Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-06-23

wells OF glee Will pursue MN. GU nave seen
those small imitation tacks made OF rubber
Exhibit one, put it on chair, ask stranger
to sit down-and everybody who IS in on
the Joke will scream with mirth. Try it with
real tack, and everybody will take on
serious face and will want to keep the man
from sitting down.
What Makes Humor Live
GO far, so good. Now, to make your audi
~ ence want to come back to see you do
such things, it is essential that you give the
man who is poking his finger into the other
mans eve motive. Motive makes sucn
bumor live. How did we analyze it. Look
at Table Number One. We decided that
human nature, while it does not like to see
enemies fight, does, curiously and paradox
callv enough, like to see friends fight. Human
nature loves the unusual the cranky, the
contradiction. A civil war arouses nifty
times the amount of patriotism IN each
half of a nation that war with an outside
enemy does in the whole nation united. 1t
really shouldn't.
In the matter of humor, take two men,
strangers Throw them into an argument
over some small, silly subject; let us say. tor
example. the color of a certain dogs hair.
One SAYS it is light brown the other bets 1t
is dark brown. They wager, get hot under
the collar, argue, fight. 1t is a serious fight.
Take two friends, put them into the same
position, and the fight becomes ridiculous.
Clash of oppostes is ugly: clash OF like
minds and persons is just plaln downright
funny. If two men who believe with all their
hearts in Roosevelt get into an argument
about Roosevelt, that's funny. 1t one be-
lieves in Taft and the other IN Roosevelt,
that's serious. So we figured it out that both
Of us would play the roles OF fast friends who
always got into arguments over nothng.
That-again paradoxically the mo-
tive Certainly no motive can be funner
than motive that seeks to convince another
that what he already firmly believes IS true.
You read and call this nonsense. we
write and admit it is nonsense; but It IS the
nonsense of human nature. What IS more
nonsensical in human nature, tor example,
than the strange element within us that
makes us laugh at a man with bad cold
telling friend with bad cold what Will
cure him, while the second man tells the first
man he doesn't know what he's talking
about, because it is really So and Sos rem
edv that will cure him (the first mani? That
neither knows what he is talking about
makes it all the more laughable. The motive
in their quarrel is sheer friendship one for the
other-yet we guffaw. We ought to feel
sorry because both men are quite Ill; but
human nature does not let US.
What is more nonsensical in human ma
ture, for instance, than that IN us which
makes us stand by and laugh at the spectacle
of two deeply intoxicated men arguing long
and loud on what the moon is made of, and
coming to blows over it, when we know we
ought to go to their rescue'' The motives,
beyond the innate motive that propels friend
against friend, in these arguments is nothing
The men with the colds know in their hearts
that they must both be on the wrong cure
track; but they argue, anyway. The IN
toxicated men, being out of their heads,
argue about nothing. And there you are!
Take the mind out of argument, and make
the motive mouth versus mouth and human
nature in its studio will say "Nonsense!" but
outside its studio will laugh until its sides
ache The funny thing about human nature
is that it is always off its guard. 1t thinks it
is very wise, very smart, when it sits down at
its desk and calmly, coolly thinks things
over: but the moment it stops its introspec-
ton it is as weak and susceptible as jelly
fish and a telephone receiver off the hook.
If our deductions do not seem to be suf-
ficiently "deep" or scientific" to you, re-
member that they had no such elaborate
goal in mind. We set out to make money
by doping OUT human natures weakest
laughing spots. That was all. We realized
that our comedy Of the early days was not
HITTING the h,llSeye. we wanted ro become