April 11, 2020,

Comedy is no laughter matter.

A sense of humor is most important when you are trapped in a daunting and humorless situation.

That is when you need it the most.

Someone in our circle once shared with us that when they were young and in elementary school in San Francisco, they used to practice earthquake drills.

No very funny at all.

Then one time as they were huddled together and hiding underneath the tables, looking at one another with great trepidation, one of the kids with a dark sense of humor pointed to a crack between the tables as if to say “Oh No” and the group underneath roared with laughter.

You had to be there.

What about you?

Would the people in your circle say that you have a sense of humor?

“The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren’t in a very good mood.”… Lou Holtz

Notice we didn’t say we would ask your friends. It is your associates that we are most interested in knowing their perspective.

Let’s face it. Most of us enjoy being around a person who has a keen sense of humor and we are not the butt of their jokes.

Well done self-deprecation is an art. Not many have mastered it.

That is why we watch and listen to comedies in droves.

A comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement and most often work by exaggerating characteristics for humorous effect.

Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending.

We want to smile when the story is over.

Comedy, compared with other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity.

Slapstick films involve exaggerated, boisterous action to create impossible and humorous situations. Because it relies predominately on visual depictions of events, it does not require sound.

Accordingly, the subgenre was ideal for silent movies and was prevalent during that era. Popular silent stars of the slapstick genre include Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe Arbuckle, and Harold Lloyd. Some of these stars, as well as acts such as Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges, also found success incorporating slapstick comedy into sound films.

It was not uncommon for the early romantic comedy film to also be a screwball comedy. This genre was particularly popular during the 1930s and 1940s.

“I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.”… Audrey Hepburn

We absolutely loved the cast from Canadian SCTV who went on to become massive comedy stars.

Second City Television, commonly shortened to SCTV, is a Canadian television sketch comedy show that ran between 1976 and 1984. It was created as an offshoot from Toronto‘s Second City troupe. It is a rare example of a Canadian show that moved successfully to American TV. SCTV Network is available on terrestrial network, cable, and satellite.

Seen fairly frequently, particularly in later episodes, are behind-the-scenes plots focusing on life at the television station.

These often feature Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty), SCTV’s cheap, tyrannical owner and president, who, despite being perfectly ambulatory, uses a wheelchair to earn “respect” (i.e., sympathy) from employees and viewers.

Also seen regularly are weaselly, sweating station manager Maurice “Moe” Green (Harold Ramis), succeeded in the position by flamboyant, leopard-skin clad, foul-mouthed Mrs. Edith Prickley (Andrea Martin); vain variety star Johnny LaRue (John Candy); washed-up entertainers such as singer Lola Heatherton (Catherine O’Hara) and comedian Bobby Bittman (Eugene Levy); news anchors Floyd Robertson (Flaherty) and Earl Camembert (Levy), talk-show host Sammy Maudlin (Flaherty), cult-stardom-destined and beer-addled brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie (Moranis and Thomas), and many others.

They were hilarious.

“A sense of humor is good for you. Have you ever heard of a laughing hyena with heart burn?” Bob Hope

So many former Saturday Night alum like Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Adam Sandler and John Belushi went to great film stardom through comedies.

Another beautiful lady did too. Loved her movie.

Baby Mama is a 2008 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Michael McCullers in his directorial debut and starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Kinnear, Dax Shepard, Romany Malco, Maura Tierney, Holland Taylor, with Steve Martin, and Sigourney Weaver.

Here is the wacky and zany plot.

Kate Holbrook (Tina Fey) is a successful single businesswoman who has always put her career before her personal life. Now in her late thirties, she finally decides to have her own child, but her plans are dampened when she discovers she has a minuscule chance of becoming pregnant because her uterus is T-shaped. Also denied the chance to adopt, Kate hires an immature, obnoxious, South Philadelphia woman named Angie Ostrowski (Amy Poehler) to become her surrogate mother.

When Angie becomes pregnant, Kate prepares for motherhood in her own typically driven fashion—until her surrogate shows up at her door with no place to live. Their conflicting personalities put them at odds as Kate learns first-hand about balancing motherhood and career and also dates the owner of a local blended-juice cafe, Rob Ackerman (Greg Kinnear).

Unknown to Kate, the in-vitro fertilization procedure Angie had did not succeed and she is feigning the pregnancy, hoping to ultimately run off with her payment. Eventually she starts to regret lying about not being pregnant, but she continually puts off confessing. When she gets an ultrasound, she discovers she is pregnant for real.

Realizing the baby is her own—with her common-law husband Carl (Dax Shepard), from whom she is separated—Angie is forced to confess at Kate’s baby shower. When Kate explains to Angie that the pregnancy test was supposed to be taken two weeks after the procedure, and that the baby could still belong to her, a wedge is driven between the two women.

Did you get all of that?

The wedge becomes the slapstick.

During these challenging times, we still need to laugh. A lot.

Develop or keep your sense of humor.

Watch a comedy.

It just might be the cure, at least for the moment, for what ails us.

~ ~ ~

OPENING PHOTO Universal Pictures

https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/humor-quotes 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy_film 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_City_Television 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Mama_(film)

https://fciwomenswrestling.com/

https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/

https://grapplingstars.com/

fciwomenswrestling2.com/ 

https://femcompetitor.com/