I don't know about you all but the 18 hours of darkness a day is really… uhhh… it's getting to me. Add to that we still have no COVID freedom, rates are spiking, and it's sludged from the sky in Chicago the last 3 days, and, well, I'm taking it one day at a time.
In an effort to help, here is a quick list of things that never fail to make me laugh. Some of these are repeats from previous posts, because it's 2020 and there is so much sad that I have to go back to these A LOT. There are a lot of clips linked, so, if that isn't your thing, feel free to skip this one.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
There are a lot of episodes that have made me die laughing – the dance off, the dumpster baby, Frank and Charlie eating catfood – but the one scene I can never forget is when Sweet Dee tries to assemble a "Sex and the City" type group of her misfit friends. The whole episode is a riot, but then Dee tries to steal a pair of expensive shoes, and the aftermath is physical comedy perfection.
The Simpsons
Seasons 2-10 of The Simpsons is the reason I laugh at the things I do; the show literally shaped my sense of humor. When I taught in Korea, my students loved the show and I would regularly tell them that the writers went to Harvard and were very smart – YOU HAVE TO BE SMART TO BE FUNNY! It was a weird hill to die on, especially when I spoke 0 of the Korean language, but I wanted any aspiring Korean humorists to not be ashamed. Anyway, watch all these episodes, but if you only have 20 seconds, this clip is literally my humor in a nutshell.
The Pink Panther
This one is more nostalgic than anything, but my dad passed away when I was 8 and one of the few things we bonded over before he died was The Pink Panther series. The first movie is actually a well-told caper, but then, as the series progresses, the movies get more and more absurd and rely more on the amazing comedy of Peter Sellers. The final film is nuts from start to finish, but the scene with Inspector Clouseau trying to break into a fortress (to stop the madman with a ray that makes things disappear, obvs) is classic.
Clue
I, for some reason, didn't see the movie Clue until I was in my late-20s. My life finally has meaning. It's absolutely bonkers in every sense of the word. My favorite part is that you can see the wheels coming off the bus during the movie's last 30 minutes. The entire cast of brilliant comedians is trying not to laugh at each other as their performances ratchet into the stratosphere. I couldn't pick just one clip, so here is Madeline Khan's improv genius, and then the bullet scene, which… for absurd comedy, it doesn't get much better.
David Sedaris
David Sedaris is always hilarious, but his short story on learning French, Jesus, and the Easter bunny is the funniest thing I've ever seen committed to prose. I read it for the first time on the train and was laughing so hard I had to finish it later because people were staring at me.
Arrested Development
Like It's Always Sunny, there are so many hilarious things in AR that I go back to: Ann/Egg, Lucille's wink, Lucille Two's vertigo, Mrs. Featherbottom, et. al. The show brilliantly fuses Seinfeldian plots with hilarious word play, "inside jokes", and physical comedy. And, of course, their horrible chicken impressions.
Christmas Vacation
To end with, as we transition from fall to sludge-filled December, Christmas Vacation is my fave holiday movie of all time. The physical comedy is level 1000 and the "trueness" of the chaos of a family holiday is almost too real. I made Ernesto watch this two years ago, and I guess the humor doesn't translate to Mexico. Either way, it's not a holiday unless my family sees Chevy Chase's explictive-laden rant and we all say it along with him.