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As I was saying: Take my forwarded joke
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If you are into sending and receiving e-mail humor, hopefully this column will make some sense to you.
I forwarded a joke recently to a friend who replied, “That one’s about 40 years old and one of my favorites. Does that mean that all jokes are known and just a matter of when we encounter them?”
He got me thinking about how the Internet and e-mail are affecting the patterns of our humor.
Traditionally, jokes, humorous stories, puns, etc., came to us either through our reading, from comedians on radio/TV, or related to us by friends or family as we dined or socialized. I recall there was always an uncle, or golf buddy, or neighbor who excelled at executing “Have you heard this one?” — never muffing the punch line. Such individuals were rare, talented souls whose timing and delivery of jokes invariably invoked peals of laughter. Others, without this talent, struggled to remember: “What was the one now that I heard the other day? Wait a minute... I’ll have it...”
I can’t imagine my Uncle Al (whose hero was Henny Youngman) passing around sheets of jokes he’d printed from his computer! Yet, how common it is today for many of us to be handed a sheet, told, “Seen these yet? Really funny. Read it when you can.” Then, off the person goes expecting you to “read it later” when you want to have a good “chuckle” — all by yourself. I think again of Henny’s classic “Take my wife.... PLEASE!” delivered with perfect timing, his mischievous smile, and another zinger dropped even before the audience’s roars of laughter have subsided.
Today, (thanks to, or no thanks to computers) Henny’s one-liner legacy hits our screens listed on three pages — ready for printing and distribution... click! click! click! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
Before e-mails, it was a courtesy to ask others if they’d heard a joke before one launched into it. “Have you heard the one about...?” “Stop me if you’ve heard this one.” Remember Jimmy Durante, who famously reminded us that “I got a million of ’em, a million of ’em!” And those great vaudeville comedians. (Younger readers, go to Expedia for enlightenment!) The vaudevillians had a million of ’em! Some of which became classic joke routines that were so artfully timed and skillfully delivered that audiences roared each time. How often do I roar with laughter re-reading a joke that is making the e-mail rounds — one that has popped up for the seventh time, each time from another person on the net? You’re right!
I now have an e-mailing friend (aka “Forwarding Fred”) who everyone knew could not tell a joke properly and embarrassed us far more than himself trying! Today he has a computer and has “A million of ’em!” — literally sitting neatly there on the worldwide net. None is classic. A screen calls for no “timing.” It has become embarrassment by numbers! Forward, after forward! I haven’t seen him in decades. He has no clue, really, about me, my personality or what I readily find funny. Yet, he now forwards dozens of “jokes” every week!
My friend asked, “Are all the jokes known?” Probably. Yet, our once-treasured oral humor tradition moved slowly, heard face-to-face, one-to-one or more, instantly shared laughter... remembered, retold, heard again, shared laughter radiating like ripples in a pond, person to person. The known, the learned, the personal humor, it seemed to me, remained fresh longer and, therefore, could be refreshed from generation to generation. We met listened and laughed together. Gosh, that was fun.
Computer humor, alas, is fast, slick, impersonal, random, largely unfocused, repetitive, socially neutral, etc. !
Take my computer. Please!
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Ted Beranis, of Bonita Springs, is a retired educator.
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