Have you heard the one about the priest, the nun and the duck?
No, well me neither. Thank God! But seriously folks. Take my wife please! Humor, laughter, smiling and jokes are the best things in life.
Freud once said that humor ranks among the highest and most mature forms of defense.
Humor is taking something that is filled with dread or shame and converting it into something harmless.
The process is so valued that in fact the highest paid actor on earth is Adam Sandler who makes a fast $40 million per film. And Ben Stiller is not far behind making $32 million per film.
My dissertation was on cartoon humor and I may be the only psychoanalyst on earth that also has a long running cartoon strip called Yin & Yang; Tales of Neurotic Golfers.
I have a fondness for humor as do most people. And as I searched for an angle for this week’s column I was buying some lunch at Harry’s Deli.
I started to talk to Harry’s son Stolis who told me he was finishing up his second film called “The Last Straw” and it was a comedy. So there was my weekly column served up on a platter.
I sat right down with him and started asking questions about the joys and pain of making a comedy. He told me that the film was very tough to make because as you review the jokes more and more they get very, very unfunny after the fifth screening and then you do not know what is funny and what is not.
He mastered this problem by listening to the audience laughter during the screening and simply editing out the unfunny segments based upon audience reaction.
During graduate school I had analyzed the Mel Brook’s classic “Young Frankenstein” and that was how I began to understand funniness as well.
All you have to do is measure how long the audience laughs following the joke. By the way the audience laughed longest at the rape scene between Madeline Kahn and the monster.
They laughed for 45 seconds straight. That should give you an idea about the relationship between pain and humor.
“The Last Straw” is about teens in high school who revolt against a nasty dean and I immediately knew that Stolis must have gone to Chaminade High School.
Stolsi said that he wanted to make a comedy because he knew that everyone wants to laugh a little in order to escape the pain of life. I was reminded of the great book by Dr. Norman Cousins called “The Anatomy of an Illness” where he explored the healing power of humor. There is no doubt that humor is good for us.
Stolis took his inspiration from the comedy classic “Ferris Beueler’s Day Off,” which is certainly Mathew Brodericks finest hour on film.
Stolis said that humor is all about timing. Something that Bob Hope had and I don’t .
Stolis said he learned about funny from his dad Harry who is always joking and fooling around. In fact as we talked a customer came in, overheard us talking and said “It’s true, I pass by three delis to come here just for the entertainment.” And he is right.
I wish I could say what Harry would say to me when I ordered his chicken soup with ‘mostly broth”. In this PC world it is too bad I cannot repeat the joke. Suffice it to say it was pretty funny.
I say Freud was correct. Humor is a valuable commodity.
Life is filled with suffering and thank God we are able to joke about it all in order to make it all a little more bearable.
So as for me I am going to look forward to his new movie.
I always say to him that I want to be invited to the Oscars when he gets nominated. It’s a joke but I am serious just the same.
