CSotD: Chaos plus time equals comedy
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Baby Blues earns its popularity by mirroring parental experience, which makes sense when you trace the strip back to its roots. It was, as noted in this interview, based on the chaos in Rick Kirkman's life as a young father.
At the time I spoke with Baby Blues creators Kirkman and (Jerry) Scott, it had been a dozen years since that second infant had inspired the strip, which means he's got a kid who, no longer a kid, is about 22 years old now, and another presumably around 25 or so.
That's when the best stories emerge.
Woody Allen is credited with observing that "tragedy plus time equals comedy," though this guy credits it to Lenny Bruce, adding that he probably didn't make it up either. Sounds about right: Eternal truths generally float around everywhere until somebody takes, or is given, credit for them.
The process starts almost immediately, with the mother who, once the actual birth is over and the baby is nestled safely in her arms, tends to forget the pain and to focus on the bliss.
This generalization, I realize, does not apply to those who had genuinely, medically certified horrific labor experiences, but, then, too, it's a rare family that gets laughs over recalling a kid breaking his leg on the playground. That universal truth is not true if the tragedy really is a tragedy.
The generalization also does not apply to stories of things that came out all right but involved either parents or children who use the past as a chance to revive their sense of perpetual martyrdom.
Yes, such beings exist. Hard to believe, isn't it? But we're not allowed to laugh at their stories until they've left the room, and then only if we indeed are Woody Allen or at least Dan Greenburg.
(And here's 96 minutes on that topic that you won't mind giving up, if you like Greenburg, Mel Brooks, George Segal, David Steinburg and a clothes designer and a pizza guy and David Suskind.)
Anyway, I went home about 2:30 in the morning after our first was born, and, when I returned to the hospital about 10 hours later, New Mom was standing in the hallway outside the nursery looking at him through the glass and said, "Oh, you're here! Good! As soon as I pee, we can take him home!"
I should ask her if that means it didn't hurt. After all, what's she gonna do, divorce me some more?
And, going back to Kirkman's experience, she stayed in the hospital three days with the second one. To start with, she was an old woman of 26 by then and recovery took a bit longer but, perhaps more to the point, "home" at that point contained a three-and-a-half-year-old.
She wasn't recovering. She was hiding.
The stories that get the best laughs today were either disgusting or scary or infuriating back then, and while, of course, we only remember the ones that provoked extreme emotions anyway, maybe those strong feelings tempered by happy or at least acceptable outcomes are what make us chuckle over them once the adrenalin has been fully reabsorbed and a little water has passed under the bridge.
'Cause there's nothing funny about explosive diarrhea until the baby and surrounding area have been hosed off. Nor is it amusing to glance out the kitchen window and see what your sons consider to be a viable bike ramp until some time has passed.
In both cases, the story is really about your response: The horror of cleaning up dear little Fecal Vesuvius, or the way you dropped a plate on the floor and ran through the screen door to prevent the first-and-certainly-gonna-be-last launch from the alleged purported ramp.
And, if my calculations are correct, Kirkman is just now beginning to hear the really good stories: The things only the kids knew about at the time.
Moreover, while it's nice to have your adult kids live close by, the stories are even better if they only see each other at holidays, so that the memories come in cascades, with gales of sibling laughter around the dinner table while parents are saying, "Oh, god, oh god, oh god, I'm so glad I didn't know about that."
Which, of course, provokes even more sibling laughter, and the more the parent had presented himself at the time as the all-watchful expert you weren't gonna fool, the louder the laughter in later years over the many examples to the contrary.
I'm only guessing about that last part, you'll understand.
In any case, I'm going to assume Kirkman — and presumably Scott — each keep a notebook handy during all family gatherings, to collect the material they missed the first time around.
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