Two Ways Cartoons Deliver Humor

One way to explore erotic humor is to check out cartoons online. What are the topics? How is the humor communicated?

In perusing a few such cartoons recently, I came up with quite a list of topics, including erectile dysfunction and infidelity.

Many of the cartoons communicate their humor in one of two ways: by starting with a comment or question that “sets up” a humorous response and ending with the humorous response, or punchline, itself. In one such cartoon, an older couple, apparently a husband and wife who've been married a number of years, sitting up in bed is discussing a problem:

Husband (Setup)	Wife (Punchline)
“Do you think the doctor could give me some pills to improve my sex urge?”	“No, lad; he can only heal the sick, not raise the dead.”

Bamforth & Co.

This cartoon provides a setting (the bedroom, at night); characters (husband and wife), a situation, implicit or directly stated (erectile dysfunction), and dialogue (speech bubbles in the cartoon designate the speech of both the husband and his wife).

In other cartoons, an image creates a context for which a caption, often representing the dialogue of one of the featured characters, provides a commentary or an explanation:

Image (Setup)	Caption (Punchline)
Two coed students, seated on a bench on campus, discuss another coed passing by, a male student ogling her.	“She was on the dean's list until the dean's wife heard about it.”

Playboy

 

As in the example, above, the humor is often derived from pun or other form of wordplay: “dean's list” referring, simultaneously, to an academic honor and to an actual list of names, a “black book,” kept by the dean.

The image provides the setting (a university campus), characters (the coed students and the male student), a situation (the student is on the dean's list), and a suggestion of dialogue (one coed is addressing another coed); dialogue is spoken only by one, not two characters, and it is represented outside the cartoon.

Structuring Humor

Copyright by Gary L. Pullman 2019

Humor—good humor, that is—is difficult in itself. Structuring humor can be an added challenge. That's why the aspiring humorist should analyze the work of professionals, such as Bill O'Reilly, author of Old School: Life in the sane Lane, and his co-author, Brice Feirstein. It seems safe to say that many would recognize O'Reilly's name as that of the host of The O'Reilly Factor, late of Fox News, but O'Reilly has also written a number of bestselling books. Feirstein, although less known to the public in general, is also a professional writer. As a screenwriter, he wrote the James Bond scripts for GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World Is Not Enough, as well as many articles for such national periodicals as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Feirstein is also the author of Real Men Don't Eat Quiche and is a long-term contributing editor for Vanity Fair. Both O'Reilly and Feirstein have a keen sense of humor, as is evident in much of their work, including Old School.

So how did the authors structure their humor?

Old School starts with an introduction, “Greetings from 1973,” in which O'Reilly, using the metaphor of taking a ride in an automobile, promises to share the career path that led him into journalism after his interest in the subject was inspired by his teaching English and history at Pace High School in Opa-locka, Florida, “the crack capital of Dade County” during 1973, “a year when the U.S. government was falling apart.” He introduces the theme of the book by recounting the fact that, on the actual drive he took from Florida to Massachusetts, where he's been accepted as a student at Boston University, in the school's “broadcast journalism master's degree program,” which he undertook without benefit of an air conditioner, he advises people who complain about “their personal temperature” to “Stop,” adding the observation, “Life is not climate-controlled, people. Accept it. Don't be a Snowflake, a condition we will soon describe.”

Snowflakes, in fact, will become the target of O'Reilly's and Feirstein's humor, their adversaries who have been educated according to a curriculum far different than that of the Old School of which Old School's authors are alumni. Of course, humor often depends on targets or adversaries of one sort or another. Although humorists may be self-deprecating, the humorous opportunities offered by even the biggest ego is limited; a whole group of people, such as Snowflakes, offers many more targets for a pair of humorists.

In the first chapter of the book, “Preschool: Take Your Seat,” O'Reilly offers an anecdote about his father, Bill O'Reilly, Sr., who never let fashion get in the way of saving money. His father was happy to wear polyester, “mustard-yellow pants held up by red suspenders” that were too short for his 6'3” height. The dialogue between father and son is lively because of its allusions to history (the Great depression), fashion, an eye condition, and a disco band and the conflict between the generations that the respective speakers' points of view represents:

      “Dad, your pants are too short.”

      “Who are you, Oleg Cassini now?”

      “And what color is that?”

      “They're yellow. Do you have astigmatism?”

      “Come on, Dad, this is not a good presentation. You don't leave the house wearing those things, do you?”

      My father paused, giving me a look. He knew I was jazzing him, but his sense of humor overrode any offense.

      “Don't remember you checking out my wardrobe when I was paying for your college.”

      “Yeah, but you didn't look like one of the Village People back then.”

      My father actually laughed and walked into the kitchen. He wore those pants for years (1-2).

To the Old School attitude and behavior O'Reilly suggests by this anecdote, he and Feirstein will juxtapose those of their targets, the Snowflakes:

Now there is an ongoing battle between traditional Americans and those who want a kinder, gentler landscape full of “conversations” and group hugs, folks who believe that life must be fair and that, if it is not, there has to be a “safe space” available where they can cry things out (2).

O'Reilly next introduces his co-author, explaining how he and Feirstein met at Boston University; they're both “Old School,” O'Reilly explains, but they take different approaches to communicating with others who have opinions different than their own: “While I embrace an East Coast swagger, Feirstein does not immediately alienate half the universe as I have a tendency to do, but we're both Old School guys, as you will soon see. However, we take different buses to the school, which makes things interesting” (3).

Next, to further illustrate Old School teaching, O'Reilly lists examples of hypothetical situations in which he, his parents, or others might have been involved and his schoolmates and neighbors' reactions to his and his parents' behavior. A few illustrate the approach:

          If my mom had defended me after a kid-on-kid altercation, I could never have left the house again.

         If my dad had yelled at the Little League coach, air might have left the tires of our family car.

         If I'd borrowed money from another kid to buy a Three Musketeers and didn't pay it back, no one would have played with me.

         If a kid kicked someone in a fight, he was blacklisted. Only fists, and no hitting when someone was down.

    If a girl curse, silence ensued. For a long time. And boys never bothered girls because of the “Brother and His Large Friends” rule (4).

He sets up the next chapter with two short paragraphs at the end of chapter one:

       It is not Old School to live in the past, but remembering how things were as opposed to how things are now is a required course.

         So let's get started.

The title of the book's second chapter explains its mission: “Introducing the old School Curriculum.” A multiple-choice test quizzes readers on their actions and practices: “Do you still have a landline telephone?” “Do you still balance your checking account every month?” “If someone wishes you a 'Merry Christmas,' what's your immediate response?” “Which best reflects your view on dealing with terrorists?” What would you do “if you happen upon a raging warehouse fire late at night”? Then, the authors explain how members of the Old School conduct themselves in various situations, contrasting their behavior with that of Snowflakes. They suggest such individuals as Al Gore and Rosie O'Donnell are apt to be snowflakes, whereas Jack Nicholson, like Teddy Roosevelt, could be Old School.

Essentially, then, the introduction and the first two chapters of Old School introduce its topic, separate people into two groups, members of the Old School and Snowflakes, and suggests that Old School is easier exemplified than defined.

Chapter 3, “Old School Is in Session,” presents biographical sketches of four well-known members of the Old School: John Wayne, Billy Joel, Tina Turner, and Chris Kyle. We'll consider chapter 3 (and others) in future posts, coming soon to a computer near you.

How To Write Hilarious Humor: An Analysis of Professional Comedians' (and Comediennes') Techniques to Tickle the Funny Bone

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Chapter 5: Juvenalian Satire

Another arrow in the humorist’s quiver is Juvenalian satire. Such satire is mild, as opposed to harsh or bitter Horatian satire. Historically, Juvenalian satire’s intent was corrective, aiming at diagnosing an annoying or offensive defect in the personality or an annoying habit that, once brought to the offender’s attention, might be fairly easily remedied, as by repressing the annoying personality trait or suppressing the offensive conduct. On the other hand, Horatian satire’s purpose was to identify obnoxious characteristics or behavior that required more serious or prolonged attention, such as social ostracism.

In “Go Ahead, Open This Bag,” using the Juvenalian approach, Radner exposes her father’s--or a caricature of her father’s--vanity concerning his manliness. Despite--or, perhaps, because of--his age, the narrator’s father, a “seventy-eight-year-old man,” is loathe to ask for assistance from either younger individuals or members of the opposite sex, especially in the performing of so simple a task as opening a bag of peanuts that flight attendants have distributed to the passengers aboard an airplane trip from Miami to Las Vegas.

Until now, Radner has presented her chapters’ set-up situations in short expository paragraphs. In this chapter, she introduces the setup through a series of humorous exchanges of dialogue between father and daughter. The father has flown from his hometown to visit the narrator, and after exchanging “the two-minute father-daughter hug” they’ve “perfected through the years,” the narrator asks her father what he means by his cryptic greeting, “I thought I could do it. Turned out I was mistaken.” Her question sets up the exchange of dialogue in which the reader sees the father’s pride concerning his manliness, which has remained intact despite his advanced age. It is this pride, or vanity, that is subjected to the mild attack of Juvenalian satire throughout the remainder of the chapter.

Unable to open the bag of peanuts the flight attendant has provided, he first blames the bag, rather than himself, for his inability to open the package, suggesting that the bag might have been somehow defective:

“Didn’t the bag have a perforation on one side? Usually, if you look carefully, there’s a perforation."

“I checked. There was no perforation. Possibly, it was a defective bag. I don’t know, I didn’t check other people’s.”

When his daughter asks, “Why didn’t you ask for help?,” the father’s vanity surfaces through his responses:

“I’m a seventy-eight-year-old, two-hundred-pound man. What do you want me to say to the thirty-two-year-old, one-hundred-and-fifteen pound female flight attendant? ‘Will you open this bag of peanuts for me?’ Why don’t I just put on a dress and be done with it?”

“How about the person sitting next to you?”

“I wish you hadn’t asked. She was an eighty-year-old ninety-pounder.”

“And she opened the bag with no problems?”

“She struggled. She finally stabbed it with a fork over Denver.”

The reference to “Denver” is a non-sequitur; the context in which it appears--the stabbing of a bag, as if it were a murder victim who is wounded during a struggle--is both surprising and ridiculous, earning a laugh from the reader.

The next exchange of dialogue further reveals the father’s pride--and his wounded dignity:

“Why didn’t you stab it once you saw there was a way in?”

“Because I shouldn’t have to. I’ve raised a daughter, I’ve been a lawyer. Last year, when the last full-service island closed downtown, I even learned how to pump my own gas. I should be able to open a bag of nuts.”

It is absurd for a man of such accomplishments--a father, a lawyer, and a man who has managed to adapt to changes in technology--to feel that his manhood and his dignity are threatened by his difficulty in performing such a mundane task as opening a bag of peanuts, but, of course, many times, people’s sense of self-worth is threatened by just such ludicrous situations, so, once again, Radner taps a universal experience among her readers, the humorous way in which she depicts a fictionalized version of such an experience lessening the embarrassment and the humiliation that such situations may have caused them by deflecting it onto a surrogate, or stand-in, for them, by showing them how ridiculous both the situation itself and the father’s reactions to it are.

Conclusion

In this chapter, Radner has, once again, selected an everyday situation--an airplane flight--and familiar psychological and social states of affairs--a man’s anxiety about the effects of aging upon his masculinity and his sense of dignity as a man and his refusal to accept the help of others--to set up her comedy. In the process, using mild Juvenalian satire, she criticizes the foolishness of the behavior (the father’s refusal to seek or accept the assistance of others) that results from these anxieties. Her techniques also include humorous dialogue, through which she discloses the story’s conflict while characterizing both her narrator and her narrator’s father; comedic repetition through which a series of jokes are included, all concerning the same topic and situation; and personification that comprises a logical non-sequitur(the bag is characterized as if it is a person).