BCM (Barbara's Classic Movies)

The following short comedies are not from the '30's or 40's, they're from 2001 and 2009, and I doubt very much they're "classics" but they are fun. After all this time, they still make me smile. I hope my mini film fest makes you smile too. I'm posting the videos in the order they were filmed - "One of Those Places," (about 20 minutes), "The Bench" (15 minutes), and "Jack and Thalia" (3 minutes).

One of Those Places

The Bench

Jack and Thalia

Candy Canes & Apes

Archaeologists have discovered two teeth from 9.7 million years ago. The teeth belonged to a great ape (can’t a gentler appellation be found for a beings who took such marvelous care of their teeth?). The following is an archaeologist’s description of one of the teeth when asked what an almost 10-million-year-old tooth looks like. “It’s perfectly preserved. It actually looks like a new excellent tooth; however, it’s no longer white. It’s shining like amber.” I can almost imagine these teeth resting on dark velvet in Tiffany’s.

I could have enjoyed several world cruises with the money I’ve spent on dental work over the years – a cap for a tooth broken on a candy cane; several root canals; a bite guard to prevent teeth grinding (TMJ). The last two treated by an orthodontist. His office is the one with the Ferrari parked outside. Great apes didn’t munch candy canes, grind their teeth because of office supervisors or ex-spouses, or have money woes about dental bills but surely, they had other stresses. And yet, their “perfect” and “shining” teeth exist.

Americans spend over $100 billion dollars a year on dental care and we’re still losing our teeth. What dental hygiene secrets did the great apes possess? And more importantly, what toothpaste did they use?




Image: © Marietjie Opperman/Dreamstime.com

Saturday Morning Live

It isn’t easy to laugh when the U.S. president confuses his executive power with the divine right of kings in 17^th century England and France but thanks to Saturday Night Live it is possible. In "History of the World: Part 1" Mel Brooks says "It's good to be the king" and it certainly was for monarchs in ye olden days as they didn't answer to anyone on the planet earth.

Most of us with a television and a sense of humor have seen the SNL sketches with Alec Baldwin’s ongoing devastating and pitch perfect impression of the president, and Melissa McCarthy’s brilliant impersonation of press secretary Sean Spicer where she focuses more on Spicer’s anger management issues than his personal arrogance. The show’s parody of “Fatal Attraction” where Kate McKinnon plays the movie’s bunny-boiling psycho, and also Beck Bennett’s portrayal of Jake Tapper, was criticized by some as too mean. Humorists laugh at themselves but satirists laugh at others. Satire is often mean, and political satire can be especially mean. Recalling President Truman’s classic line, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” I had no problem with the skit’s meanness but I did have a problem with its attempt to make threatening someone with a knife funny. Still, the very end of the skit where the Conway character dies, and then reanimates Frankenstein style, was hilarious.

Sometimes a sketch can be too true to be too funny as in the SNL People’s Court sketch where Cecily Strong, playing a Judge scolds the president played by Baldwin, “You’re doing too much, okay? I want one day without a CNN alert that scares the hell out of me!” Since the election, I wake up each morning thinking Who is the president going to harm today?

Every time the president obsessed about the missing people (missing because they didn’t actually exist) in the photograph of the inauguration day crowd, I thought of the scene from “The Caine Mutiny” when poor Captain Queeg goes bat shit crazy right before our eyes about those damn missing strawberries. Watching the president’s last press conference, scenes from two other movies occurred to me. The Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz" doing a happy dance and singing “If I Only Had a Brain,” and those famous words of Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" as she was escorted to the funny farm, “I have always been dependent on the kindness of journalists.”

Holiday Sale of Ebook Edition of Mirror Talk

Mirror Talk, my award-winning memoir is on sale now through January. Only $0.99 in the US. Click here to purchase a copy. And Happy Holidays!

Byron and Bugs Bunny

This post was first published on July 17, 2011. I'm presently participating in a poetry massive open online course (MOOC) and recently, the emphasis was on comedy so I thought I'd repost this. I hope to get back to blogging before too long.


I woke up this morning thinking more about humor. I suppose this is Part II of "What's So Funny," only it's "Why do some things stay funny?" Chaplin's swallowing the whistle scene in his 1931 comedy "City Lights" is hilarious now - eighty years later. I grew up watching the Looney Tunes super star with the Brooklyn accent, Bugs Bunny, and when it comes to comedy, I too am asking, "What's up doc?" Although the wise-cracking, carrot-chomping Bugs never stole my heart, I remember him and his cartoon cronies Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester, and Tweety Bird. Tweety did steal my child heart - I liked the little canary with the big eyes who was occasionally a meanie but always a smartie.

To go from the ridiculous rabbit to sublime wit, I reread Byron's long poem called "The Vision of Judgment" satirizing Robert Southey's poem "Vision of Judgment" and Southey's turncoat politics. But it wasn't the political satire I remembered after decades, it was the two devastatingly attractive angelic aristocrats, Saint Michael and Satan; Saint Peter's keys being rusty because it had been so long since they were used to open the gates of heaven; and, the over-burdened recording angel who keeps track of mankind's sins, needing additional support staff to stay current with the workload. I suspect comedy that lasts, really lasts, is about the human condition not a political environment. I also suspect satire, especially political satire, doesn't last as long as pure comedy because political agendas are often short-lived. 

Shakespeare addresses the human condition and politics with ease, skill, and ineffable wit. Vain and pompous Malvolio is remembered not because of his politics but because he is comical. "Bedazzled," the 1967 comedy written by and starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore is hilarious now not because of the swipes it takes at British politics but because it is the age old story of the lovable schlemiel fumbling at love. The satire in Tina Fey's television show "30 Rock," is incisive and funny but its large dose of politics limits its longevity. Comedy and political satire are often sidekicks but they are two different things. It seems to me comedy accepts human frailties but satire ridicules them. And in comedy, the guy is slipping on a banana peel not a Republican or Democratic ticket.

A television comedy that is totally original and funny is "Raising Hope" created by Greg Garcia. It's about struggle, survival, love, fear, and hope - ye 'ole human condition. It does not suggest who we ought to vote for in the coming political election. I find some of it offensive -- ridiculing the great grandmother's dementia -- but most of the humor is splendid. Splendid seems like an odd word applied to a sit-com about a cynical cleaning woman, her not terribly bright handyman husband, and their naive son who had a one-night stand with a serial-killer that resulted in the birth of his daughter named Hope. Without any political banners, this show has plenty to say about social justice and the lack of it. And maybe that's its secret, social relevance with a touch so light it's hardly noticeable but definitely there.

When I think of truly unforgettable comedians, I think of Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, John Cleese, and Sid Caesar. There are some great Monty Python, Sid Caesar, and other comedy sketches on YouTube. Why not browse through some of them. I recommend the Monty Python clip called "Spanish Inquisition" and "Argument to Beethoven's 5th" with Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray, but only if you like to hear yourself laughing out loud.

What's So Funny?

This post was first published on July, 1, 2011.

A former television comic amasses a fortune by cranking out movies apparently targeted to twelve year olds crazy about bodily function jokes. Proving greed is not limited to corporate executives, extremely gifted actors opt for yet another comic book movie franchise. Apparently, it really is "all about the money." If only it were about the craft -- whether writing or acting -- once again. A television commercial from years ago that was funny had an elderly woman in a fast food restaurant open her hamburger bun, look inside and ask, "Where's the beef?" In today's comedy, where is the wit? Where are the sight gags? Where are the puns?

Comedy is more difficult than tragedy as it is easier to be weepy than witty. But what makes a book, a play, or a movie funny? Why are fart jokes in "The Canterbury Tales" and "Blazing Saddles" so funny and so un-funny in contemporary sausage factory cinema? Why are Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, the Marx brothers, Peter Sellers, Steve Martin, and Woody Allen always funny? What's so funny about them?

In her wonderful book "The Craft of Comedy," the late English comedienne Athene Seyler reveals three elements of comedy -- opposites, exaggeration, and surprise. Recall Oscar and Felix in Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple;" the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" during the crucifixion scene in Monty Python's "Life of Brian;" Woody Allen's character in "Sleeper" cryogenically preserved for two hundred years, along with his horn rimmed glasses -- in Reynolds Wrap; and, any scene in the 1938 classic comedy "Bringing Up Baby." I don't want to sound like Deuteronomy in the musical "Cats," always pining for the old days, especially since "the old days" aren't even mine, they belong to my parents. But you only have to watch the old comedies of filmmakers Ernst Lubitsch and Preston Sturges to see what we are missing in the new ones. Paraphrasing H.L. Mencken's "One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms," one horse laugh is worth ten thousand failed attempts at humor.

Irresistible Impulse Write-Up

Thank you LitVote for this nice write-up on my collection of humorous short stories called Irresistible Impulse and Other Short Stories.

April Foolishness

Thank you to my friend Carla Sarett for posting an excerpt from my memoir Mirror Talk on her blog. You can read it and other humorous pieces by clicking here. Why not begin your day or evening with a smile?

Snark Attack

Recently, I got my first snarky one star book review on Amazon, something to the effect that Mirror Talk isn't much of a novel. Memoirs seldom are. If a book has received dozens of excellent reviews and a very small number of blatantly vicious one star reviews, I suspect something fishy is going on. While it's true "in matters of taste, there can be no dispute," in matters of one star reviews, certain suspicions inevitably surface.

A quick perusal of one star reviews reveals they fall into two very different types of reviews. In the more common, the reviewers almost always acknowledge they did not finish reading the book. Presumably it offended their aesthetic ideal and they simply could not read on. Many of these one star reviews are also one sentence. It does seem if an author can put together an entire book, the reviewer of the book ought to be able to string several sentences together and form a short paragraph. The second type of review is the opposite from the one sentence wonder. It is a long essay, and unlike the former, is very literate (both semi-colons and quotations marks are placed correctly). It is in fact so well-written, it is downright writerly and I can't help wondering if these well-structured and vicious one star reviews are written by rivals of the author of the book. Recall the "sock puppet" scandal where writers created fake accounts to praise their own books and trash the books of other writers. Admittedly, I didn't read too many of these reviews as meanspiritedness offends my aesthetic ideal.

Who are these people? I imagine the one sentencer sitting at a desktop computer (this person couldn't figure out how to use the mouse on a laptop), wearing undies, a six pack of cold beer nestled beside the computer screen (probably the reason the book was not finished), typing madly and rather excitedly away as earlier that day this individual learned how to do spellcheck. The essayist reviewer however, is wearing a Ralph Lauren robe and sipping a glass of Absolut vodka between paragraphs. Both reviewers are barefoot and wiggle their toes when they type something particularly unkind. Or perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps many of these reviewers are fully clothed non-drinkers living an almost monk-like existence who interrupt the bookish quietude of their daily lives only occasionally to write a truly ratty review.

I had a very singular dream last night. In it, I owned only one earring, one blouse, one skirt, one sock, one shoe, and to my dog's dismay, there was one dog treat and when I looked out the window at the early morning sky, I saw only one star. How foolish!

Illustration: "Sharks," Copyright © Ivan Rozhkov/Dreamstime.com

A Touch of Comedy

I'm re-posting this short video (from quite a while ago) because I had insomnia last night and because I like it. I hope you enjoy meeting a sleepy playwright and his muse. The video is called "Jack and Thalia" and it's on YouTujbe.