Potato chips can be funny

Some decades ago, when late-night was funny, not like it is today, Johnny Carson had on his show a lady by the name of Mildred who collected Potato chips shaped like people, animals and other things. She proudly shows off her labor of love; she says, “This one looks like Bob Hope.  It took me a long time to find a potato chip that looked like him.”  About that time, Ed McMann distracts Mildred, getting her to look away. Johnny pulls a bowl of chips from under his desk, puts one in in his mouth and crunches down loud enough for Mildred to hear, and almost dies of a heart attack as she assumes he is eating her potato chip collection.  Johnny and the audience laugh hysterically.  One woman in the audience is crying with laughter.  Johnny comes clean and admits, it was just a prank, and her potato chip collection is fine and intact. 

After too many meetings, I get home late, throw my bag on the console, flip on the television, throw myself on the couch, and begin to channel-serf looking to watch late night funny television. Disappointingly it’s only political attacks; nothing funny about that.  I think to myself, “Hey, where’s the funny stuff? Don’t ‘the funny’ people know they have an obligation to refresh a weary world?  Proverbs 17:22, A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. I continue searching until I stop at a red head defending her spending habits to her Cuban husband.  He says to her, “Lucy, you got some ‘splaning to do!”   I think to myself, “ah…. Peaceful and honest humor” After a few laughs, I find myself calm and thinking, “all is right with the world!”

It’s kind of sad that we have to go back to old Carol Burnett, Andy Griffith and Lucy shows to watch simple humor.  I mean, even babies get humor! They bare their teeth and make noises just to make their parents laugh.  Little kids are tremendously funny. Perhaps young children get it because they are not prideful yet, still innocent, and filled with a desire to please. They seem to know innately there is a connection between humor and truth.

The four-year-old I sometimes babysit comes up to me one day and says, “Suzanne, where do Bee’s eat their lunch?” I say, “I have no idea Broen, tell me where Bee’s eat their lunch.”  Broen says, “Applebee’s, ha ha ha, get it…. Apple-Bees!”  He leans in with a grin while stretching the last word out.

Maybe you have to be four years old to break out loud laughing; still, he is so cute that I want to squish him.  Pretty much like Drew Barrymore’s first appearance on Johnny Carson, when she sits in this huge chair, feet dangling in the air and with a big dose of confidence says to Johnny, “you know it would be a lot easier to talk to you without my teeth.”  She pulls out her bridge and then grins at the very shocked Johnny. The audience dies laughing.

Yes, Late-night television is not what it used to be, until it does, I will keep watching the reruns and not feel like I’m missing out, cause good old-fashioned humor is honest and goes well with some wine and a good bowl of potato chips.