CSotD: The Loyal Opposabalition
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Today's Loose Parts is delightfully meta.
Larson's 1984 gag played on the fact that the whole notion of opposable thumbs was something we learned in biology class and then didn't even file away: We just tossed it into the junk drawer of our minds until the moment it became his punchline.
And it worked so well for Larson that "opposable thumbs" became a standard joke, totally divorced from what had made it funny: Not the concept itself (not at all funny) but the dredging up of a forgotten bio lesson (funny).
A lot of Far Side worked on that level: We were used to Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny and other talking animals who led relatively human lives. Bugs lived in a hole in the ground but it was often shown to have human-style furnishings and he held his carrot in a hand with, yes, an opposable thumb.
Larson would turn that upside down by putting more realistic animals into human situations that became absurd because he didn't apply the gel lens of Disney/Warner Bros anthropomorphization.
But, really, what kind of tools could an animal with the brain of a cow possibly come up with?
And, if dogs could really write and think, what would they want to do and how well could they express it?
Larson didn't invent the reversal he so well exploited: There was, for instance, a spate of elephant jokes a generation earlier that also relied on a mix of realism and whimsy.
Example: How do you know there's an elephant in your refrigerator?
Footprints in the cheesecake.
Even Larson couldn't sustain this forever, and, much as people wish he had ridden the strip into the ground continued his delightful feature, he got out at about the right time.
There's nothing inherently funny about opposable thumbs, aside from the shock value of imagining cows living in houses full of things they couldn't operate, and the related shock of all the other reasons cows can't live in houses and sit in chairs and so forth.
Once you adapted to Far Side's central absurdity, it stopped being a surprise and became as formulaic as a Johnny Carson monologue: You laughed because you liked the set-up, not because the punchline actually produced a humorous shock.
Far Side was fading and becoming a "Time to make the donuts" exercise. Larson wisely heeded the old vaudeville rule: "Always leave them begging for more."
Yet Far Side inspired an entire genre of cartoons and a generation of cartoonists, and you can judge the quality of their work based on whether they work by reversal of logic or just by assuming that the term "opposable thumbs" is in and of itself funny.
There is a difference between a genuinely funny absurdist panel and a clone that simply mirrors Larson to evoke the same response in which Carson's audience would shout back "How hot was it?" and laugh, not at the punchline that followed, but for delight at having been included in the familiar ritual.
Dave Blazek made me laugh this morning by so blatantly summoning the ghost of the Far Side.
It's as if a late-night host had the chutzpah to adjust his tie, chuckle nervously and then swing an imaginary golf club.
Meanwhile, out at the cemetery
Today's On The Fastrack may have been inspired by news reports on this horrendous technical breakthrough, which was bouncing around news feeds earlier this month:
First of all, it's a stupid idea, and not even an original one. Bill Cosby suggested something similar on his second comedy album back in 1964, only he was purposely making a joke in poor taste.
Second of all, Cosby was just talking about a tape recorder in the coffin at the wake, not something that would go on forever in the cemetery, and I question that premise anyway. I walk the dog through our local cemetery several times a week and I can tell you that only the granite markers are nearly as permanent as the occupants had imagined.
Would this be linked to some central office that would get a beep if it stopped working, so that a technician could be sent out to make sure Uncle Charley's last thoughts and banjo solo continue to echo out every time someone steps in front of his grave?
And have these people ever strolled through K-Mart at Halloween when simply going down the aisle will touch off those animatronic witch and goblin dolls? Are you sure someone's final gift to the world should be turning a quiet walk through the cemetery into an annoying video cacaphony?
Aren't plastic flowers enough of an assault on dignity?
Of course, none of this is a problem for the idea of setting up an eternal Power Point presentation.
All Power Point presentations are eternal.
Inadvertent politics
I hadn't meant to be political today but Lalo Alcaraz cracked me up, particularly the discordant faces.
Every administration tries to shift blame to its predecessor, and Obama had the luxury of following a president who dragged us into a pointless military disaster and then cratered the economy on his way out the door. Not only did Obama have valid reason to blame the Cheney Administration for the condition they left the place, but things were so messed up that it was hard for him to avoid improvement.
However, the level of denial by the current occupant is astonishing, and Alcaraz could have made a much longer side table, with space for Paul "He was only a temp" Manafort and Mike "Never heard of him" Flynn, because while Trump has never made a mistake or broken a promise, if something could ever have gone wrong it certainly wouldn't be his fault.
And, as Kirk Walters points out, Trump is not the only one determined to remain both inept and blameless.
Democrats cannot assume they'll gain anything in 2018 without considerable effort and reform, but they can be forgiven if they chortle a bit in the meantime.
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