# What were "comedy" and "laughter" like 100+ years ago? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [July 6, 2023, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700 "2023-07-06T20:22:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/41 "2023-07-07T17:40:52Z")
Mr. Dooley, the character created by Peter Finlay Dunne, is still quoted today because his observations on politics are as true and funny as they were in 1890s, like the immortal “th’ supreme coort follows th’ iliction returns.” But they are written in such a thick Irish dialect that a sentence takes five minutes to traverse. And almost all the names and events are no longer remembered. Art Buchward has the same problem and he wrote into the 2000s. Dunne was followed by the first comic millionaire. His books went into dozens of printings. His pieces were syndicated in newspapers across the country. He made so much money that he went home to Indiana and built a mansion. Then he was rumored to have bought up all the neighboring land, in fact the entire county. The county was 400 sq. mi. Probably not true, but we’re talking _money_. His shtick was writing modern “Fables” satirizing the morals and foibles of the day. He did enough for a dozen books before moving on to other stuff. And he is so absolutely totally forgotten today that I’m going to put his name in spoilers and I’ll give a quatloo to anyone who doesn’t need to look. George Ade Twain is the exception. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/42 "2023-07-07T17:55:30Z")
This is the parody I always think of: > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DaKBXC0I3s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DaKBXC0I3s) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/43 "2023-07-07T18:10:01Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > And he is so absolutely totally forgotten today that I’m going to put his name in spoilers and I’ll give a quatloo to anyone who doesn’t need to look. > > George Ade I knew the name. I’m pretty sure that’s because I’ve seen it in crossword puzzles. If you want to be remembered, have a name that’s short and vowel-heavy. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/44 "2023-07-07T18:24:34Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > _National Lampoon_ parodied this in a fake letter to the editor from some drunk celeb (Larry Hagman?): > > 1. When I wake up, I’m so hung over I can’t stand up > 2. By noon, I can get up on my feet > 3. But by evening, I’m so drunk, I can’t count 1. When I wake up, I’m so hung over I can’t stand up 2. By noon, I can get up on my feet 3. But by evening, I’m so drunk, I can’t count :~) ETA: I’ve tried several ways to number the items above as 1, 2, 5 but it won’t let me. I guess the algo “corrects” and puts the 3 back in. Very strange. The joke intended was if I’m too drunk to count… [![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/680d320d-59fa-4e3f-b1da-24dc2a0ce7ad.png) ](https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/680d320d-59fa-4e3f-b1da-24dc2a0ce7ad.png) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/45 "2023-07-07T18:56:17Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But I was delighted to find that one of my grade school teacher’s assertion that ancient comedic material wasn’t really “funny” ("it just means it has a happy ending, she explained) wasn’t at all true. The word “comedy” just meant that it had a happy ending. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t have what we call comedy; they just had a different word for it. Though of course there was a lot of overlap between “funny stories” and “stories with a happy ending”, which lead to the drift in meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/46 "2023-07-07T19:45:39Z")
One quatloo to the Calvin & Hobbles fan. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/47 "2023-07-07T19:55:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The word “comedy” just meant that it had a happy ending. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t have what we call comedy; they just had a different word for it. Though of course there was a lot of overlap between “funny stories” and “stories with a happy ending”, which lead to the drift in meaning. That may be technically correct (Wikipedia agrees with that definition), but I’ve read a LOT of Greek and Roman plays (and even tried my hand at translating parts of them), and I can’t think of a single example of a “comedy” that is merely a play with a happy ending. The plays have outrageous plots filled with wordplay and jokes, and sometimes outrageous slapstick. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/48 "2023-07-07T20:31:23Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > As for earlier humor, I agree about Twain. (That’s not his only piece about Cooper, BTW. There’s also this –[http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/twain-coopers-prose-style.pdf](http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/twain-coopers-prose-style.pdf) ) A lot of Twain’s stuff is still funny. Heck, the man was known as a humorist. Try _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_ Read the original. This book hasn’t been appropriately adapted yet on TV or the movies. I had read the other Cooper critique many times, whenever I needed a sure laugh. Twain is absolutely sublime. I had not seen this one—fantastic. Agree re: _Connecticut Yankee._ Every adaption seems to miss the major point of the book. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/49 "2023-07-07T20:53:44Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > _Connecticut Yankee._ Every adaption seems to miss the major point of the book. To be fair, the book is kind of all over the place, with a tone that varies from lighthearted humor to adventure to dark and bleak. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/50 "2023-07-07T21:06:14Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > To be fair, the book is kind of all over the place, with a tone that varies from lighthearted humor to adventure to dark and bleak. I always thought the shift to “dark and bleak” was deliberate, Twain’s warning that an over-reliance on technology and progress presents dangers of their own. In the end, Hank is literally surrounded by death and defeated—by Merlin’s magic, no less! No extreme is reliable. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/51 "2023-07-07T22:35:12Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Every adaption seems to miss the major point of the book. Would you mind elaborating on that. I read the book decades ago but I think I remember the broad strokes. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/52 "2023-07-07T22:51:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Here’s what a modernized version looks like. [Another take.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzVyqiskpMk) Count me as another who finds Chaplin less than funny. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/53 "2023-07-07T23:01:36Z")
I don’t either although I appreciate him. I like the Marx Brothers somewhat and I do realize that it’s a different era. The Three Stooges on the other hand has never been funny to me, even as a child or adolescent when seemingly all of the other boys loved it. Slapstick has never appealed to me. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/54 "2023-07-07T23:29:50Z")
I probably should have said “points” rather than “point.” Throughout it’s a send-up of the romanticized stories of chivalry Twain found so amusing. The novel is peopled by largely obtuse nobles, lording over a kingdom of oppressed, grimy near slaves (and some actual slaves). So, it’s also a political commentary on class, and in particular the “logic” the ruling class employs to assert this is just as it should be. It also compares modern society’s technological advancements (and by extension, its pseudo-wisdom) to the backward Arthurian culture. On the surface, the modern Hank Morgan’s “reason” seems demonstrably superior, demolishing superstition and “magic” wherever he finds it. But Twain doesn’t stop there. This technology is not sufficient to create any kind of permanent change—it’s too rapid for a culture so primitive. More than that, its victories are pyrrhic. Hank scoffs at the superstitious savages, and places all his faith in his modern reason, a choice that finds him in the end surrounded by death and defeated by Merlin. Place your complete faith in any one thing at your peril. I read where Twain called Hank “an imbecile,” and I read one critic who speculated that Hank’s last name and Morgan le Fay’s first was a juxtaposition that was not coincidental. Two sides of the same coin. So, in summary, Twain as usual is a wonderful storyteller who simultaneously, almost without the reader realizing it, explores a number of interesting themes. The Bing Crosby flick does NOT do it justice. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2023, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/55 "2023-07-07T23:40:19Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > _National Lampoon_ parodied this in a fake letter to the editor from some drunk celeb (Larry Hagman?): > > 1. When I wake up, I’m so hung over I can’t stand up > 2. By noon, I can get up on my feet > 3. But by evening, I’m so drunk, I can’t count This reminds me, for some reason, of a very humorous segment from Herman Melville. Not a man known for his comedy. In Bartelby, the Scrivener, the boss of an office is way too accommodating and forgiving…and non-confrontational. He has one worker who is so hungover every day, he does nothing before lunch. The other worker gets drunk at lunch daily and is useless in the afternoon. Between the two men, he one whole worker. Over 100 years old and a pretty cute and funny situation. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/56 "2023-07-08T00:28:35Z")
One of my high school teachers always spent time each year riffing on Twain’s Cooper exegesis as a treat. I know I loved it. There was a Silent Movie Theater near Melrose on Fairfax that I used to go with friends in high school. They showed a wide variety of things, but they always had a bunch of shorts. I roared at the Chaplin ones. He was much more anarchic in the shorts than in his feature length movies where he sometimes dived head first into the schmaltz. But my heart belonged to Keaton. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/57 "2023-07-08T00:30:43Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > One of my high school teachers always spent time each year riffing on Twain’s Cooper exegesis as a treat. I know I loved it. It is just a joke, though, right? He didn’t actually view Cooper’s writing as negatively as he pretended to in the writing. Right? ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/58 "2023-07-08T00:35:13Z")
Cooper was not a good writer. I don’t think Twain quite hated him, but he was definitely outing him as the hack he was. ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/59 "2023-07-08T03:52:18Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > ETA: I’ve tried several ways to number the items above as 1, 2, 5 but it won’t let me. I guess the algo “corrects” and puts the 3 back in. Very strange. The joke intended was if I’m too drunk to count… 1. Type a 1, followed by \, then the . 2. Continue the list normally. 5. Three sir! ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700/60 "2023-07-08T12:47:01Z")
When John Wilkes Booth shot and killed Abraham Lincoln, he waited for the funniest line of the play, Our American Cousin, since the laughter would drown out the noise of the shot. What was the line? > [@](#): > > _Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap._ I believe that much of humor is timeless, but I think something is lost in translation over the centuries. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-comedy-and-laughter-like-100-years-ago/986700.md?page=4)