Voice
in the Crowd
By
Pete Chaney
IPS Features

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IPS Features Staff

International Press Service

Don’t Trust a Man Who Can’t Laugh

  Humphrey Bogart said he never trusted a man who did not drink.  In the Fifties, I had a beer in German with a World War II Luftwaffe pilot.  He said the first thing they did with a new officer was to get him drunk to see what he was like, with his inhibitions relaxed.

  There is some merit to the argument, but it’s understandable that many people just don’t feel like getting drunk, or even drinking.  For some, it’s religion.  For some, health.  For some, just not wanting to act stupid with other people acting stupid.

  Maybe a better way is not to trust a man who can’t laugh.  That’s supposed to be what separates us from the lower orders.  There are different kinds of laughter, of course: laughing at or ridiculing someone else or making a joke on ourselves.  Comedian Don Rickles made his career being sarcastic, rude to other people.  Jack Benny made himself the butt of the joke.

  My earliest contact with humor had to be the funny papers.  My great uncle bought the Atlanta Sunday paper and my father would read the comics to me.  Andy Gump.  Katzenjammer Kids.  Maggie and Jiggs.  Li’l Abner.  They became eagerly anticipated friends.  They stayed with me.  But many died a natural death with only strips like Blondie, Snuffy Smith and Gasoline Alley remaining strong with new cartoonists.  One of the most outrageously hilarious strips of all time, Li’l Abner succumbed with the death of his creator Al Capp, a talented humorist who was fired by Joe Palooka’s Ham Fisher for not having an imagination.

  There were comic books with Superman, Batman, Captain America, Mandrake the Magician, Abbie and Slats—countless others.  They all brought their own message and amusement.

  Before there was a W.C. Fields, there was Major Hoople.  In 1921, Gene Ahearn came up with a Fieldish character in “Our Boarding House.”  J.R. Williams produced “Out Our Way” with the Worry Wart and the adage that “heroes are made not born,” also beginning in 1921.  The genius of Williams was troubled with alcohol and supposedly he would lock himself in a closet with a bottle.  These strips ran for generations in the days of the Depression, bringing laughter to a sometimes dreary world.  We owe so much to these men—and later women—who took pen and ink to lighten and brighten our world with their vivid imaginations.

  Someone could argue that Charles Schulz was the greatest of the great.  He took a childlike sketch of young children and made them part of everyone’s family.  Charlie Brown, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Snoopy and the gang began life in their comic strip world on October 2, 1950, with “Peanuts.”  He said he wrote the last panel first, with its punch line, and then worked toward it.  Writing and drawing all his strips alone, he decreed “Peanuts” should end with his death.  But greeting cards, reprints and TV specials still tickle us.

  Each strip had its own trademark of style.  Some were sketchy, leaving it to the reader’s imagination.  Others were meticulously drawn with the strokes of a Rembrandt.  Harold Foster, who drew early Tarzan and Prince Valiant strips, created such beauty that each panel would stand alone as a work of art.

  Even now I enjoy going to www.comics.com and reliving the adventures of Alley Oop, Li’l Abner and Freckles.

  Maybe the most hard pressed cartoonists are those who provide us with editorial content.  They have one panel to bring their point across with an economy of words.  Herblock was a genius who spanned generations from pre-World War II to the present generation.  The editorial cartoonist has to take a well known figure and depict him as a recognizable caricature with a punch line that is to the point.

  Chattanooga’s Times Free Press has Bruce Plante, a very talented man with a pen, who draws clean cut illustrations and straight talking comment.  His work is syndicated.  He started a comic strip that almost reached greatest about kids in elementary school mimicking their elders with such occupations as the young shyster lawyer.

  From the “Yellow Kid” at the end of the 19th Century to the cartoon that’s brewing in some future cartoonist’s mind, we owe them a lot.  They have made us laugh.  They have made us think.  They have taught us morals and the difference in right and wrong, with the bad guy always getting his just deserts.  Through it all we were able to smile.

  So, instead of trying to get someone drunk to see what he or she is like, just hand them a newspaper and see how long it takes them to get to the comic section.