SCTV Hi Q

What a cast of hilarious looney tunes SCTV bred!: Eugene Levy as the host, and Catherine O’Hara, Joe Flaherty, John Candy, Andrea Martin, and Dave Thomas as the eager high school contest students.

Thanks to YouTuber dp6899

Jack & Rick Ride Again

Welcome to the Silver Age of Radio. We’re sorry to say we’ve reached the end of our run of Gunsmoke episodes starring William Conrad, Zazu Pitts, and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr, after airing a grand total of 32,647 episodes. But have no fear, we’ve dug down deep into our dusty archives and have come up with episode two of the Jack & Rick Bob & Ray homage, first broadcast way back on April 19th 2023 on the Arts Express radio network. So, without more ado, it’s Jack & Rick…”

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear our second Bob & Ray homage as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation

You Got This!

Recently here in NYC our mayor authorized a Public Service Announcement which featured a perky young woman telling us what to do in case a nuclear bomb fell. After listing what to do, she applauds us by saying, “You got this!” Well we were kind of horrified by it, so we here at Arts Express thought it might be fun to write our own version of that PSA.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear our version of the PSA as broadcast last week on the Arts Express radio show, heard on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

The Mrs. Doubtfire Restaurant Scene–As Performed By Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

The wild comedic imagination of Eleanor Morton takes the gender switching theme from the Robin Williams film, Mrs. Doubtfire, and transplants it into Robert Louis Stevenson’s horror story. A really brilliant turn by Ms. Morton.

More at Eleanor Morton

The Thief of Bad Gags

(Click to enlarge)

Magic fans will enjoy this parody film poster advertising the Golden Gate Gathering, a magic convention organized by Anthony Miller and Rosie Rings.

Magician Kent Gunn explains on the Genii forum that Rosie and Tony are both huge movie poster aficionados. and that they’ve come up with Rosie-fied old movie posters for the GGG for several years.

Thanks to Kent Gunn for the photo of the poster.

Dear Ethicist

Shalblog® Industries recently acquired from a deep source, a document which purports to be from an upcoming New York Crimes Sunday Magazine issue. The manuscript pages seem to be an impending edition of the popular Dear Ethicist column, wherein the award-winning NY Crimes ethics columnist answers his readers’ knotty moral dilemmas.

Dear Ethicist,

I recently evicted a score of tenants from a building I own. It is obviously unfortunate, but do you think that as a homeowner I am ethically obligated to file a change of address form with the Postal Service for each former tenant?

The Ethicist replies: You’re under no obligation to fill out the postal forms yourself; however, if some of the tenants were disabled, or became disabled as a result of the eviction proceedings, then it would be a gracious gesture, though not a legal one, to perhaps provide the forms and pens to those still camped out on your doorsteps.

Dear Ethicist,

A colleague recently uncovered massive fraud and deception at work while updating the department’s computer operating system. Should I report my colleague directly to my boss, or would it be better simply to send an anonymous letter so that no one’s feelings are hurt?

The Ethicist replies: It’s certainly thoughtful of you not to want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but it may be the situation calls for honesty among friends. Your co-worker deserves to know of your loyalty to your company, so that after his release from prison he might model himself on someone who gives 100% to the job. As they say, a good example is the best teacher.

Dear Ethicist

Last week, while at my home computer supervising the remote drone bombing of a Syrian village, a friendly colleague who I hadn’t seen in a number of months came by to help me out.  My wife says that after such a long absence the colleague should have brought over a little gift of some kind to acknowledge the long absence. I feel if we’re friends, then we shouldn’t have to rest on formality. Who is right?

The Ethicist replies: Unannounced visits can be startling to one’s partner, even if you yourself welcome the visit. Perhaps your wife felt that she should be compensated in some way for the inconvenience a sudden “drop-in” might cause. Or, and this is something you might take up with your spouse privately at a quiet time, perhaps your loved one feels shut out when you and your colleague conduct bombing raids and leave her out. Nobody likes feeling left out, and in the future, you might invite her to try her hand at the controls, even if it’s just a small hut or two and not a major population center.

Dear Ethicist

My grandmother, whose Medicare does not pay for dental care, has taken to losing teeth whenever she eats her favorite apple crumb pie. We hate to ban the pie from her diet, but we never know whether a tooth should go into the compost heap, the plastics and metals, or just the regular trash, so now they are just piling up. Which would be the more environmentally correct way to dispose of them?

The Ethicist replies: It’s one of the truisms of modern life that as we try to treat the planet better, things can get more confusing. It depends whether Granny’s teeth are her own or some kind of replacement. If they were her own, they are organic and should go in the compost heap; if they are replacements, then they are probably an amalgam of plastic and metal and should go in the re-cycling bin, assuming your town or city has separate streams for such. The good news is that even under the worst possible scenario, you will only have to make the decision 32 times, since Grandma has no insurance to replace the teeth.

Dear Ethicist

As head of a medical supply company, in a recent merger, I acquired the patent of a new life-saving drug. Based on supply and demand and what the market will bear, I tripled the consumer price. My investors have congratulated me over how the company’s stock price has soared. However, some patients can no longer afford the medication. Would it be all right to organize a picnic for those poorer patients in order to make their final days more pleasant? And do you think it should be on a weekday or on a weekend? And would it be okay to institute a no pets policy for those who may be allergic?

The Ethicist replies: When I last taught my Ethics 101 class at Harvard University, we had a similar situation come up in the very classroom itself. There was one student who could no longer pay tuition after the most recent tuition hike, and though we didn’t arrange a picnic as you are considering, we did take up a collection to present the student with a 10% off coupon for the Red Lobster restaurant of his choice. It turned out the boy was an observant Jew, and so couldn’t use the coupons, but it’s always important to remember that it is the gesture that is remembered. As Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Dear Ethicist

I am in a rather powerful political position. It is not easy, especially as a woman, to handle the volume of complaints I must deal with. The number of emails in my inbox from constituents who carp about not having enough bread to eat has gotten to the point where I spend more time answering their emails than all my other work combined. Should I just direct their complaints to the SPAM folder, or would it be more efficient to remind them through autoreply that in a pinch they could just eat cake? I don’t want to impugn the intelligence of my unimaginative constituents, but it’s not rocket science.

The Ethicist replies: The stresses of a responsible job can make us all a little bit cranky at times, it comes with the territory. While it was considerate of you to offer an alternative to bread, it may be wise to remember that not everybody can digest gluten-based products. There are some cake mixes on the market today that offer a healthier choice. Perhaps replying with a photo or two of some oat-based or quinoa-based bakery goods might stimulate the imaginations—and palates!—of your more idea-challenged constituents.

Dear Ethicist

Is it ethical to write a column that focuses on everyday trivial matters of etiquette and ethics while ignoring and thus implicitly excusing the larger breaches of ethics and morality that your newspaper supports every single day?

(Unfortunately, the document ends here. You will have to supply your own answers.)

The Great Debate

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“I’m the only one on the stage who…” — Wednesday, 2/19, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobachar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren
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(With a tip of the hat to masercot)

“I’m the only one on the stage who has mudwrestled with a ferret.”

“I’m the only on the stage who has chopped down all the trees west of the Mississippi with Babe, The Giant Blue Ox.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who doesn’t give a crap that I took three tabs of LSD ten minutes ago.”

“I’m the only on the stage who speaks nightly with Elvis.”

“What are you talking about?! I’m the guy who passed the Silly Walks Amendment.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who played Mah Jong with Barack Obama.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who isn’t on the stage.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who is wearing three jock straps.”

“I’m the only on the stage who’s wearing two clown shoes—on each foot.”

“A little girl in 1850 jumped on a train, took dead aim, and shot Jesse James. That little girl was me.”

“I’m the only one on the stage with an outty belly button.”

“I’m the only one on the stage with a dead body in my refrigerator.”

“I’m the only one on the stage lip -synching the whole debate.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who’s a graduate of the DeVry Institute.”

“I’m the only one on the stage, Chuck, who has undergone nasal irrigation.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who’s playing a kazoo.”

“I’m the only one on the stage with a banana in my ear.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who is wearing a mustache made of yak hair.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who’s speaking in Klingon.”

“Socks keep falling down whenever you limbo? I’ve got a plan for that.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who’s a Siamese twin.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who’s having open heart surgery performed on me as we speak.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who can open a bottle of Perrier with my teeth.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who can beat Donald Trump at Chinese Checkers.”

“A little girl in the year 2050, donned her jet pack and flew to the moon. That little girl was me.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who is hopping on a pogo stick.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who’s done the hokey-pokey with Martin Luther King.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who sleeps in jammies with built-in feet.”

“I’m the only one on the stage who has Borscht dribbling down his chest.”

“Let me be perfectly clear: no one should have to choose between slaughtering a porcupine and caressing a weasel.”

That Musical About The Two Rival NYC Gangs…

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A delicious parody of West Side Story with Will Ferrell and his SNL compatriots.

Thanks to YouTuber

The Power Of Satire

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Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com

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Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about parody and satire. A poster on one of the magic boards I follow declared that he doesn’t like satire; and he mentioned that Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller magic fame also felt this way.  Penn wants a comedian to just “Come out and say it,” comparing Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal unfavorably to George Carlin’s comedy. Penn feels they make similar points but Carlin is more direct. Well, of course historically, unfortunately, people have paid a heavy price to just “Come out and say it” directly. Now, why Penn, a very intelligent man, would gloss over that point is interesting, but I don’t want to get into that in this essay (maybe I’ll expand on this in the comments area). Instead, I want to share some thoughts I’ve been kicking around concerning how parody and satire actually work.

Satire is often conflated with its humorous kin, parody, but I don’t consider them synonymous.  I’m not that interested in making a semantic argument, scolding for misuse—use the words as you wish—but I do want to distinguish between two distinct categories of comedy, no matter what one calls them. And so for convenience, I’ll refer to the two categories as parody and satire. Though they are both categories of humorous critique, there are some important differences.

Oddly, it might be easier to understand my definition of satire, if I first begin talking about parody. Both parody and satire embody a subject of humorous critique presented in a given form. In parody, however, the subject of the critique is the form itself.  Let me give a few examples here: Mel Brooks is well appreciated for film parodies such as Young Frankenstein. The pleasure we get from watching Young Frankenstein is in how Brooks takes the tropes of the classic horror movies of the 30s and pokes fun at them: there’s the hunchback, the inarticulate monster, the creepy castle, and so on, which all trigger memories of what we loved about those kinds of films. We laugh because these are familiar elements, but in addition, Brooks jokes with the form by unexpectedly breaking with its conventions: the inarticulate monster, out of genre, puts on a top hat and grabs a cane, performs a Broadway soft shoe dance, and so on. The subject, then, of Brooks’s horror movie is the form of horror movies. We see a similar dynamic occurring in other Mel Brooks movies, such as High Anxiety, Spaceballs, and Blazing Saddles. The subject of each of these movies is a critique of their particular forms—the thriller, the sci-fi movie, the western, respectively—the target being the absurd aspects of their forms.

One more parody example: the current wave of literature parodies which somehow manage to shoehorn zombies into them. So, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, for example, takes the form of a nineteenth-century Jane Austen novel of manners, but subverts the form by importing characters from a completely different kind of genre. The humor is in the discordant clash of forms. Again the subject of the parody in this case is of the form itself. It’s not “about” anything other than the comedies of manners and the tropes of zombie tales.

But satire works differently. While satire takes a form of an already recognized genre, its subject is not solely about the features of that form. The subject of satire is something apart from its form, but talks about the relationship of the subject to the form; and in the best satire, the form indicates how the subject uses elements of that form to gain, consolidate, or maintain power.

To clarify, let’s begin with Penn’s example, Jonathan Swift’s classic satire, A Modest Proposal. The writer proposes that the solution to starvation and poverty among the Irish poor is to let Irish parents sell their children to the rich as a source of food. Now the subject of the piece is clearly the exploitation of the poor by the rich; but the form of that satirical piece is the political statement of a rational man serving the people. Here Swift takes that form and shows how the form of rational political discourse is used to advance monstrous conclusions by proceeding from unjust premises. So the essay is not just a critique of the position of the Irish poor in Swift’s time, but it’s also an illustration of the forms of discourse that had helped to maintain such an unjust power relationship. In other words, in A Modest Proposal, Swift is in effect saying, “This is how rich people think and act. And these are the forms of twisted rationality they use to advance their cruel arguments to make them seem less self-serving.”

Or let’s take another, milder, satirical example, an excerpt from a recent article from the satirical online newspaper, The Onion:

2020 Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Announces Bold Plan For 2,500-Mile Intercontinental Riverwalk

SOUTH BEND, IN—Touting the benefits in tourism and business revenue that such a project had already brought to his hometown, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, IN mayor Pete Buttigieg announced Thursday a bold plan for a 2,500-mile intercontinental riverwalk. “At a time when Americans are more divided than ever, what this country needs is a riverwalk that will provide people from all strata of society with continuous strolling, dining, and festival opportunities,” said Buttigieg, gesturing to a watercolor architectural rendering of the Intercontinental Riverwalk that he described as his “core campaign plank,” which would revitalize the country’s heartlands by attracting sorely needed coffee shops, clothing boutiques, and artisanal cocktail bars in riverside locations stretching from coast to coast. […] At press time, the Indiana mayor went on to unveil diplomatic plans to broker a pact between Mexico, Canada, and the United States for a Transnational Farmer’s Market on Saturday afternoons.”

https://politics.theonion.com/2020-presidential-candidate-pete-buttigieg-announces-bo-1833302082

The Onion is not as sharp as it used to be, having to constantly churn out humor online, but this is a nice low-key satirical example. The subject of the satire is Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign bid. The form is the inbred local newspaper or Pennysaver giveaway press release article.  The piece is not just making fun of smalltown papers and Buttigieg’s campaign. What it also does is show how Buttigieg’s campaign (the subject of the critique) deliberately uses the tropes of the SmallTown America® press (the form) as branding to push its candidate forward. In an actual Buttigieg press conference or debate, South Bend, Indiana becomes the center of the civilized world; all knowledge, wisdom, and experience flows from there. Plain old front-porch common sense in partnership with local business leaders will solve all the world’s problems. The Onion piece catches the flavor of the campaign perfectly—by utilizing the form that it does.

Analyzing the differences between parody and satire in this way is useful in that it also allows us to see what factors might make for a stronger piece in both categories. Because in parody the object of humor is the form itself, the best parody tends to exaggerate features of the form, like a caricaturist might do with a person’s features in a cartoon.  But satire, on the other hand, works much better when the form is left alone; indeed when the form is a pitch-perfect imitation, but filled with the content of the subject of critique. That way, one can see how the subject uses the form to its own advantage.

So, while like Penn, I much admire the direct form of comedy as exemplified by George Carlin’s work, it’s important to understand that parody and satire allow for other kinds of humorous critique and observation to come into play. Parody and satire allow us not only to understand the subject of its critique, but also to understand the power that form, less visible and apparent,  holds over us as well.

 

I Am Spartacus!

If you haven’t seen or don’t remember the classic scene from the the movie Spartacus about the leader of a Roman slave rebellion, click on the very short video below, so that the rest of this makes sense:

 

Now watch what the geniuses at Improv Everywhere, the ringleaders of the international multi-city No Pants Subway Ride, did at a local Starbucks:

More videos at Improv Everywhere

Jenny

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The daffy comic musical team, Flight of the Conchords sing about a rare chance meeting of lovers. The comedy duo has as perfect timing together as any stand-up team since Abbott and Costello or The Smothers Brothers.

Thanks to YouTuber asianscion

 

 

 

“You’re The Top”: Dai Vernon Edition

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The influential magician Dai Vernon, known by his peers as “The Professor,” was feted by  his contemporaries at a tribute roast in 1987.  Cabaret singer Pat Cook sung an homage to the 93-year-old magician to the tune of Cole Porter’s “You’re The Top,” but with revised lyrics by Cook. The clever Cook went on in later years to write a Broadway show and is presently the Director of  BMI ‘s Musical Theater and Jazz division. If you’re a fan of magic, you’ll get a kick out of the lyrics Cook wrote for the occasion.

Thanks to magician Michael Ammar who captured the event on film and uploaded it onto YouTube.