Everyone seems to be grousing about how bad things

are today, and maybe they are right, but I wonder how much our sense of

humor contributes to our mindset. If you listen to the late night

comics on television, everyone is an idiot. Sure we might chuckle now

and then, but I find this to be more cynical and destructive than

positive and beneficial.

Comedy has changed a lot over the years

and I believe it is a reflection of our culture. First, our language

has become cruder and more sexually explicit. I believe we can thank

Lenny Bruce for this. Just prior to Bruce, standup comedians like Bill

Cosby and Bob Newhart won over their audiences with observational

comedy whereby they drew upon past experiences and embellished on them.

Their routines could hardly be considered risqué, but they would

consistently pack the house. This all changed with the likes of Lenny

Bruce, George Carlin, Sam Kinison, and many others who introduced shock

comedy. Today, nothing is sacred, and it seems we no longer see the

humor in simple things anymore, and seem to prefer grungy images

instead.

Let me give you an example, years ago Jack Benny and Mel

Blanc would bring the house down with their Mexican \\\"Si, Sy, Sue\\\"

routine. Abbot and Costello would make the house howl over some of

their bits involving math or \\\"Who\\\'s on First?\\\" Groucho Marx had a fast

wit and tongue who could make your head spin. Today, all of these

routines would be considered lame. I think the difference here is that

the comedians of yesteryear wanted you to use your head and think. They

offered mental gymnastics based on some very simple observations

familiar to the common man. If you wanted something risqué, you either

had to go to Las Vegas or a nightclub. Today, you can find it on just

about any channel on your television set, including Disney.

Today\\\'s

humor can best be described as \\\"in your face\\\" leaving nothing to the

imagination. I\\\'m not saying the humor of yesteryear is necessarily

better than today\\\'s, but I am noting the differences in perspective and

to suggest comedy influences our perceptions and attitudes. We have

gone from poking fun at ourselves, our foibles and frailties, to

vicious attacks on others; from subtle to biting humor; from suggestive

to explicit; from witty to crude; from avant-garde to shocking; from

positive to negative. Probably nothing clarifies the difference in

comedy better than the Dean Martin roasts of the 1970\\\'s to the roasts

on Comedy Central these days. The differences are substantial.

The

reason I stopped reading Garry Trudeau\\\'s \\\"Doonesbury\\\" years ago was

because I believed he had nothing positive to say. Maybe it\\\'s just me,

but I find it tiresome to constantly hear the glass is half empty as

opposed to half full. I guess that is why I eventually tuned out Leno,

Letterman, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert, even though they still

command good ratings.

As the producers of Monty Python\\\'s

\\\"Spamalot\\\" said at the show\\\'s opening, \\\"We need silly,\\\" meaning we need

comedy to relieve the stress in our lives, but I don\\\'t think we\\\'re

really getting it. Instead of diverting us away from our problems, the

humor of today tends to emphasize our problems by telling us how

screwed up we all are, that we are losers living in a no-win world. I

would much rather hear something like Henny Youngman\\\'s, \\\"Take my wife,

please.\\\" Or Rodney Dangerfield\\\'s, \\\"I could tell my parents hated me. My

bath toys were a toaster and a radio.\\\" And Groucho Marx who asked,

\\\"What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a

dyslexic? Someone who stays up all night wondering if there is a Dog.\\\"

What\\\'s funny is funny regardless of when it was said, but also understand what\\\'s cynical is cynical.