American Humor

     I haven't done a  lot of research into humor around the rest of the world. This topic is one of those searches that give too many answers to learn anything universal by Google, Bing, Dogpile or DuckDuckGo. So I will have to go with my own observations of the evolution of humor in my particular lifetime.

     My starting premise is from the Bible; "When I was a child, I thought as a child.." This was the era of  innocence like knock-knock jokes we sometimes can't forget even when we want to. Next cane cruelty jokes. Children and adolescents liked them. I think because they hadn't developed a repugnance toward pain in other people. When people grew up they lost their sense of humor in the disabled, but retained a sense of amusement toward themselves. I worked with a man who had lost two fingers. As he typed with his remaining three, he looked up at me and said "hire the handicapped, they're fun to watch" as he laughed at himself.

     In the middle of the century puritanism took over movies, printed matter, radio and television. Henry Miller was all the rage with "Tropic of Cancer" that defied all the no-no's. The Hayes Office controlled film with iron fisted rules. You can't show two genders in a double bed. George Carlin, a comedian, listed the seven filthy words you couldn't say on the airwaves. Now they are often heard in mainstream media.   Pornography was only seen in smoke filled back rooms at conventions and lodge meetings.

      With the advances in maturity and new devices like the digital cameras, digital computers and the internet, people demanded more realism in media. Sugar coated shows like "Leave it to Beaver" fell out of favor replaced by shows like "Baywatch" which was really soft core nudity and bottomed out with "America's funniest videos" featured by what I call banana peel humor. A man slipping on a banana peel and busting his butt was as funny as a child on a tricycle running into a brick wall. Or so  the funny video people would have us believe. Yet millions watch  and anticipate each new disaster that befalls every participant in this contest show.

      Where did we jump the tracks in this latest time period. Something went wrong with American humor. Hopefully we can move in some new direction fairly soon.