IT’S DIFFICULT to imagine any American of any age who has not heard the phrase “But seriously, folks.” Of course, it’s also difficult to imagine any American of any age who doesn’t want to personally blow the head off of every prisoner in Guantanamo, but never mind that now. “But seriously, folks” was the phrase of choice directly following uncountable trillions of jokes said out loud in America over the last hundred years. In burlesque and vaudeville houses both high and low; in theaters and night clubs; from Smith and Dale and the Marx Brothers through Berle, Hackett, King, and all their wonderful brothers; even up through Klein, Brenner, Dangerfield, and into my generation of joke-tellers, that phrase has probably been uttered over the years as much as “I love you,” or even what I believe to be the most-used sentence in human history: “Can we get another round here, please?”
It’s an ironic phrase, though, because after telling what was (hopefully) a terrific joke, the comic who said, “But seriously, folks,” was disclaiming himself, in effect saying to his audience, “Gee, I’m sorry I had to momentarily mislead you with such pointless frivolity. Now let’s get back to something weighty.” I know I’m biased, having spent a good deal of my life trying to make people laugh on stage and screen, but I really can’t imagine a loftier goal. Of course, that’s not the view of most people, especially in my business. Comedies virtually never win Oscars, and the only reason they win Emmys and Golden Globes is because there’s a special category for them called, oddly enough, “Comedies.” I know there’s bad comedy out there. (I’ll bet you know that, too.) And maybe I have chauvinistic tendencies (maybe?), but whether broad or subtle, visual or textual, good comedy contains every valuable element present in all of entertainment. For sheer weight, depth, truth, and even drama, I’ll take “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” over “American Beauty” anytime.
And yet the funny people disclaim: “But seriously, folks.” The opposite never occurs. Dour, consumed, all-is-sorrow types over the years have never felt the urge to follow an existential reflection with, “Anyway, just to lighten things up a bit, folks.” Part of this is a matter of ego. Grande artistes tend to think they’re, well, grande artistes, and I believe they enjoy walking through life as wounded poets, if only because it goes over so well with young women who are working out tremendous amounts of hostility against their fathers. Well, chalk one up for serious people.
But, you see in all of American life there has, for a long time, been a battle of sorts to define what is serious and what is not, and all the wrong people are consistently winning. No matter how stupid, wrongheaded, or immoral some of our leaders and representatives have been over the years, if they can affect an appearance of troubled thoughtfulness when they address our problems, if they speak in a measured way, if they look around and nod with gravity, and if they use coy, calculated gestures–biting a lower lip, say–they will always be considered “serious” people, and there’s no telling how far they can go. And I just don’t get it. P.J. O’Rourke has created some of the most immensely funny things in the history of immensely funny things, and I consider his work to be wise, large, insightful, and practical; in short, serious.
The problem for me, you see, is that I don’t know what to call the “serious” people of today, because I don’t think they are. When Mr. Daschle holds forth on our war effort, everyone thinks he’s serious, he certainly thinks he’s serious, but all I see behind those unblinking blue eyes is a man thinking, “Boy, I sure would look good stepping off that big, green helicopter and saluting.” The “support” Messrs. Daschle, Leahy, Biden, et al. have given to our war effort has the same sincerity of the wrestling bad guy who spends two minutes gouging the face of his opponent with an awl and then, when confronted by the referee, slips the iron into his shorts and holds up his hands like a Vegas dealer going on his break.
The reason I don’t think the men I just named are serious people is that I don’t believe they are motivated by ideology. I respect ideology even when I disagree with it, but in order to have one you need a sincere passion beyond knowing the middle name of every reporter who covers you. Folks on the hard left have an ideology. You know, the ones who insist that whatever hurts we suffered on September 11, they are dwarfed by the terrible things we have done to the world in the past. Well, I think they’re wrong–and suicidal, by the way, which is okay by me, except now their pathologies are threatening the rest of us. Thank God the size of their ranks is somewhere between those who believe Elvis is still alive and the total number of people who have ever owned a Citroen. Come to think of it, you never see those two groups together, do you? Hmmm . . .
Anyway, I just can’t stand the faux-serious people anymore. I saw Bill Moyers on Tim Russert’s show the other day and watched him thoughtfully aver that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between religious American Christians and Islamic fundamentalists, and no one said anything, and I thought, Would someone please punch this clueless blanker-blanker in the nose?
So here’s what I’m proposing. If this pinhead platoon doesn’t have the decency to disclaim themselves and their goofy statements, I say we do it for them. As Mr. Bush and his team of truly serious people lead our magnificent soldiers around the world in the most important responsibility since World War II, let’s take some pressure off of them and put the stupid people of America in their proper places. If our press won’t make this comment for us (and they won’t), we have the technology to do it ourselves. Some smart guys somewhere ought to be able to invent a device that can be attached to any TV and used by remote. And the next time Ted Turner compares John Ashcroft to bin Laden, you just push a button and a computer chip in the cable box will move his lips like Mr. Ed and force him to say, “But seriously, folks.”
Yes, imagine the hours of laughter and relaxation you and your family will enjoy, finally being able to have the kind of quality programming you could once only dream of. What’s that? The head of the Airport Commission is telling Action News that grandmothers in their eighties must have cavity searches or it’s profiling? Blip. “But seriously, folks.”
And don’t think you’re limited only to our idiots. Use it internationally! Yasser Arafat shakes hands with the vice president and tells the world he wants peace? Blip. “But seriously, folks.” (What an added treat to force those handsome lips of his to move, huh? You betcha. And an even deeper irony since virtually every comic in history who’s ever said the phrase has been Jewish.) And it doesn’t have to be an issue of war and peace. Have fun with even the dumbest trends in American life! Your local school board has voted to ban dodge ball? Blip. “But seriously, folks.”
Of course, since this technology would be in its infancy, we’d be limited to just “But seriously, folks.” It wouldn’t be long, though, before the options could include full, pre-programmed speeches of your choice. Think of it. The next time Mr. Daschle steps up to the mike and draws a breath to speak, you hit the pause button, stroll over to your bar, pour yourself a tall glass of something brown and strong (Well, it’s my fantasy, isn’t it?), and sit back down for some real pleasure. Blip.
“My colleagues and I have put ourselves through extensive and traditional Freudian analysis and realized we’re consumed with envy, self-hate, and a deep fear of being in the right. In addition, we’ve found God and come to understand the value of Old Testament justice over New Age compassion. In short, we apologize to our fellow citizens for being in the way. It won’t happen again. And as a small gesture towards making things right, we just strangled Helen Thomas.”
But don’t stop there. Switch over to Al Jazeera, wait for the first Arab leader to come on, hit pause again (another tall one), and bask in the light of truth. Blip.
“We’re going to kill every Jew in the world. Then every American. No reason for this except we’re animals, and we really love it.”
But seriously, folks. Very, very seriously.
Larry Miller is a contributing humorist to The Daily Standard and a writer, actor, and comedian living in Los Angeles.
