Childhood Humor

                My attraction. or even need, for humor started when I was in maybe the fourth grade and I began to be obsessed with Mad magazine.  I begged my mom every Thursday, after my guitar lessons at the House of Melody in South Miami, Florida, to take me to the newsstand next door so that I could get the new Mad, or perhaps it’s only slight inferior Cracked.  Within the pages of these classic mags were just glorious collections of humorous parodies, cartoons, satirical articles, and critical political humor even.  Through reading these, I gained a taste for so many books and films they had featured.  They would changed the titles, the names, the plots to enhance the punch line:  the “Mod Squad” became “The Odd Squad” and “The Poseidon Adventure” became “The Poopsidedown Adventure” (that may have been Cracked.)  And then there was just JAWZ.

                The feeling I got when I walked into the old, stuffy, tiny newsstand was heavenly.  It smelled all over like newspaper and magazine print mixed with every kind of candy.  My mom couldn’t drag me out of there. 

                Mom:  Audrey, come on already. I have to go make dinner.

                Me:  Okay could you please just leave me here please?

Upon arriving at home, I would sequester myself from the world for several hours a day the whole week reading, studying every fake ad, every Spy versus Spy, every hilarious caricature drawing, and every parody.  I would carry it back and forth places I went, too.  Until I reached maybe the 8^th grade, I hadn’t met any girlfriends who appreciated these masterpieces like I did.  Now, the boys…oh yes. They did. In my neighborhood, the boys loved Mad.  And so once again, I was aligned with the boys,

                But in junior high, I finally did meet a group of three very funny girls, and we became a dynamic duo times two, so a dynamic quartet?  Lori, Rhonda, Diana, Audrey were running around Glades Middle School screaming and laughing at each others’ jokes everywhere.  It was a common sight. 

Let’s Do the Time Warp

                And then, I think in the 9^th or 10^th grade, we all discovered the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Lord have mercy!  We had entered our new church.  Not only was it a hilarious movie, but the entire experience became riotous, with the audience participation.  We four somehow convinced our parents that we had to go to Coconut Grove EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT, where we would consistently sneak over to see Rocky Horror each time.   I still, all these years later, have adopted Frank’s pursuit of fun (“It isn’t easy having a good time…”) and his non-sequiturs (Do you have any tattoos. Janet??).  It isn’t the same humor as Mad, but it was outsider and alternative in its vibe, and that was me all over.

                In high school, I felt quite dejected by the reading selections in my English classes.  None of them were funny, except Huckleberry Finn.   Now, HE was a funny kid!!!!   However, I didn’t really get it then, and my teachers didn’t either.  I remember being assigned to read Tale of Two Cities by my now favorite author, Charles Dickens.   The sheer amount of verbiage on each page was enough to split my eyeballs, but then, one carriage ride up a stormy and muddy mountain with a banker and a graverobber splattered all of the first chapter’s pages put me right to sleep.  What the hell is a grave robber?

                In fact, the graverobber thing in Tale…is very, very funny.  Yet, none of my teachers ever focused on the comical aspects.

                I focus on funny whenever possible.  Granted, people have vastly different tastes when it comes to humor.  I already said in my blog about films to show in English classes that only four boys and myself laughed heartily at Monty Python and the Holy Grail.   Again, satire!  And don’t even get me started on my undying love for Airplane!

Let’s Go Wilde!

                Later on, I taught The Importance of Being Earnest for a few years to my seniors.  I tried to explain to many of them the outrageously clever humor, the puns, the jibes.  Almost every line, or at least every OTHER line is a humorous morsel.  Yet, once I tried to explain the jokes, there goes the moment sort of.  When you have to illuminate what makes something funny, it becomes much less so.  Oscar Wilde was truly one of the wittiest writers of all time, and truly the definition of an OUTSIDER, right?  He went to jail for it, even. Well, and for other things. 

Will He Make You Laugh?

Even Shakespeare wrote comedies, though students also have difficulties understanding that humor, too. For me, one of his funniest is Twelfth Night. It features mistaken identities, a loitering drunk uncle named Sir Toby Belch, and a conservative, follow-the-rules type fall guy called Malvolio. lt is quite modern in it’s gender bending stuff. In the play, two twins, a male and a female (both highly attractive) enter a community after they get separated from each other in a ship wreck. The woman, in order to get a job, dresses in male drag convincingly, and a DUKE falls in love with her/him. You get the point.

…And Allan Konigsberg

                Last year, I read Woody Allen’s comprehensive and excellent biography, and he still splits my sides, this man.  Now though, there is a stigma that follows old Woodie wherever he may roam.  Even though I detest doubting victims of sexual abuse, his story resonates with me, and I’m just not sure I believe he was guilty.   As they say though, we can, if we choose, separate our feelings about the art from the artist.  I certainly can in his case, Why?  because he is fucking funny.  A comic genius!

                My greatest wish for English teachers is to FIND the FUNNY and let your students read it.   If they are anything like I was, it will change their lives and hook them into reading forever. Oh, and Mad is STILL for sale at grocery stores.