In today’s post to his blog, Jack’s Winning Words, Pastor Freed used this Cloris Leachman quote – “When something is truly funny, it’s funny all the time.”
When something is funny, we think of laughter and one is reminded of the quote – “Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, but cry and you cry alone.”
A person’s sense of humor is as unique as their fingerprints. Different things tickle the funny bone of each individual. I think that Cloris was trying to point out that truly funny things are not only funny to us all of the time, but that they are funny to all of us. There are those who find the misfortunes of others to be humorous. That is actually the humor behind the prat fall, which has been a staple of humor routines forever.
Who doesn’t watch America’s Funniest Videos without knowing that somewhere in the collection of videos for that show someone on the night’s show is going to taka tumble that we will think is funny. But, not everyone laughs at that misfortune. Some are concerned for the safety and health of the person taking the fall. The show usually assures us that the person was OK after the tumble.
I think that example may serve to illustrate a point that I believe Leachman was trying to make. Something is truly funny if we can laugh with someone and not at someone.
I remember in some of the comedy routines that he would do on his show that Red Skelton would find the routine he was doing to be so funny that he would start laughing himself. The same thing often happened on the Carol Burnett show when both Carole and Harvey Korman would find something that Tim Conway was doing to be so funny that they could not keep themselves from laughing. We could all laugh along with them and those sketches.
What makes you laugh? Do you ever feel guilty later about laughing at someone instead of with them? Do you find that incident funny after you’ve had time to think about it? Remember that laughing at the misfortune of others just means that in the end, the last laugh is on you. And that’s not funny.
Try laughing with the world and you won’t end up crying all alone later.
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