Congress Moves to Repeal Presidents Day

copyright 2015 by Gary Pullman

Note: News parodies have become popular in recent years, as the Internet has allowed any and all to try their hands at the type of satire that, in the past, only a few, such as Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and Art Buchwald could inflict upon the public. While not claiming for myself a place among such august company, I thought I'd give the genre a try myself, with this parody piece. After all, not all essays about serious matters have to be serious in tone.

If the U. S. Congress has its way, this year's Presidents Day may have been America's last.

“Maybe George Washington and Abraham Lincoln deserve a holiday in their honor, but more recent presidents sure as hell don't,” Senator Nanny Pelosi bitched.

“I couldn't agree more,” her colleague, Senate minority leader Hairy Reed groused.

This is one issue, it appears, that has bilateral support.

“Like the good senators from Californicate and Nirvana, I'm all for doing away with Presidents Day,” Speaker of the House John Boner complained.

“Me, too,” Senate majority leader Bitch McConner pouted. “Let's scrub it.”

The disgruntled Congressmen (and woman) listed a long string of presidential “abuses,” including Dick Nixon's lying about the Watergate break-in, Bill Clinton's soiling of Monica (“The Mouth”) Lewinsky's blue dress (and the Oval Orifice) with his presidential spermatozoa, and Barack Obummer's “countless half-truths and complete falsehoods” over the past seven years, which, to both Boner and McConner “seem like seventeen—or seventy,” Boner whined.


Obummer, Senator John McCane charged, should be denied the holiday on his mispronunciation, as commander in chief, of “corps,” which Obummer pronounced as “corpse-men.” The mispronunciation, in McCane's view, was “not accidental” and “suggested the president's disdain for American military personnel.”


Many of the nation's other chief executives' actions have brought disgrace on the country they serviced, the Congressmen (and woman) claim.


Presidents Day was originally Washington's Birthday, Pelosi pointed out, but the name of the holiday was changed, to steal the first president's thunder, when Presidents Day was made a federal holiday so that “all presidents would be honored, whether they deserved it or not,” Boner explained.


Before and since the hijacking of Washington's Birthday, presidential misconduct has embarrassed and humiliated the American people multiple times:

• Ulysses S. Grant's tenure as president was rife with the Black Friday scandal, corruption in the Department of the Interior, and the Whiskey Ring.
  
• In addition to his involvement in numerous extramarital affairs, Warren G. Harding gave his countrymen the Teapot Some Scandal, among others.
  
• The Pentagon Papers proved that LBJ and JFK “systematically lied” to the American people as they secretly escalated the Vietnam War by illegally bombing Laos and Cambodia.
  
• Under Clinton, in the Filegate Scandal, the FBI provided secret dossiers on Republicans against whom administrative officials sought political advantages.
  
• During W's administration, hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars were forked over to private right-wing media to promote the president's unpopular policies. W also eroded individual liberty by signing the so-called Patriot Act, which, among other tings, has resulted in airport strip searched of American travelers, including infants and elderly, wheelchair-bound men and women.
  

One of the most-scandal-ridden administrations in the nation's history, however, is that of the current president, Barack Insane Obummer, who is associated with, among many others:

• The Veterans Administration scandal, the Benghazi fiasco, numerous lies concerning the Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obummercare)
  
• The ATF Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal
  
• The Terrence Flynn scandal
  
• The all-expenses-taxpayer-paid Government Services Administration's four-day gambling spree in Las Vegas
  
• The IRS' illegal investigations of conservative political groups
  
• The Justice Department's unauthorized collection of Associated Press phone records and persecution of Fox News reporter James Rosen
  
• Attorney General Eric Holder's contempt of Congress charges
  
• The Pigford Scandal
  
• The Veterans Affairs two all-expenses-taxpayer-paid trips to Disney World
  
• Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sibelius' violation of the Hatch Act
  
• The government-funding of the private company Solyndra (which later went bankrupt, costing taxpayers millions of dollars)
  
• Environmental Protection Agency official Lisa Jackson posing as “Richard Windsor” in writing secret emails
  
• Failing to prosecute the New Black Panthers for intimidating white voters during the 2008 presidential election
  
• Attacking Libya without Congressional approval
  
• Making questionable end-runs around Congress on many occasions.
  

“I'm half blind,” Reed said, “but it's clear, even to me, that presidents don't deserve to be honored by a special holiday.”

Reed has joined his colleagues in support of a bill to eliminate Presidents Day and to replace it with Congress Day, “ a day,” Pelosi says, “that will live in infamy.”

How to Write a Parody the "Mad" Magazine Way

copyright 2014 by Gary L. Pullman

The way that Mad magazine develops a parody is to use a set of conventions that is common to all their satires of motion pictures, television series, and programs associated with similar audiovisual media. Each of these conventions include the absurd, so that object of the parody is ridiculed at every opportunity and in a variety of ways. In the process, through text and imagery, the parody makes frequent allusions to other television shows or artifacts of popular culture, which, ironically, has the paradoxical effect of grounding the parodied program in reality while, at the same time, emphasizing its fictional nature. Finally, the parody also often purposely confuses the lives of the fictional characters with those of the actors who portray them, further maintaining, while simultaneously differentiating, fact and fiction.

The parody begins with an introduction to the program that is being parodied. This introduction typically identifies the program's basic theme, or concept, and relates it to an ostensible purpose that is implied by the effect that the program has had on its medium, audience, or some other objective element. Often, the program's basic storyline is ridiculed, and the main actor—or the character whom he or she plays—is misrepresented in some manner—for example, his or her intentions may be misstated. These conventions are discernible in the following introduction to the magazine's parody of Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series:

Every generation there is a Chosen One [concept]. A girl with three names whose destiny it is to revive a notorious box-office flop as a successful TV series [ostensible purpose]. For seven years she has rescued her supporting cast from melodramatic perils and lame plot twists [basic storyline]. But, now, in their time of greatest need, she will abandon them to pursue a feature film career of nauseating romantic comedies and abhorrent big-budget sequels [misrepresentation of main character's intent]. This girl is. . .

Using absurd surrogate names, the characters, lined up vertically, one after another, as if standing in a police line-up, then introduce themselves, speaking directly to the reader, as if each were soliloquizing before a camera; typically, their address identifies ironies or absurdities in their characters, their roles, or the series' conventions.

I'm Busty Bummers, and even though I'm 35, I'm still in my first year of college. I suffer from a rare aging disorder called “90210 syndrome!” [Buffy Summer's introduction pokes fun at the incongruity of a woman playing a character who is over twenty years younger than she, a convention common to television shows that feature supposedly teenage or young adult characters, such as 90210.]

I'm Pillow. I used to be a mousy computer nerd, but now I'm a mousy witch. [This quip ridicules the stereotypical nature of Willow Rosenberg as “mousy” and suggests that the show's assignment of a new persona to her, that of witch, has not made the character any less stereotypical: she remains as “mousy” as ever.]

I'm Busty's little sister YAWN. I get blamed for this show jumping the shark. But it's not my FAULT! Give me my own SPIN-OFF and I'll prove I'm a GREAT character! [This introduction includes fan criticism of the Dawn Summers character's ruination of the series—many fans considered her character not only unnecessary and unrealistic, even in a fantasy series, but supremely annoying as well; the introduction also alludes to the Buffy spinoff Angel, starring David Boreanaz. The words in capital letters imitate the character's tendency to whine.]

I'm Xanadu and I used to be the comic relief. Now I just sit around and get fatter every episode. [The character, Xander Harris, did provide much of the show's “comic relief” before writers sidelined him much of the time, as the show took on a darker tone, and the actor, Nicholas Brendon, who played him did gain some weight, a fact that the parody also addresses, suggesting that the character's relative idleness and the actor's weight gain are related to one another, the former causing the latter. The parody's rechristening of Xander as "Xanadu" incorporates an allusion to the fantastic world of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan," thus juxtaposing the popular culture of the television series to the classic culture of which Coleridge's poetry is part, which has the effect of further highlighting the absurdity of the television show.]

I'm Spoke—I'm an edgy vampire [again, a cliché is savaged] who has a love/hate relationship with BUSTY [a trite, melodramatic situation, involving a May-December, Romeo-and-Juliet relationship, is ridiculed]. After this show ends, at least I have a future in Vegas as a BILLY IDOL impersonator! [The character of Spike is modeled, in physical appearance, on the singer whom “Spoke” references. Las Vegas has been called the place where performers go to earn a living after their careers have died—an implicit allusion that is particularly apt for one of the living dead.]

I'm Busty's Watcher, Gello. In the time I've been WATCHING her, Busty has shrunk from a size 4 to buying all her clothes at Kids “R” Us! Now she makes ALLY MCBEAL look fat! [This statement alludes to Sarah Michelle Gellar's noticeable weight loss during the series' seven-year tenure—and to another televisions series that stars an all-but-anorexic actress, Calista Flockhart.]

Usually, amusing images are included in this panel, as if they were props or the actions of character actors who were included among the regular cast to provide comic relief. For example, both Busty and Yawn hold wooden stakes, and Pillow, who becomes a lesbian as well as a witch, has her hand around Buffy's waist. In the background, a cemetery headstone, complete with cross, is visible between Busty's legs. Xanadu, as much a nerd as Pillow, wears a Star Trek T-shirt. As he speaks of his love affair with Busty, Spoke makes the sign for “I love you.” Gello holds the thick volume that the actual series has associated with vampire lore, as a vampire, holding a Martha Stewart Cooking book, sprinkles salt on his shoulder, seasoning him to taste.

Following the opening panel, which runs across the top of both pages of the two-page spread, a series of smaller panels continues to poke fun at the program that is being parodied, often by capitalizing upon the conventions that the parody has made explicit.

For example, Busty, with wooden stakes strapped along the side of the suitcase she grips, is pursued by Gello, as, in the background, a terrified young woman flees from a bat that chases her. “Busty,” Gello calls, “where are you going? We need you!” [Obviously, to survive, a television series needs its protagonist.] “Forget it, Gello,” Busty replied. “I've been poking VAMPIRES with STAKES for seven years, and I'm SICK of it. I'm ready to stretch as an actress.” [the “poking” of “VAMPIRES with STAKES” alludes to Buffy's rather promiscuous sexual liaisons with the undead, including both Angel and Spike, or “Spoke.” Allegedly, the show's creator, Joss Whedon, and the other actors wanted to produce the series for one more season, but Gellar insisted upon leaving, saying she was tired of the series and wanted to try other roles in motion pictures, so her explanation, although appropriate to the fictional situation that the parody has created, once again, echoes reality, a characteristic of any parody.] Gello asks, “So, where are you going?” His question, a transition, sets up her ironic response, “I'm going to do SCOOBY DOO 2, so I can hurt MONSTERS with TORCHES.” [The change of roles, the parody, suggests will not “stretch” Gellar's acting ability in any way, because it is essentially the same sort of role as that which she has played, as Buffy, or “Busty,” for the past seven years.]

Gello's plea to Busty, in the next panel, uses absurdity to exemplify what he calls “reason,” an ironic parallel that is possible only in the fantastic (and absurd) world of the series that the Mad strip parodies: “Please listen to reason! This town is a gateway to HELL known as the SMELLMOUTH! Whatever shall we do if you LEAVE us?” Busty's reply, while not particularly amusing, reinforces the absurdity of the series' concept: “Oh, Gello, if you want to shut that stinking SMELLMOUTH, just call a PLUMBER! Or a good DENTIST!”

In the next panel, a vampire rides piggyback aboard a victim while Xanadu, having unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a flabby, hairy chest and belly, seeks a romantic encounter with his one-time fiancee, Anya Jenkins (“Anyawn,” in the parody. Like Buffy and Willow, Xander also availed himself of several sexual partners during the show's seven seasons, a plot device that was itself both stereotypical of youth and melodramatic in terms of drama. “Hey, Anyawn, I know we broke up last season and all, but whenever things look grim, I like to sneak off and make out. Whadda ya say?” Anyawn, aghast, exclaims, “Ugh! Sorry, Xanadu, but it looks like you put on FIVE POUNDS for every ONE that Busty's lost! Now, for God's sake, button your shirt!” Again, the parody addresses (and reinforces) an element—Brendon's weight gain—in the introductory panel; in the process, it alludes to the melodramatic episode in which Xander abandons Anya at the altar on the day of their intended marriage.

Busty addresses Yawn, advising her that, “As my long-lost little SISTER, you may be required to carry out my LEGACY!” One of the points of frustration among the show's viewers was the abrupt appearance, after three seasons, of Dawn, as Buffy's sister, a “lame plot twist” that was too much for them, even in a series as melodramatic as Buffy. Alluding not to the television show itself, but to Gellar's actual personal life, Yawn asks, “Does that mean I'll have to marry a bad actor [Freddie Prinze, Jr.], drop down to 80 pounds [a reference to Gellar's dramatic weight loss, to which Gello has already alluded], and such movies as Scooby Doobie Doo 2, Simply Irresistible, and The Grudge, Grudge 2, The Return, and Southland Tales, to name but a few such stinkers. “All that,” Busty agrees, “and SHAMPOO COMMERCIALS, too!” [Gellar “starred” in commercials not for shampoo, but for Mabelline cosmetics.] Obviously, Yawn fears fulfilling such a prophecy; she does not want to follow in her “sister's” career footsteps.

Next, a histrionic Busty, holding her hand above her head and waving it in a circle as she addresses Pillow and Gello, states, “And I suppose Pillow is off somewhere performing a spell to keep me from leaving the show.”

The last panel identifies another complaint, among both the series' viewers and critics (the addition of the lesbian subplot involving Willow, or “Pillow”) and pokes fun at another series, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and at a role that the actor Alyson Hannigan, who plays Willow, undertakes, as “band geek,” Michelle Flaherty, in the film American Pie 2, which includes faux lesbian activity similar to the gratuitous lesbianism in Buffy. Busty, a silhouette standing in the open doorway to Pillow's bedroom, where the witch lies with her girlfriend, declares, “You know, that whole plot” (or “lame plot twist,” of which the parody's introduction warns readers is typical of the Buffy series) “about you turning gay is a desperate bid for ratings!” As she cuddles with her lover, Pillow replies, “And it worked! Now I'll cast a new spell to get SABRINA THE TEEN-AGE WITCH to make out with me!” Pillow then begins to cast her spell, the wording of the incantation suggesting the absurdity of the spells that Willow frequently casts on Buffy while alluding to Hannigan's role in American Pie 2: “Incartus Fake-latinus Make-outus One Time At Band Camp.”

By definition, a parody is an imitation of a work, the purpose of which is to mock the original by trivializing its content, tone, style, and other attributes. Therefore, a parody identifies the elements of a work that seem to be absurd, and, often by exaggeration, underscore the absurdity of these elements. The first task, then, that a parodist has is to identify the absurd elements in the work that is to be parodied. In the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Mad parody focuses upon the series' fantastic concept, its “lame plot twists,” its melodramatic situations, its stereotypical characters, the ironic parallels between the fictional lives of the characters and the actual lives of the actors who portray them, the affinities between Buffy and other teen or young adult television series, and the reliance of sexual subplots, both covert and overt, heterosexual and homosexual alike, of the show to maintain its appeal among teen and young adult viewers. The appearance of the characters, as drawn by the Mad artists, are, as caricatures of the actors who portray these characters, itself parodic and complements, at times underscores, the text's verbal assaults upon the spoofed show's absurd excesses. The comic strip is, as Mad demonstrates, repeatedly in this and other parodies of movies and television series, particularly well-suited, as a linguistic-visual medium, for lampooning popular art forms.

The Television Situation Comedy, or TV Sitcom

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

A situation comedy (or “sitcom”) involves a continuous cast of regular, recurring, and unique stereotypical characters in comedy that arises from a shared environment, from a specific set of circumstances, or from a particular situation that results in predictable behavior and rapidly resolved conflict. For example, The Andy Griffith Show portrays the life of small-town sheriff Andy Taylor as he interacts with his family, Aunt Bee and Opie, his deputy Barney Fife, and his friends, neighbors, and fellow townspeople.

Regular characters are those which occur in almost every episode of a sitcom series. Such characters include the protagonist, or main character, and the supporting characters with whom he or she routinely interacts, such as a spouse, a child or children, servants, friends, neighbors, coworkers, or roommates.
Often, a regular character is a foil to the protagonist, highlighting the main character’s personality traits by exhibiting traits that are opposite to the protagonist’s qualities. Often, when a foil is part of the regular cast, the sitcom will be filmed in a single location, in a relatively small space, such as an apartment, that the foil shares with the protagonist. Andy Taylor, the sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina, is the protagonist of The Andy Griffith Show. As such, he is one of the show’s regular characters. Other regular characters include his Aunt Bee, his son Opie, and his deputy Barney Fife.

Recurring characters are supporting characters who interact less frequently with the protagonist or one of the other regular characters than do regular characters; recurring characters may include visitors, government officials or representatives, customers, out-of-town or distant relatives, or supervisors. Some of the recurring characters on The Andy Griffith Show are schoolteacher Helen Crump, Andy’s girlfriend; Thelma Lou, Barney’s girlfriend; barber Floyd Lawson; mechanic Gomer (and, later, his cousin Goober) Pyle; fix-it man Emmett Clark; city clerk Howard Sprague; Aunt Bee’s friend, Clara Edwards; and Mayor Pike.

Unique characters appear only once in a single episode of a sitcom series. The character who is portrayed by a guest star (a actor of some renown) is a special type of unique character. Such a character appears in an episode because the celebrity who plays this character has charisma or glamour that adds interest to the sitcom. A guest star’s appearance may coincide with “sweeps weak” or may occur during a decline in the show’s ratings, to increase the show’s audience. Other unique characters usually appear for a specific purpose, such as to fulfill the need of a particular plot.

Regardless of whether a character is a regular, a recurring, or a unique character, he or she is usually a flat character and a stereotype whose behavior is predictable. A flat character is one that is made up of only a few personality traits are present in most sitcom characters, and these traits can be identified by a short list of adjectives. Barney is a flat character, whose fictitious personality is summed up by such adjectives as “vain,” “sensitive,” “self-important,” “inept,” and “braggadocios.” A stereotypical character is one that fits preconceived ideas about the class of individuals of which he or she is a representative. The sitcom character also usually behaves as viewers imagine such a type of character would behave--that is, according to type. A rustic character is apt to be simple, unaffected, and gullible; an urban character, urbane, pretentiousness, and cynical. Therefore, such characters’ behaviors would be predictable. The simple rustic is likely to misjudge situations or people, underestimating them; provide overt indications of his or her true thoughts and feelings through his or her facial expressions, body language, and speech; and be deceived by unprincipled characters. Gomer is a good example of such a character. A trusting soul who gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, he sometimes chastises those he’s underestimated by shouting, “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at them after they have hoodwinked him with one unlikely story or another. On the other hand, the urban character is apt to see several more implications concerning a situation’s significance or several meanings concerning a deed that would escape the rustic character’s notice; to disguise or hide his or her true thoughts and feelings; and to dismiss good intentions or noble feelings as the motivations or causes of another character’s behavior. On The Andy Griffith Show, Mayor Pike comes the closest to such a character.

In some situation comedies, two or more characters share the same environment. In some instances, one of the regular supporting characters is a foil to the protagonist. Because of their diametrically opposed qualities, these characters are doomed to disagree and, often, to annoy one another. They see things altogether differently, often in opposite terms to one another’s perceptions, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or beliefs. For example, in The Odd Couple, Oscar Madison is a slob who shares his apartment with Felix Unger, an obsessive-compulsive neat-nik. Much of the show’s conflict--and comedy--stem from their attitudes toward cleanliness.

The shared space can be, and usually is, larger than an apartment. On The Dick Van Dyke Show, Rob Petrie shares an office with his fellow comedy writers Sally Rogers and Buddy Sorrel and his home with his wife Laura and their son Richie. Likewise, the entire community of Mayberry, including the courthouse, Andy Taylor’s house, Wally’s Filling Station, Floyd’s Barber Shop, Emmett’s Fix-It Shop, Weaver’s Department Store, and several other locations, make up the shared space of The Andy Griffith Show.

The sitcom situation is of an everyday sort, such as viewers themselves might encounter in their daily family or work lives or during their leisure time. Each situation gives rise to a commonplace conflict that is resolved within the span of the show’s duration--typically, thirty minutes (no counting commercial messages). Some of the conflicts that occur in plots for The Andy Griffith Show include Opie’s discovery of the harm to relationships that lying causes; Goober’s learning that pedantry is apt to cause others to feel contempt instead of admiration for know-it-alls; and Andy’s willingness to let others retain their personal dignity by taking credit for the good deeds that he has done.

The themes (or subject matter) of sitcoms suggest the type of topics that television audiences find amusing. Over the years, various types of sitcoms have aired on television, several of which types overlap:

• Offbeat comedies (The Addams Family, The Munsters, My Mother the Car)
• Comedies of the workplace (Alice, The Andy Griffith Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Oh! Susannah, Laverne and Shirley, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, Night Court, Our Miss Brooks, That Girl, Cheers, Home Improvement, Frazier)
• Comedies involving single-parent families (The Andy Griffith Show, Bachelor Father, The Courtship of Eddies’ Father, Make Room For Daddy, One Day at a Time, WKRP in Cincinnati, My Three Sons, Full House)
• Comedies involving merged families (The Brady Bunch, Eight Is Enough, Yours Mine and Ours, Please Don‘t Eat the Daisies)
• Colleges about roommates (Bosom Buddies, Three’s Company, Friends, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple)
• Comedies featuring black families (The Cosby Show, Good Times, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)
• Comedies focusing upon nuclear families (The Cosby Show, Good Times, Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Donna Reed Show, Married. . . with Children, Roseanne, Home Improvement)
• Comedies centering upon multi-cultural families (Diff’rent Strokes)
• Comedies featuring extended families (The Mothers-in-Law, Everybody Loves Raymond)
• Comedies about married couples (The Jeffersons, Ozzie and Harriet, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, I Married Joan, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners)
• College comedies (Dobie Gillis)
• Comedies concerning high schools or private postsecondary schools (The Facts of Life, Welcome Back, Kotter, Happy Days)
• Rustic comedies (The Dukes of Hazzard, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, The Real McCoys)
• Espionage comedies (Get Smart)
• Supernatural comedies (The Flying Nun, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Girl with Something Extra, Topper)
• Military comedies (The Phil Silvers Show, F Troop, Gomer Pyle, USMC, Hogan‘s Heroes, M*A*S*H)
• Beach comedies (Gidget)
• Political comedies (The Governor and J. J.)
• Extraterrestrial comedies (My Favorite Martian, ALF, Mork and Mindy)
• Animal comedies (Mr. Ed)
• Comedies about a Servant (Hazel, Who‘s the Boss?, The Nanny)
• Comedies focusing upon musical families or groups (The Monkees, The Partridge Family)
• Comedies about superheroes (Batman)

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 6: Fame, Fortune, Golf, and Television

In “Future Reality Shows,” Radner departs a bit from what had, before now, become her standard approach to developing her book’s humor. Instead of using an opening paragraph to establish a basic situation as an excuse to introduce absurd examples, gags, and jokes concerning an aspect of her book’s central concept, or theme, of aging, the author summarizes the premises of several non-existent television game shows. The descriptions of the shows’ premises poke fun at the absurdities of actual television shows of this genre. Each of the imaginary shows requires participants to do something ridiculous and, usually, dangerous to have a chance to win “a million” (or, in one case, “a schmillion”) dollars. One premise indicates the approach:

Who Wants to Marry a Serial Killer?

Serial killers fall in love, too. Six lucky women get to spend time with a hardened criminal on death row . . . but only one of them gets to marry him, have sex with him, and be present for his execution. You win a million dollars.

This chapter ends with a television show’s title, which takes the form of a rhetorical question, to which Radner provides her narrator’s answer:

Who Wants to Smash Their High-Definition Flat-Screen Television Set?

I do. Keep your million dollars.

The implication is that it is worth a million dollars to Radner to smash her own television set if doing so rids her of such fare as the premises to her imaginary game shows suggest fill the airwaves.

The use of oddball logic structures Radner’s chapter concerning golf (“A Hole in Eight”). In this chapter, after contributing a stunningly funny comparison (“the thought of me holding a golf club was as likely as Eleanor Roosevelt wiring a bikini”), the author shares her ideas as to how to enjoy a game of golf. Her logic is as impeccable, in its own way, as it is unconventional. Her strategy consists of four interrelated practices (or non-practices): don’t entertain high expectations; don’t purchase expensive, quality equipment; don’t practice the sport; and don’t take lessons. By adopting these approaches to playing golf, one eliminates stress and, in fact, enhances the enjoyment of the sport, she argues, for one is “thrilled” if play goes better than anticipated and, at the same time, one has is under no pressure to perform to a high standard--or, indeed, to any standard at all. As Radner’s narrator puts it, “If I hit a good shot, I’m thrilled, and if I don’t . . . well, what do I care? It’s not like I practiced.” She offers similar wrongheaded, but surprisingly sagacious, advice concerning the taking of golf lessons:

Never take a lesson. Just position yourself next to someone who is taking a lesson. This way, if you become worse, you can forget what you overheard, and if you become better, you have had free instruction.

In the “conclusion” to her chapter, Radner’s narrator suggests a theme, or a message, as it were, in the madness of her oddball logic. Her madcap procedures work for her, because, although she may be “out of touch with reality,” she is, nevertheless, “having a good time,” and having a “good time,” she implies, is more important than playing a golf game well.

Occasionally, a comedian or a comedienne can get away with an essentially serious monologue, spoken more from his or her own mouth, as it were, than from that of his or her book’s narrator. Radner accomplishes this--and well--in “At What Price?,” a chapter concerning the instant celebrity to which Andy Warhol referred when he predicted that, given the media’s incessant need for material, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes,” exemplifying the hidden personal costs, including invasions of privacy and actual physical danger, that being famous entails and the way in which almost anyone can become “famous”--for a while and for a time, at least--in contemporary America, as Paris Hilton did when her infamous sex tape was leaked over the Internet or as can those “who can stand on a post for hours while holding a dead fish in their mouths.” The theme of this chapter seems to be the lesson that Radner intends to teach her daughter, Molly: “Fame should be a by-product (and not necessarily a good one) of achieving something extraordinary.” She concludes the chapter with a twist on Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous saying, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”: “The only thing we have to fear is fame for fame’s sake.”

Radner gets away with being serious for a moment as a comedienne because she herself is famous (and, as such, may have a thing or two to teach others about the “cost” of celebrity) and because she writes well. However, in a humorous book, even a talented professional jokester can’t expect to get away with being serious very often, and Radner, of course, reverts to form--sort of-- in her next chapter, “CNNNMSNBCCNBCFOXNEWSNETWORKHEADLINENEWSLOCALANDNATIONALNEWS.” Its premise? “There are too many news outlets and not enough news to go around.” As a result, she contends, she hears the same news repeated at night that she has already heard the same morning, with the only real difference that it is now “stretched over twenty-two minutes plus commercials.” She offers an amusing, perhaps telling, observation concerning a parallel between the news itself and one of the products that sponsors it: “I’ve . . . noticed that the commercials on the evening newscasts are predominantly stomach-related. The news is so upsetting, drug companies have figured out a way to profit from it.” The claim that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between disparate incidents or situations is a favorite technique for prompting laughs, and one which tends to be funny whether the relationship is implied, as it is here, or directly stated, as it would have been if Radner had written, ““I’ve . . . noticed that the commercials on the evening newscasts are predominantly stomach-related because the news is so upsetting that it turns viewers’ stomachs, and drug companies have figured out a way to profit from it.”

Radner--or her narrator--offers a couple of brief examples of how news anchors are reduced to creating, rather than reporting, news stories and responds to Katie Couric’s plea to her audience to “send me a story you’d like to see on the news,” assuring viewers she’d “like to hear it,” with, “Well, I wouldn’t. Maybe that’s just me, but I like my news to be newsworthy.”

Having set up her chapter’s topic, television news, Radner follows up by offering an example of the mundane “news” that would result if she were to take Couric at her word and send in an item that her narrator felt was newsworthy; explains why she finds news crawlers (“the additional information located at the bottom of the screen”) helpful, because they add something new, if not actual news, to the newscasts; explains why she enjoys watching televised murder trials (they extend her treadmill exercise time); critiques the appearance of female newscasters (they all resemble fashion models); and criticizes the inundation of newscasts with flash, colorful graphics--all annoyances with which ordinary members of America’s television audience can relate.

In the process, Radner includes several techniques for producing laughter that are common to professional comedians and comediennes, some of which have been mentioned already, such as:

• Run-on text: the title of this chapter runs together the acronyms and titles of several network news shows and the two categories of news programs, local and national, suggesting that these shows and categories have merged into one, more-or-less continuous and identical body of programmed material
• Absurd, but amusing, anecdotes or examples that illustrate her sometimes-serious, sometimes-humorous claims and observations
• A seemingly absurd, but nevertheless appropriate, comparison between disparate items: repeatedly reciting the same news while making it seem as if it is being read for the first time and Madonna’s attempt to affect virginity (“Reporting the exact same stories over and over and trying to keep them sounding as if it is the first time they’re being read has to be harder than Madonna trying to pretend she’s a virgin”) and the appearance of female newscasters as an effect of a cause which she associates with an historical event (“I love Judy Woodruff and Lesley Stahl, but I think the last time they ate something the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan”)
• The use of something for an unintended, but practical, purpose: watching the news is an adjunct to her exercise routine
• Humorous rhetorical questions: do judges’ refusals to televise certain criminal trials suggest that “they do not care about the state of my inner thighs? Have they no conception of the benefits to my buttocks?”
• Absurd solutions to unusual problems: One such solution is suggested by a hypothetical action on her narrator’s part: “If I sent pictures of me before the O. J. trial and then after,” the judges who refuse to televise trials “might reconsider” their decisions, she suggests, and, thereby, allow the broadcast of these programs, which she uses as adjuncts to her exercise routines. She also has an idea as to how to remedy the broadcasts of made-up news: instead of overusing the “Breaking News” graphic, “how about a ‘Made-Up News’ graphic?”
• Cause-and-effect relationships of a spurious, but amusing, nature: “The more attractive a woman reporter is on CNN, the more time she gets to spend indoors. If you’re forty and have a double chin, chances are you’re filming your report wearing a parka and freezing on the White House lawn or wearing a flak jacket down in a spider hole in Iraq”
• Exaggeration: “‘Breaking News’ is a graphic that is currently being overused on television to command our attention. The last time I saw it flashed on my TV screen it turned out that someone in a kitchen in Iowa had broken something”
• Absurd counterexamples (headlines, in this case, that would suggest actual, rather than made-up news--if they were, indeed, true--and would, therefore, command attention): “‘Hi, this is Katherine McKennedy and here are today’s headlines. . . . Tony Danza announces he is running for president of the United States . . . . Bill gates goes bankrupt . . . and Osama Bin laden marries Jennifer Lopez in a drive-through chapel in Vegas.”

Conclusion

Over a period of three chapters, Radner demonstrates how a topic can be given extended treatment when the material that supports it is broad enough. Television provides sufficient fodder, and Radner, employing a variety of humorous techniques, criticizes game show premises and television news, breaking up the topic with the inclusion, between the chapter concerning game shows and news programs, a chapter that deals with golf, a sport that enjoys widespread popularity, and fame which, whether it is deserved or undeserved, comes with a “cost.” In each case, her targets are, as usual, both familiar and popular, but are also sources of aggravation and annoyance for both those who participate in them or those who merely observe others who participate in them. In these chapters, Radner has employed many of the same techniques that she has already used to effect humor, but she also demonstrates the use of several as-yet-unseen methods for amusing readers, including run-on text; unintended (but practical) uses of products or services; absurd solutions to problems, real or imagined; dubious cause-and-effect relationships between disparate incidents or situations; and absurd counterexamples. The chapter concerning the cost of fame shows that a comedian or a comedienne can occasionally get away with being serious (for a moment), provided that, the rest of the time, he or she is funny and provided that, in being serious for a moment, he or she writes well.