Not Cool, Zeus. Not Cool. (Part Two)

As introduced previously, this is the letter of an artist who respects the administrative side of things, but also gets that it isn't--it can't be--his job to do it. Conan has respect and devotion to the Tonight Show as an artistic institution, and is pissed that the administration isn't willing to see it the same way (or don't trust him to keep it safe). Below is Nikki Finke's take on his statement, and I'm right there with her:

I'm proud of O'Brien for standing his ground and protecting his own and The Tonight Show's future from NBC's nitwits. There's a rich legacy of that among his predecessors, from Steve Allen through Jack Paar and during Johnny Carson: they all refused to knuckle under to the network. Only Jay Leno didn't. Instead, he begged like a dog for The Tonight Show, and then rolled over and played dead even after Zucker canned him. Then Leno stayed with the network and agreed to a 10 PM show doomed from the outset. What a doormat. Obviously, NBCU thought Conan would be just as compliant. I'm thrilled that he's not. Hollywood should be, too, and publicly support him.

But it isn't just about fighting back against the big man. The littler regional men with the tinny voices need to be considered, too:

The move to redirect Mr. Leno from prime time, where his new show has struggled since September, back to late night was fueled by complaints from NBC’s affiliated stations that they were seeing diminished ratings for their 11 o’clock local newscasts as a result of low lead-in audiences each night in the 10 o’clock hour.

Poor, dear local affiliates. Declining lead-ins are the problem for your news shows? Sure. Sure they are.

So--is there a solution? Not one that I can puzzle out. All sides have valid points and concerns, but I like and trust (and know) Conan more than anyone else involved, so in his camp I will stay. And if you need any more prodding to join Team Conan, let Finke remind you (and Jeff Gaspin, to whom this comment is directed) of Conan's true colors:

Go back and watch O'Brien's charm and wit when he was hosting Late Night during the writers strike. That was a glimpse of the real Conan, not the uncomfortable twitching wreck doing Tonight Show duty. Play to his strengths.

The proof is in the strike beard.

Go Team Conan, whatever field we end up on.

POSTSCRIPT: Got this from @ebertchicago on Twitter. Barely made it through Leno and Kimmel's bit...yeesh, that was uncomfortable ("Conan and I have children! You have cars! Leave our shows alone!"). Nice mention of Jimmy's random fear of Mt. Rainier, though.

Not Cool, Zeus. Not Cool. (Part One)

I don't pretend to know my way around the very confusing Hedge Maze of Factors Contributing to NBC's Unhappy Situation. But here I go, hacking into anyway! Let's start with a quote from the Media Decoder blog at nytimes.com:

The problem is not disclosure, or jokes, but the facts themselves. There are some things even the best communications strategy can’t fix, and this is one of them: angry talent standing in front of a pile of smoking rubble that used to be a programming schedule.

By nature, the best of the talent, as generally creative (read: inventive) folks, can adapt to changing landscape more efficiently than the administration. Shows, whether broadcast as a radio production or streamed directly into our contact lenses, need to be written, directed, performed, edited, designed, and any other number of artistic-past-tense-verbed. The job of the networks is on shakier ground. How will advertising fit in, and to what extent? What are the administrative needs and costs of producing and distributing the product? How do you measure and track the audience when they consume their media in multiple, shifting, flighty ways?

I don't envy the Jeff Zuckers or Jeff Gaspins of the world their jobs. But they get paid a lot of money for that responsibility, so they need to nut up (or ovary up, in some cases) and do their jobs. The industry has static (ref: the plot of "Singing in the Rain," James Cameron for the last fifteen years). The whole impetus of movie-making and broadcasting is to continue the narrative. That goes for the stories as well as the technology involved, the union rules, the censorship requirements, the audience preferences, etc.

When Charlie Chaplin finances, writes, produces, directs, acts in, and composes original music for his own work, you have a perfect storm. A gifted multimedia artist who is also an effective administrator produces a quality product that can perform as intended. But that isn't a sustainable model--the business is too big and (non-Chaplin) talents are too narrow. Networks and their executives need to be more nimble--more investments like Hulu.com and more nuanced understanding (and communication) of the new map being drawn by the combination of streaming/DVR numbers and traditional ratings, plus any other matrices by which they judge "success."

The talent (in this case, the comedians) have another leg up besides their adaptability. You can't be a good comic without being a good communicator. And as Media Decoder said, the problem is definitely not the jokes (weeeeeell, except for in Leno's case), however; in a meta-but-predictable twist, the problem has become the joke. If you've been watching, all the late-night monologues have been directing some level of vitriol to the network or executives over the last couple days (especially Conan). Comedy done right can be a verbal panic room--powerful self-defense. That goes for stand-up and the written word, and if you haven't read Conan's letter yet, you must--it's a great and honest in to what he is going through, and a sterling example of how to make your point, capture hearts and minds, and not be a dick.


More to come...

The Problem with the Write-In Option

Remember when that guy decided to take Stephen Colbert's digitized DNA with him to the International Space Station?

In more ISS/Stephen Colbert news, the AP reports today that the written-in name "Colbert" beat out NASA's other suggested names for the planned new module of the space station. NASA-generated names included "Serenity" and "Venture," either of which would be acceptable in my eyes because of the Joss and Venture Bros. references, respectively (perhaps I'm projecting?). The arm of the Colbert Nation is mighty and far-reaching, though, and write-ins for "Colbert" constituted nearly twenty percent of the final vote.

NASA, of course, is reserving the right to make the final choice themselves. NASA spokesperson John Yembrick said the decision will be made in April, but that NASA will give top vote-getters "the most consideration." Fingers crossed!

Here is Stephen's plea to the nation from March 8, 2009:

Follow-up: The Lockbox Strategery

Jokes and Positive Perceptions

I ran across some more news today that ties in directly with what I talked about in my last post. The Center for Media and Public Affairs, which has tracked late-night jokes made about presidential candidates since 1988, reported that from September 1, 2008 through last Friday, October 24, the Republican ticket has been the butt of 475 jokes, while the Democratic ticket was mocked only 69 times. That is nearly a 7:1 ratio (6.88:1, to be more precise), and is a thorough trouncing that no previous elections have come anywhere near.

This is, of course, reflective of the larger trend in benevolent comments about Barack Obama. Since the party conventions, evening news shows have been 65% positive. This is based on data from ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and Fox Special Report. To McCain, the shows have only been 36% positive, and he (impressively?) falls behind even Sarah Palin's positive-comment percentage of 42%. (Evidently, Joe Biden gets talked about so little there isn't enough data for "meaningful analysis.")

As always, an addendum:

On Fox News Channel, by contrast, Obama's press has been only 28% positive during the general election, even worse than the 38% positive evaluations of McCain. Palin's coverage has been 49% positive on Fox, slightly higher than on the three networks.

Stay classy, Fox News. 

Punchlines Punching Back

Back in August, the CMPA released a list of the top joked-about public figures, and Obama was number four (behind W., Hillary Clinton, and John McCain, respectively). Jon Stewart told the most Obama jokes and Stephen Colbert told the most McCain ones, while Jay Leno joshed Hillary more than any other comics.  

Unfortunately, what this measurement doesn't weigh is what exactly about the candidate the comics make fun of. For example, Obama jokes in August were things like "The big story is Obama's world tour. Today, he made history by being the first man to travel around the world in a plane propelled by the media's flash photography." (Colbert) and "The tour may strike some a presumptuous. In fact, I joked that Obama would be stopping in Bethlehem to visit the manger where he was born." (Stewart). Those punchlines are built on public perception and veneration of Obama, not who he is as a person. This is a more accessible kind of humor for people of diverse political leanings, and funny in a both hey-that's-true and self-deprecation-of-the-media way. Nuanced! Of course, the ever-classy Leno writing room turned out one-note, candidate-specific gems like "Obama said he'll visit Iraq and Afghanistan because he wants to see an area overrun by violent extremists. So it sounds like he already misses his old church." Let's hope Conan takes all of his writers with him when he moves into that slot and doesn't have to inherit that kind of crap.

The Lockbox Strategery

My, Spit Takes has been a busy girl! A month and no blogging action...I suppose I've just been caught up in election fever. Haven't we all? 

Well, the only thing the New York Times is more obsessed with than the election is coverage of and reaction TO the election. Hence today's article about how late-night comedy has seen a huge uptick in ratings and viewings recently. A run-down of some of their facts:

• Ratings for SNL are up 50%
• The Daily Show averaged 2 million viewers in September (that's huge for cable), and more viewers per episode than Conan
• Number of internet viewings of the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler Palin-Couric sketch have surpassed the nearly 10 million people who watched it when it originally aired on 9/27

A big part of the success for SNL, of course, is the guest-starring of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. A soon as Palin was announced, people started clamoring for Tina to take her on. We (and Seth Meyer's writers' room) are lucky she did. Another part of the success--for all programs, comedy and actual news--is that people really are paying attention. Seth points out, 

It's best for a writer when 70 million people see a debate...we did 11.5 minutes on that debate sketch last week [Sarah Palin/Joe Biden, with Tina Fey and Jason Sudeikis]. We couldn't do that if everybody hadn't watched it.

As far as the Daily Show and the Colbert Report go, they've been beating Leno, Conan, Dave, Craig, and Jimmy Kimmel in the coveted "men from 18-34" bracket pretty regularly...by several hundreds of thousands viewers per episode. Oof! In the big picture that is ratings, however, that isn't huge: the Daily Show averages 1.45 to 1.6 million viewers nightly, which is high for cable but nothing compared to, say, CSI's 18.6 million. However, in the big picture that is "the youth vote," however that might be defined, is spending more time listening to what Jon and Stephen have to say and less to the network boys. Conan puts it pretty well:

For some of the shows politics is their bread and butter. Shows like mine and Jay's and Dave's also do different things. Sometimes I have to move on to something silly, like me jumping in a vat of cheddar cheese.

I think Conan sells himself short. His impressions of Bush ("Uh-huuuuh?!") and Schwarzenegger ("Baargh!!") are some of the best out there. Though of course Conan + vat of anything = awesome.

So how much sway does Conan (or Jon, or Jay) have over public opinion? Since the Clinton years, presidential politics have started cropping up more and more in "nontraditional" media outlets, and people have been trying to parse the effects. An article published in the March 2004 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media studied the influence of late-night comedy on the 2000 election, and it had some interesting points that still apply today. In regards to jokes made during the 2000 election, 

Among those subjects who did not watch late-night, Democrats rated Bush less knowledgeable over time and Republicans rated him more knowledgeable over time. But partisans who were high consumers of late-night appeared identical in the extent to which their ratings of Bush's knowledgeability changed from July to October.

Of course, comedy (at least, broadcast and mainstream sketch comedy) only really works if your viewer has knowledge of what you're joking about, as Seth mentioned earlier. Jon is quoted in this journal piece as pointing out that audiences need to "know something before [comedians can] even make a joke about it." This is what works so well with the Fey/Palin skits on SNL: many viewers have already glutted themselves on the ACTUAL ridiculousness of Palin's interviews and appearances, therefore they are familiar with the material. So when Fey repeats some lines verbatim, that is one kind of funny (sad funny, I suppose), and when she makes others up that are in the style of the actual quotes, that is a comedy of recognition.

With all that in mind, I'm not sure I'm convinced that our late-night friends actually have that much influence over public opinion. Let's conclude with what Lorne pointed out in the Times:

"I think we offer some perspective," Mr. Michaels said. "But when people start getting into how we're changing things, I think we're not. I think we affect the media and maybe influence some people. I think we're a safety valve. Some pressure gets let off by what we do."

Thoughts? Have you ever had your mind changed by a monologue, joke, or skit?

Stephen Colbert's Digitized DNA To Be Sent Into Space

Richard Garriott, a video game designer who will be going to the International Space Station in October, will take Colbert's digitized DNA with him. In a statement, he said:

In the unlikely event that Earth and humanity are destroyed, mankind can be resurrected from Stephen Colbert's DNA...Is there a better person for us to turn to for this high-level responsibility?

Awesome.

[via the New York Times]

The Democratic Party: the Party of Comedy

Humor in politics is really interesting. For most politicians, it is generally a tool in a bag of tricks, an easy fix for something. John McCain can occasionally be funny in a chortle-y kind of way at times, and it serves to make him more...relatable? Or something. 

Of course, like with any piece of comedy, humor in politics can backfire on you. Let's look at a fictional example. The pilot episode of THE WEST WING follows (among other stories) the mini-saga of Josh Lyman almost getting sacked because he got into an argument with the Evangelical activist Mary Marsh during a TV debate. They are fighting about the presence of God in politics, and Mary says, "Well, I can tell you don't believe in any God I pray to, Mr. Lyman. Not any God I pray to." Josh pounces: "Lady, the God you pray to is too busy getting indicted for tax fraud!" Hi-larious! However, it's mean-funny, and that is a dangerous place to be.

The below scene is the final confrontation (and the first introduction of President Bartlet), wherein the agitated Mary Marsh and her cronies unleash their own bigoted brand of mean-funny, to similarly disastrous results. Josh keeps his head, but Toby, as per usual, has the most interesting reaction. He never crosses over into attack humor--he keeps on the defensive, but in such a biting way that it is really effective (i.e. the lug wrench line).

He's wrong about the Third Commandment, of course. The Third Commandment is "you shall not make yourself an idol," and frankly I'm baffled as to why Sorkin let that mistake slip by. Unless it was on purpose...in which case I don't have the energy to unpack everything that could be behind those intentions. Either, this is one of the many examples of why early WW is just so choice: this is the first episode, and we already know a ton about how all the characters process and react to humor in their line of work. 

But on to real life! The DNC this week has given us a couple good examples of well-oiled funny working its way into the speeches. What notable to me is not the presence of humor (that's not new) but the effortlessness with which our dear Dems have been approaching it. Gone is the scrambling of 2000, the nervous collar-tugging of 2004...the party has all the swoosh and confidence of someone who just lost fifteen pounds and bought a nice new pair of pants.  As a Democrat, I gotta say, it's a really wonderful feeling. I hope we use it well.

In another year, with darker clouds hanging over the future, perhaps the following jokes that I pulled out of keynote speeches wouldn't be so funny. But I'm just so optimistic about everything now, I'm giving everyone the benefit of the doubt!

• After her (college-basketball-coach) brother Craig introduced her, Michelle Obama opened her speech on Monday the 25th with, "As you might imagine, for Barack, running for president is nothing compared to that first game of basketball with my brother Craig." Bad. Ass. Whachyou got, Cindy McCain?! Half-siblings that are voting for Obama,* that's what.
• My girl Hillary had a nice, femme-friendly crack about her "sisterhood of the traveling pantsuit" in her speech on Tuesday the 26th. Not my bag, personally (I don't own a pantsuit** and I've never read that book), but it makes me happy to see a woman bonding with other women in a venue like that. 
• Bill, that silver fox, also got a jab or two in during his keynote. Right off the bat, he dispelled any bad blood left over from the primary in one fell, punny swoop: "The campaign generated so much heat, it increased global warming!" He got a big laugh for that one.
• In that vein, Mr. Al Gore had one of my favorite jokes of the week in his speech yesterday at Mile High Stadium. It's worth your fifteen minutes to watch his impassioned tirade (Daniel Dae Kim shows up at about 7:05!), even if just to be wistful about what could have happened...sigh. His joke: "John McCain, a man who has earned our respect on many levels, is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush/Cheney White House and promising to actually continue them. The same policies? Those policies? All over again? Hey, I believe in recycling, but that's ridiculous." A rare case where "it's funny because it's true" applies. Of everyone in the whole world, you KNOW that Al effing Gore believes in recycling.

Obama and Biden mostly shied away from the direct humor to focus on portraying themselves as credulous and sincere as possible, which I quite understand. I really look forward to the debates, though; Barack is pretty damn fast on his feet with witty comebacks. And Sarah Palin, you'd better be able to bring it! Or at least pay Tina Fey to sit in for you.

Any other keynote jokes I missed? Thoughts on humor in politics? Bring it up in the comments!

* Ugh. Sorry. I promise that is the first and last time I ever link to Us Magazine.

** On the day I was elected as a county delegate for Hillary at my caucus, I was wearing my totally awesome Batman t-shirt.

Profile: Kenan Thompson

Those of us that watched Nickelodeon as kids (I was, indeed, Afraid of the Dark) were indelibly influenced. Ladders slamming against windows, the Crag, the Strongest Man in the World, and silvery liquid puddles* all have their place in our hearts. But one of the best was surely "All That"...and one of the best things about "All That" was Kenan Thompson.


Born in 1978, Kenan starred on "All That" from 1994-1999, and he and Kel Mitchell starred in "Kenan and Kel" from 1996-2000. They managed to transition to the big screen with "Good Burger" in 1997, but Kenan was no stranger to movies: by that point, he already had 1995's "Heavyweights" and 1996's "D2: The Mighty Ducks" under his belt (in which he played a scrappy Southern California street hockey player who helped the Ducks beat the evil Icelandic team). Kenan joined "SNL" as a featured player in 2003 and became a cast member in 2005. He still works in film, with movies like "Snakes on a Plane," "Fat Albert," "My Boss's Daughter" and "The Master of Disguise." Take from that list what you will.

Kenan's upcoming films include this summer's animated "Space Chimps" and the movie "Weiners," which IMDB describes as "a road trip comedy about three friends who travel across the country in a Wiener Wagon to beat up a popular daytime talk show therapist." Frankly (get it?!), I like the sound of that.

While we wait for summer movie season to get into full swing, let's enjoy a mini Kenan retrospective. Here's a clip from Amanda Bynes's first episode at "All That" in 1996 (she was ten). The cold open is about her fitting in with the cast, with some good Kenan face time. Keep watching, though (you know you want to hear that TLC song, anyway): the first skit after the credit sequence is a Lil' Kenan gem--Cooking with Randy, the chef who is obsessed with chocolate.



And, twelve years later: Kenan as French Def Comedy Jam stand-up comic Jean K. Jean on Weekend Update.



Of course, it isn't all TV and movies for Kenan. He is a man of varied interests--he wrote the intro to Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul, and had a piece about getting spanked for lying to his dad in Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul. And last month when Kenan was pulled over in New Jersey, and the cops discovered weed in the car? Kenan, that smooth operator, only got tagged for driving erratically--his passenger, however was charged with possession. Incroyable!

* "Clarissa Explains It All," "GUTS," "The Adventures of Pete & Pete," "The Secret World of Alex Mack." But of course you knew all that.

Dave Foley Tells Us How It's Done

Remember in college when you would conveniently schedule your classes so you'd be back at your dorm room in time to watch the "Kids in the Hall" reruns in the afternoon on your roommate's little white VCR/TV combo that sat on top of the mini-fridge?

Yeah, me too. That was fun.

Here, Dave and the boys explain the ethereal mystery that is the construction of the comedic sketch. Of course, only a third of the KiTH sketches are "typical" sketches. The second third are surrealist, strange, disjointed challenges to the standards of humor, and the final third are songs by Bruce McCullough about everyday objects or guys named Dave. All in all, it's an impressive canon.

A Brief Note of Thanks to Tina Fey and Her Writers

Spoiler warning...below are some quotes from 4/10's new 30 ROCK episode. If it is still waiting for you on your DVR, watch it before you read this post. I wouldn't want to ruin the fun.


On to business. I clasp my hands in grateful glee for two jokes on Thursday's 30 ROCK episode, "MILF Island," their first back after the strike, and I want very much to share them with you. These two jokes are perfect examples why it pays to have women comedy writers in the room. There are just some jokes men might never come up with.

AWESOME JOKE 1
Jack wants Liz to work on a spinoff show for a contestant on the uber-ridiculous reality show "MILF Island." Liz refuses, arguing that she can't pander to the "lowest common denominator." Jack counters with the valid point that Shakespeare wrote for the lowest common denominator, and Liz shoots back, "Shakespeare never had a Confessional Shower sponsored by Dove Pro Age." It's product placement, but the joke works because that is EXACTLY who would sponsor a shower confessional on a reality show starring hot middle-aged moms.

AWESOME JOKE 2
Liz was quoted in the gossip column dissing Jack, and she's trying to keep him from finding out that she was the source. Tracy busts in the room with a New York Post, yelling about how Liz is in the paper. Turns out it isn't her quote Tracy means--he points to a "Cathy" comic, in which Cathy is predictably yelling about chocolate and sporting the trademark pyramid hair frizz. That could be the punch line (har har, Liz likes chocolate like Cathy), but the generous souls at 30 ROCK threw in a SCRUBS-style topper for free: cut to a shot of an exasperated Liz at a bakery, sporting a Cathy haircut, arms in the air and purse over one shoulder, yelling "Chocolate! Chocolate!! Chocolate!!! ACK!" a la Cathy. Beautiful, especially because though well-intentioned, the "Cathy" comic strip is generally understood to represent everything terrible about "female comedy." Watching Tina Fey's team tear down the old guard--or at least poke some holes in it--after twenty-odd years of stand-up about PMS and wrinkles and chocolate cravings is so, so satisfying.

Welcome back, NBC Thursdays!

The Peepes, the Peepes are Calling

Brandi proposed, and I heartily agreed to, concurrent blog posts on a Muppets skit. Watch it before reading either her post or mine. Have you seen it? Excellent. Let’s begin.

Like the miracle child of Oscar Wilde and Janeane Garofalo would be, this skit is predisposed to be funny. The Henson camp made three main choices to set it up: one, “O, Danny Boy” is one of those traditional songs that everyone knows, but no one actually knows the words to. Two, they picked three of the least intelligible Muppets to do the singing; and three, despite the fact that the odds are very much stacked against them, Beaker, Animal, and the Swedish Chef are earnestly invested in performing this song as well as they can. As far as they are concerned, they are musicians of the highest caliber, drawing on the raw, mournful emotional well that “O, Danny Boy” is built upon. They are the conduits between us and the glorious weeping national identity of the Irish, and they commit themselves to it completely.

It is the commitment that wraps up the sketch in a bow for us: though the details and flourishes like Beaker’s high notes and Animal’s “O-boy-o-boy” refrain are hilarious, the whole package works because of the characters' motivations.

Bless the Muppet Show, and happy belated St. Patrick’s Day.

Fatal Hilarity

This week in "The Stranger," the column Dear Science tackles the subject of why laughter makes you weak. Cataplexy, or the "sudden physical collapse caused by experiencing strong emotions or laughter," is only fully present in subjects when they are truly laughing--not just exhaling or fake laughing.

Besides teaching me a new word, the column reminded me of the Monty Python "killer joke" sketch.* Michael Palin plays an early twentieth century joke-writer, who comes up with a joke so funny that it kills him. It then kills a handful of other people ("No one could read it...and live"), until the British translate it (one person doing one word at a time, of course) and use it as a weapon against the Germans, to great success. The joke itself is gibberish, of course, but that's what makes the concept so funny.

Turns out the idea of "fatal hilarity" has been around a while. Generally, it involves death by asphyxiation or some kind of cardiac arrest, which makes sense because laughter both elevates the heart rate and expands and contracts the thoracic diaphragm. For instance, the Greek stoic philosopher Chrysippus died of laughter in the 3rd century B.C., after giving his donkey wine and attempting to feed it figs...purportedly, anyway. It all seems very mythological, but think back to the last time you laughed so hard you could barely breathe. Creepy, right?

* This is the longer version from the episode "Whither Canada" on "Flying Circus," not the shorter version from the movie "And Now For Something Completely Different." The longer one is funnier but the shorter one is more beautiful (strangely enough).

New York Times Thing Two: on Screwball Comedies and Shoe Phones

Reading the Times article mentioned in the previous post, I started to feel a little overwhelmed. So many comedies coming out, how would I handle it? For any normal person, it will be a very full summer of new releases. But I, inexplicably, almost never see movies in the theater, so I'll be impressed with myself if I manage to do one a month. It isn't that I dislike seeing movies in the theater, it's just that it rarely occurs to me as a thing to do. And seeing as I've already promised my heart to one movie during the spring-summer season, I really will have to make an effort. But there are several movies that I think will be worth putting on my calendar.

One is the season kickoff movie (pun very much intended) "Leatherheads," directed by your friend and mine George Clooney. It is described in the New York Times article as "a screwball comedy about the early days of professional football." Ah, there's nothing that makes my heart sing like the term "screwball." Except perhaps the term "madcap." Clooney plays Dodge Connolly, a football star (a football player named "Dodge?" this is so promising) whose team loses their sponsor as the league faces collapse. Connolly brings college football star Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski, praise the lord) onto the team, who also happens to be America's Favorite Hero after single-handedly forcing many German soldiers to surrender in WWI. He seems too good to be true, and reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellwegger) starts poking around. In the meantime, she manages to get both Connolly and Rutherford to fall in love with her, and madcap antics ensue, I'm sure. Clooney is always such a joy to watch, I can't imagine "Leatherheads" being any less than clever and entertaining.

The other comedy I'm excited for this summer is "Get Smart." Not just because Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway are awesome, or because the poster is subtly funny (and subtle is not the usual kind of funny you see on posters), but because "Get Smart" is one of the first non-contemporary shows I can remember watching as a kid. Nick at Nite (with FX, back in that summer before 8th grade when all they played were old superhero shows) is largely responsible for my embarrassingly expansive knowledge of sitcoms from the Kennedy to the Carter administrations, and I'm always excited when it becomes obvious that other people in the world love the things I love. Which reminds me...won't one of my friends please start loving the new "Doctor Who" as much as I do?

Anyway, I loved the show "Bewitched," and subsequently did not love the movie "Bewitched." But I am an eternal optimist, and after all, "Get Smart" will lend itself much better to a film format than "Bewitched." TV's "Bewitched" worked in the same way "I Dream of Jeannie" did. The wacky magical blondes would discover or accidentally create a problem, do their best to fix it, inevitably bungle it, and - whew! - somehow put everything back together before Gladys Kravitz or Dr. Bellows could figure out what happened...packaged perfectly in serial format. Of course, "Get Smart" featured Maxwell getting into and out of scrapes in less than 30 minutes, too. But a secret spy agency (CONTROL) versus an ambiguously evil group (KAOS)*, with bumbling agents on each side? That practically begs to be feature-length.**

I should also mention that I'm also looking forward to Tina Fey's "Baby Mama," but because I trust that she and Amy Poehler will make something very funny, not because the previews have bowled me over. I thought "Mean Girls" was great, and those previews weren't great either. So I have a lot of hope. All in all, it's shaping up to be a fun summer.

*Those don't stand for anything, as far as I know. It's just Mel Brooks and his friends being funny.
**To be fair, in 1989 (19 years after the series ended), the creatively titled movie "Get Smart, Again!" came out, with the original stars Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. But I haven't seen it, and probably won't.

"But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG! ! ! ! !"

Mark Twain is a pretty solid resource for funny. "Mark twain" was, history and the Internet tell us, a Mississippi River term: the second mark on the line that measured depth signified two fathoms—safe depth for the steamboat. So even his nom de plume was a play on words.

Among his many works of genius, one of my favorites is 1897's "How to Tell a Story." Here's an excerpt:

There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind—the humorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.

The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the comic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along, the others burst.

The humorous story is strictly a work of art—high and delicate art—and only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic and the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous story—understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print—was created in America, and has remained at home.

The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it; but the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he has ever heard, then tells it with eager delight, and is the first person to laugh when he gets through. And sometimes, if he has had good success, he is so glad and happy that he will repeat the "nub" of it and glance around from face to face, collecting applause, and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to see.

...

But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you—every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life.

Let me set down an instance of the comic method, using an anecdote which has been popular all over the world for twelve or fifteen hundred years. The teller tells it in this way:

The Wounded Soldier

In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had been shot off appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the rear, informing him at the same time of the loss which he had sustained; whereupon the generous son of Mars, shouldering the unfortunate, proceeded to carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls were flying in all directions, and presently one of the latter took the wounded man's head off—without, however, his deliverer being aware of it. In no-long time he was hailed by an officer, who said:

"Where are you going with that carcass?"

"To the rear, sir—he's lost his leg!"

"His leg, forsooth?" responded the astonished officer; "you mean his head, you booby."

Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:

"It is true, sir, just as you have said." Then after a pause he added, "But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG! ! ! ! !"

* * * * *

Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gaspings and shriekings and suffocatings.

As far as I'm concerned, all still true today. Even the sweeping generalizations about national humor have a basis in truth. To update his argument, I can think of several modern comparisons to Twain's point. For instance, "How I Met Your Mother" with its multi-episode, elaborately structured jokes versus "Two and a Half Men" and gags about how whoa, Charlie sure does like to have sex with the ladies. Or Ellen Degeneres stand-up versus post-1995 Robin Williams (particularly his appearances on talk shows, when it seems someone dropped a quarter in him and he got stuck). Or Conan O'Brien's monologues versus Jay Leno's.

There is much more where "How to Tell a Story" came from. I suggest you check it out here; it will only take you a couple minutes. Don't have time? Enjoy these gems:

"To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct."

"...he would say eagerly, excitedly, 'I once knew a man in New Zealand who hadn't a tooth in his head'—here his animation would die out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he would say dreamily, and as if to himself, 'and yet that man could beat a drum better than any man I ever saw.'"