DEATH OF A COMEDIAN
October 12, 2004
by Joe Sobran
In the middle of a pretty humorless presidential
campaign, we had to lose Rodney Dangerfield. Dang.
I first saw him on the old ED SULLIVAN SHOW in the
late 1960s. His style of comedy was already
old-fashioned: nonstop one-liners, many about his wife
and kids, hard-luck stories and insults. He added a great
new twist to the old formula, though: He was the butt of
his own insults.
In those days, Don Rickles had just made a hit by
taking the insult to new heights; but he softened his act
with occasional smiles to show it was all a joke, folks.
Dangerfield never flashed an ingratiating smile; he was
insulting himself, and there would be no apologies --
just implacable self-depreciation.
Humor is an elusive thing. The best joke will fall
flat with some people, and the dumbest joke may bring
down the house. It's hard to rate comedians. All you can
say is that every time Dangerfield appeared on
television, you could feel an earthquake of laughter.
Soon his signature line -- "I tell you, I don't get no
respect" -- was a catchphrase, coast-to-coast. It now
looks to be an immortal joke.
But he wasn't just telling jokes; he was playing a
character, a sore loser who felt, as we all do at times,
that he wasn't getting his due -- while showing us =why=
he was a loser. He wasn't a beautiful loser, either: "My
psychiatrist told me I'm going crazy. I said, 'If you
don't mind, I'd like a second opinion.' He says, 'All
right -- you're ugly too!'"
That was Dangerfield's world, a world where your
shrink steps out of his therapeutic role to destroy
whatever is left of your fragile ego, where every social
encounter ended in crushing discouragement. It had
started early: "When I was born, I was so ugly the doctor
slapped my mother." He made being ugly -- bulky and
frog-eyed -- part of the act, turning the mud of
humiliation into pay dirt. He made the imaginary Rodney
Dangerfield (real name: Jacob Cohen) into a character
almost as beloved as Charlie Chaplin's nameless Little
Tramp.
The real Dangerfield must have had resources,
though. Despite early failures, he persisted in the very
tough business of standup comedy, where a stony audience
can quickly teach you the meaning of "flop sweat." I once
quoted a hilarious line to a large crowd, and the ensuing
silence has been matched, in my experience, only at
well-attended funerals, with the difference that the
corpse being stared at doesn't usually turn beet-red.
It takes a special kind of courage, as well as
talent, to make a living telling jokes. Dangerfield's
secret was that he appealed to our sympathy. He exposed
his dread of failure right in front of us. He'd already
failed in life, and he made the most of it. But he didn't
ask for our pity: he was indignant! And that was the best
part of the joke: When a lesser loser might have resorted
to self-improvement courses or cosmetic surgery, he
wasn't about to change. He was determined to keep on
losing, so he could keep on griping.
Psychoanalysts tell us that humor is a form of
aggression. My own view is that psychoanalysis is a form
of aggression for humorless people. The funniest writer
of the twentieth century, or any other century I can
think of, was probably P.G. Wodehouse, whose humor was
remarkably gentle and chaste. He could even make a
hilarious compliment: "My dear, you look like Helen of
Troy after a good facial!"
Of course it's easy to praise humor, since nobody is
overtly anti-humorous. The problem is that some people
are humorless, and there's no arguing with them. Refusing
to laugh is like refusing to extend sympathy: It can't be
forced. You can't =prove= something is funny.
Humorlessness is irrefutable. But so is humor. And if you
can't laugh at yourself, you're missing half the fun of
life.
I love a good laugh, but sometimes I find myself the
humorless one. DON QUIXOTE has, for four centuries, made
countless readers laugh helplessly, and is widely hailed
as the funniest novel ever written. But every time I try
to read it, I find myself wondering, "When do I get to
the funny part?"
That doesn't mean Cervantes isn't funny. It probably
means I'm like a tone-deaf man listening to Handel. I'm
up against the laughter of millions.
But never let it be said that I failed to laugh at
Rodney Dangerfield. I've been doing it for nearly 40
years, with a brief sad pause last week.
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