funny, either.  But those were the ones who sat down with me every night to watch television.  And, if Grandma and Grandpa didn't talk funny, they certainly knew what was.  We watched the classics together. 

"I Love Lucy" reruns.

"The Beverly Hillbillies."

"Green Acres."

"Mister Ed."

"The Andy Griffith Show."

"The Lucy Show."

"The Mothers-In-Law."

And, on my own, "The Dick Van Dyke Show."  Their humor was a little too sophisticated for Grandma.  And, on Friday nights when I could stay up late, "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."

Watching all of those TV shows was an education and an evolution.  I learned timing.  Both vocally and on the written page.  Rules of oral engagement.  Running gags should be used no more than three times.  You telegraph somebody's entrance with a joke.  Always end the sentence with the funniest part of your line.

Suddenly, I was a freakin' expert.  And I figured it was all so easy to do.  So, barely double digits in age, I decided to write a script for a television show.  After all, what a great marketing story.  A major television situation comedy buying a script from some kid in the sixth grade.  Wow, that would be too good to be true.

So, thrusting my homework aside, I opened a fresh new composition book and started to write an episode of "The Mothers-In-Law."  I pretty much copied lines I had just heard on the show the previous Sunday.  But it sounded good to me.  Indeed, in my own shrunken world, I wrote three pages of dialogue and determined this was one whole episode.  A little short for the half-hour of prime time television the show itself commanded.

Oddly enough, I recently uncovered this very composition book.  I could barely read it.  Instead of writing for television, I should have been working on my penmenship.  To make matters even worse, I recall now the reason why I never followed through with this script.

I had left the composition book on my desk.  In those days, there were no secrets in my household.  Everything was fair game.  And, if something was in my room, my folks could look at it.

My mother approached me with the composition book.

"What the hell is this?"

Ummm, er, ummmm.  My sense of humor from television had also equipped me to hem and haw and stutter and stammer just like Ralph Kramden from "The Honeymooners."

I was embarrassed actually at what I was attempting to do.  Mom was just plain annoyed.

"Stop wasting your time on stupid stuff like this."

Ummm, okay. 

So, I suppose I had a sense of humor.  I just couldn't take it out in public.

Well, that didn't last long.  As I got older, I was a bit more daring in showing my creative and, well, funny side.

I was in the tenth grade and in English class with Miss Dennis.  In all my years of schooling, she was one of my love non-connections.  I thought she was a lousy teacher and I certainly didn't fit her notion of a student.  Thinking back on her, she was clearly one of those bohemian souls who lived for the arts and the theater.  She ran the theater appreciation class and the acting troup at high school.  Of course, noting the affinity for anything Broadway and the standard stereotype, Miss Dennis was likely gay.  All the girls in the class got As.  All the boys got B minuses.  You know the drill. 

Anyway, Miss Dennis presented us all with an odd assignment.  We each had to write an original short story.  Okay, I thought, there is zero interest in this from my side of the desk.  If I had to perform this asinine task, I had to figure out a way I could enjoy the whole process.

So I decided to write an original short story based on the characters from "Get Smart."  Heck, I was a little lazy.  Let me take some folks created by others and spin my own yarn around them.  If I remember correctly, I did a good job with this.  Certainly a lot better and funnier than the measly two pages of "Mothers-In-Law" dialogue.  I proudly handed him my work.

"What is this?"  Miss Dennis had no clue.

"Who are these people?"

It's a TV show.  Max.  99.  The Chief.  I had even included Hymie the Robot.

"I don't have a television."

Oh?  We're going to be that way, are we?

I got a B minus.  I considered that a victory.  Some dumb girl got an A+ for her short story adaptation of the Judy Collins song "Both Sides Now."  Clearly, my sense of humor was designed for the audience in any class not taught by the erudite Miss Dennis.

Moving on.

And I did.  To make my friends in the neighborhood laugh.  Now that I was a little older, my humor was getting a little more sophisticated.  Thanks to Johnny Carson.  I would hear routines he did on "The Tonight Show" and adapt them to my teenage world.  Then I would go "up the block" and regale my friends. 

They laughed.  This was a rush.  Granted that I wasn't being incredibly original.  But, laughs are laughs.  And I was hearing them.

But, then again, these were my friends.  A safe audience. 

Years later, in college, there was an evening that would be much more of a risk. 

To be continued.

Dinner last night:  Hot dog at the Hollywood Bowl.