The Laugh Club

Cafe Society
1

Imagine a book club which offered a new book of humor every other month for a year. The books will be sent right to you but cost less than the regular trade editions even though they are absolutely identical. The authors are all famous names. The titles cover all aspects of humor: anthologies, collections, comic novels. Doesn’t that sound great?

It existed. Called The Laugh Club it got national attention when announced in 1932. Cheap fun stuff in the middle of the Depression! How could that go wrong?

It went wrong. So wrong that it’s been totally erased from modern memory. What kind of obsessive would spend six months trying to resurrect every mention from every database?

Me. I’ve written apparently the only account ever, except for half a paragraph in John Tebbel’s A History of Book Publishing in the United States, released more than a half century ago. The story is so weird and the memory loss is so overwhelming that it was perfect for my Great Forgotten Humorists website.

Don’t ask silly questions like: why would anybody want to read about The Laugh Club? I had to write about it. I made it as entertaining as possible and loaded it with images so people can just skip the words if they choose. It would make me very happy if any other human being read the piece, but even if not, my inner peace is now satisfied, and what else is the internet for?

2

Many congrats on authoring that - it sounds delightful!

3

Admirable. Appropriately, for a piece about a long forgotten humor book club, it is laugh out loud funny on occasion. And right off the bat it is informative. So that’s what the sliced bread in that idiom is.

I have always thought that the best indication that any factual writing is well written is that you find yourself continuing to read it, all the while aware that you aren’t really going to recall any of the specifics for long.

4

Thanks, both of you.

I labored over the writing to get that sense of fun and lightness rather than a collection of dusty facts. Glad that you think it was successful.

5

Before I finished scrolling down to the bottom of the page, I was sure the WWI cartoon drawn by Bruce Bairnsfather actually contained Bill Mauldin’s Willie and Joe.

In his book The Trouble with Tribbles, author David Gerrold admits he may have been influenced by Ellis Parker Butler’s “Pigs Is Pigs” when writing that episode of Star Trek.

6

Very enjoyable read.

7

I admit that I instantly went to Tribbles when I read the story.