Rad Nauseam · David Cole

The late 30's was not a great period for comedy. Vaudeville was dead and the sitcom hadn't yet arrived. Even still, there's not really much justification for the bizarre notions expressed in Milton Wright's What's Funny and Why of 1939. Let's just dive right in; here's the second joke they tell (the first was about a hi-larious negro minister that is actually a tick funnier than this--in that it's actually somewhat funny):

There was a young lady from Wales
Who was keen about quarter-tone scales,
But she gave Dr. Boult
A most horrible jolt
When she asked him, "What are octoroons?"

Right. Okay. Check out their explanation:

And what's so funny about that? Hm! A very difficult question.

Well, you see, the humor lies in what happens to you. You skim through that limerick quickly — as you always do with limericks — and when you come to the finish, you sort of blink your eyes and say, "I don't get it."

...so far so good...

Then you read it again, more slowly this time. Then you try to analyze it: "Let's see. Quarter-tone scales. Octoroons. Oh, yes! Octoroons are people who are only one-eighth colored. Their skin is an eighth tone. So, if quarter-tone scales are quarter-tone scales, what — ? But no! There isn't any point at all to it. The joke's on me for thinking there was a point." So then you laugh--maybe.

So the reason it's funny is because it's not funny the first time or the second time. We're off to a strong start. After a number of admittedly solid quotes about the definition of humor, Wright takes his own stab at it:

Humor is a state of affairs that is enjoyably incongruous.

I actually think this is a dandy definition, though including "enjoyably" gives it an absurd amount of wiggle room. This inability to make concrete statements about comedy permeates the book. I don't blame them, it's an extremely intangible subject, but why bother even trying? Here are some non-statement diamonds:

Everybody has his own standards of humor, and these standards constantly are changing. That means, of course, that the standards don't amount to very much.

There is one feature common to every joke. That feature is the joke.

Suppose we see a man with a large nose. There is nothing particularly funny about that. Suppose, however, that the nose in size and shape looks something like a ripe tomato. It's funny.

I'll wait for you to catch your breath after laughing at that last one.

...ready? No, still need more time? I understand, it's pretty fucking funny. Tomato nose! Okay, let's go. After a few more unsettling examples of humor, including a joke about a thieving negro and another about a six year old who hangs his sister, we arrive at my favorite part of the book so far: lists! The first is a list of the three kinds of surprise one feels when they hear a joke:

• How right!
• How wrong!
• How silly!

I'll buy it, but it's not like they do anything practical with this definition. Then they try to categorize the main kinds of jokes, which they've decided count to seven:

1. The pun.
2. The insult.
3. Sex.
4. Family life.
5. The turning table.
6. The odd combination.
7. News.

This list strangely combines joke mechanics with joke topics with joke set ups. But, it's nothing compared to this next list, yet another set of joke types. There's no reason given for having two different lists, but check it out and tell me it's not worth your time:

1. The old maid
2. The bride
3. The mother-in-law
4. The cute kiddie
5. Whiskers
6. The fat man
7. The excuse
8. The boardinghouse
9. The smart farmer
10. The talkative lady
11. The effects of alcohol
12. Seasickness
13. Thrift
14. Married life
15. Death

They nail all the classics! Oh, you're not familiar? Well, let's run through some of their examples for your stupid little brain. Whiskers is, of course, barber jokes. Here's a conversation between a whiskerman and his customer:

Haven't I shaved you before, sir?
No. I got that scar in France.

Zing! Now, "The Fat Man":

Head waiter: Where's the large party you made reservations for, sir?
350-pound Diner: Here I am.

I like any joke that relies on the name of the character in order to make sense. The Boardinghouse:

How did you find your steak, Mr. Smithers?
I just looked under a slice of fried potato, and there it was.

Hahaha... boardinghouses. Now my personal favorite, a perennial type of joke if there ever was one, Seasickness:

The seasickness joke can be summed up in the motto hanging on the wall of the ship's cabin:

You cannot eat your cake and have it, too.

They do try to defend this list, with an amazing fictional story:

And so, with the greatest of ease, the humor man reels off his roster of the fifteen standard jokes.

"That's all there is; there isn't anymore," he declares.

"But what about the bald-headed man and ghosts and dumb dames and tramps and other people and things that are supposed to be funny?" we protest.

It is a question that bothers him not at all. He has three answers.

"In the first place," he says, "why must you bring that up?

"In the second place, any other jokes are merely variations of one of the fifteen. The bald head, round, smooth, and prominent, is very similar, for joke-making purposes, to the round, smooth, and prominent exposure of the fat man. Ghosts, of course, are part of the joke about death. Anything the dumb dame says, you could put in the mouth of the bride the cute kiddie, the talkative lady or the wife, and never notice the difference. The tramp doesn't exist anymore as a joke; he has gone on relief.

"In the third place, the list of fifteen includes not all the jokes that could be, but only all the jokes that are. You might, in a sudden spasm of merriment, make a joke about something else — and occasionally somebody does — but those fifteen veterans are of such ancient lineage, and they do such universal service, that any other joke is a mere upstart and not to be taken seriously."

An example of one such spasm is cuckoo clock humor, which they do, in fact, take some time to discuss:

...in jokes involving cuckoo clocks, the cuckoo always cuckoos exactly twelve times, no more, no less. If the cuckoo doesn't, somebody else completes the count.

If cuckoo clock jokes seem too obscure or dated for you, then try on this baby:

President Taft's eyes closed and his head dropped forward over his massive torso as Senator Jim Watson was speaking. "Mr. President!" shouted the Senator. "You are the largest audience I have ever put entirely to sleep."

Still doesn't fit? Here's a timeless laugher. Says a man at the department store:

I want to buy a nice toy for a small boy whose father is very corpulent and unable to do any kneeling.

Yes, that's the entire joke. "Sure, talking theory is great," I hear you saying at your computer screen hours after I've written this. "But what can I do with it?" Well, they have some practical tips about "Making Fun" in a special section. Here's the first tip:

...it is wholly possible to think up something funny any time we desire. The process is simple. Just take a normal, reasonable statement and twist it a little bit. If your hearer can see the absurd incongruity between the true situation and the askew one you have conjured up, then you have said something funny — we hope.

I totally love all the self doubt that runs through this material. A book that needs to be apologized for repeatedly is definitely a book worth writing.

To be fair, there's still 250 pages of this book that I have yet to read. Those pages appear to be a comprehensive run through of every single type of joke they can think of with hundreds of examples. My hopes aren't high, though, as I didn't see any more of Seasickness, which is all I really want. There's a section on how to avoid being dull, however, which should be pretty terrific. I'll keep you updated.

To conclude, here's a joke of my very own, admittedly not too much better than the ones I've highlighted, but then again I didn't write a freaking book about it:

How do you get a mummy turned on?
Pharaoh moans!

Like all great things, Babysan is extremely racist, heavily sexist and oh-so erotic. Published in 1953 (a year after the American occupation of Japan ended), Babysan is a series of one panel cartoons accompanied by a few paragraphs of explanatory condescension.

Like the famed cherry blossoms come with the Japanese springtime, Babysan came with the Occupation -- and it is hard to say which brings more color and charm to the small Far Eastern country. One is inclined, however, to steak his yen on Babysan; she is in bloom all year 'round.

The backstory is that Babysan was a young child in 1945 when the Americans first came. That's when she fell in love with them, you see, because servicemen would pass out candy to the curious children. Yes, that does, in fact, make this whole thing very creepy.

The cartoons walk a peculiar line: Babysan is a flirty Japanese pin up but she's also foolish, duplicitous, greedy and generally unpleasant to be around.

Really, she mostly just complains about how the men never spend money on her or take her out when she wants.

The first sailor-English that Babysan learned must have been "never happen." Although she was never able to pronounce it correctly, it was a good answer for almost the first question any sailor would ask her. Then she discovered that variations of that phrase brought different results. Replacing "never" with "it" brought her more friends, regular gohan -- meals -- a comfortable place to live, and dresses that gave her "nice style."

In America jewels and furs may put the twinkle in a damsel's eye but in Japan there's nothing like a thing called yen. Not to be confused with the yearning kind of yen, this yen is the big paper Japanese money that doubles for the American greenback.

She tries, though. God, how she tries:

She may not go so far as to become a blonde but she knows that there are many ways to attract a man. She realizes that occidentals from Brooklyn and any point west often admire lush curves. In the Jane Russell department Babysan is slightly understocked. So are many Japanese girls. But there are some western ideas that can be used without adaptation to enhance chisai chichi -- chisai means small, and even small chichi are better than no chichi at all.

She tries a western innovation and she succeeds -- a little awkwardly perhaps, but the jump is hurdled. A girl just doesn't step out of a wooden, toe-revealing geta into soaring, high-heeled shoes without wobbling a little, and she doesn't shed a kimono for a skirt and a sweater without looking a little "artificial." But on Babysan, the boyfriend insists, even "falsies" look good.

To be fair, the men aren't exactly gallant heroes themselves. They're often portrayed as brutish and intolerant of Japanese culture, despite Babysan's best efforts:

Babysan is smart. She may not always seem clever, but she has brains -- and uses them. Newcomers to the land of Fuji-san will bluntly state that no girl can outwit them. Such a statement confirms the fact that they are either deluded ignoramuses or that they haven't met Babysan. She will be careful not to appear too brilliant. She may even tell him frankly that she is a little dense, keep her mouth shut, and let him convince himself.

The strip was obviously meant for the lower rung of soldiers, occasionally getting rather satirical:

It makes me wonder what American soldiers are passing around these days. Our occupation in the Middle East has lasted just as long so maybe there's a burgeoning Muslim equivalent of Babysan. A man can dream, can't he?

When his ship pulls out the boyfriend's thoughts are with Babysan. He wonders how she will manage without him. He wonders if she feels the same sense of loss. Sure, he remembers her soothing words as she smiled up through a trace of tears. "I all time remember," but he wonders. He wonders if she too is lonely.

Since his ship is far, far away from the dock, he wonders. He never knows.

My fiancée bought this book for me back when I was in that "esoteric/vintage instructional material book collecting" phase most young men go through in their early twenties. Flipping through it for the first time, it honestly didn't really impress me. On a closer look though, there's some remarkable gems in this sweet little mama.

The use of white space throughout this book is awesome and surprisingly sophisticated for a children's book. The pages are otherwise filled with bright two color illustrations of various "things-to-do". I'm fairly certain this book was meant for the poorer youth as most of these games use household objects and sound incredibly dull.

In the above game you flick coins into cups in a miniature approximation of golf. In the below, kids compete to remember things. Grand Theft Auto, suck a fat one:

The included activities have such provocative titles as "Canteen", "Semaphore", "Soup to Nuts", "Blow It and Bust It" and "Schnozzola". No comment on the below:

A surprisingly modern turn can be found in the "Book Plate" activity.

This kind of playful geometric lettering is über hip right now with poster designers.

The real diamond in this book, though, is the instructional page for a game titled "Ghost". When I saw this, I swear to god my jaw snapped off, dropped, rolled down the stairs and went missing. This is fucking AWESOME:

I can't even begin to describe how god damned cool this page is so I'm just going to let it stand for itself.

There's a girl's version of this book as well, which I hope to get soon. While I'll probably never play any of these games as they sound stupid as all get out, the Treasury will be a proud member of my library for a long time.