Pie Fights Are Hilarious!

Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind. - E. B. White

I have never laughed at a pie fight.  But they are, in theory, hilarious.  It is a ridiculous behavior.  The problem is that it had become old hat long before most of us were born.  It is seen therefor as something that does in fact happen, if only (or primarily) in fiction.  An element of comedy is the unexpected.  Pie fights do not have this element.  But the first pie fight did.  And arguably, the first pie fight each of us saw did as well.  However, we were likely exposed to this first pie fight when we were too young to recognize the absurdity of the act, and it therefor went into our experience as one more thing that happens.  Even if we are unable to see it as behavior that makes any sense.

Things that are at first unexpected, become expected after they have been experienced.  Particularly after they have been experienced over and over again, as seeing a pie fight has been by most people.  We look back at what previous generations thought was funny, and sometimes we ourselves laugh, but probably when we see something either unique or which never really entered the public sphere in a general enough way as to become 'one more thing that happens' to us.  Even where we do not have a visceral reaction and laugh spontaneously, we often have an appreciation of the artifice of the comedy we are viewing and perhaps see it with a respect, but also detachment; like this absurdly dry dissection of pie fights.

In other words, everything we think of as being of the group of things we consider the funniest we’ve encountered in our life of experience is becoming less funny as time goes on.  Only in not catching on in its own time can something remain funny in the visceral sense to moderately educated and experienced people in a society at a later time.  And then, not as much to any small group that had enjoyed the work in its own time or the intervening time between then and the time when the work became appreciated on a fuller scale.

Monty Python is less funny every day.  So is George Carlin, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Big Lebowski, Richard Pryor, Airplane!, Lenny Bruce, Abbott & Costello, etc.  Once the ways in which these things communicate to us becomes well-trodden, they seem just like another way people communicate ideas and are no longer viscerally funny, even if we can appreciate the craft, cleverness, and even brilliance evident in them.

This is kind of awesome in a way.  Comedy is often a way of expressing frustrations.  As particular examples of comedy become accepted by large groups, those frustrations are being addressed.  So, we get to keep upping the ante.  We have to keep trying to look for ways to make things funny, express remaining frustration.  I suppose over the years, with more and more recorded instances of comedy in books, plays, movies, television, DVDs, and comedy albums, we will also always have a new place to explore and keep our wits sharpened and engaged even when we are not expanding the parameters of comedy.  (Though, someone somewhere is always expanding the parameters.  It's a matter of finding and/or recognizing instances.)  And maybe there will be (or what the Hell do I know, I'm sure there have been) periodic revivals of dormant communicative methods of comedy.  And certain things, like wordplay, are evergreen.  Though the specific executions required to exact a response seems contingent in the way the rest of this post describes.

I have no idea what I’m talking about.  My reading and viewing are limited.  Everyone’s is to one extent or another.  Sometimes something is viscerally hilarious centuries later, like A Modest Proposal, which to me feels like it could be a piece on The Daily Show today.  Obviously it’s a well-known piece, but I guess it is mainly within certain circles.  Maybe with the level or type of satire currently popular, it will get defanged soon enough.

In any case, hey, don’t fear dementia in old age.  Pie fights will be fucking hilarious again!


Also, sodomy.