The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1919-11-23

society. The chairman took him aside
beforehand and said.
Now, Mr.. Wilder, our audience is very
refined and cultured and we want you
to give us something new and original.
Don't spring any ichestnuts. We are all
subtle out here. Give us rare humor."
Very WE'LL" said Mr. Wilder. His en-
tertainment was divided into two parts.
During the first part he confined himself
to purely literary humor-the kind that
you sit back quietly and null over and
enjoy because you have time to think
it out.
Mr.. Wilder didn't raise a laugh When
the first part was over the chairman
who was responsible for the entertain
ment-was frantic with disappointment
You would have it," said Wilder, but
don't worry. The evening is young yet
Now let me have my own way" And so
he brought out ali the old favorites-
the mother-in-law, the husband who
comes home late, his old standby the
tramp the lover who tears out of the
house with the bulldog firmly entrenched
| in the seat of his trousers-and the high
I brows fell off their seats.
| On the same principle, when the
movies came in, and it was desirable to
| be funny, it was necessary to resurrect
the settler water bottle from its revered
place on the comic stage where it had
I held the spotlight for many years. And
/
| it's principal feature the spectacle of one
man squirting the contents of a setter
water bottle over another. Then some
! one began to produce variations OF tnr-
| idea, still keeping to it's fundamental
principles Charlie Chaplin did it by
/ scuirinting water out of his mouth. Then
somebody else turned a hose on some
one else This called attention to the
possibilities of plumbing, and we had
pipes springing leaks and flooding houses
| full of people. The basic idea was al
ways the Same, but, oh, the variety!
Similarly somebody discovered that II
one man knocked another over the head
with a rubber mallet and the other man
closed his eyes, swayed around little
and dropped flat, that would always pro-
duce roars of laughter. So now the rub
Der mallet has come to be as much
permanency of the movies as the mother
in-law has of professional humor.
|. Ard the receipt for writing professional
humor is always the same. 1t depends
upon making new applications or old
ideas and the skill with which it is
done depends upon a knowledge of what
is going on, toTether with a certain tenn
permanent, which, properly developed, en-
ables the writer to maintain a sense of
the incongruity of things in general, and
to bring this to bear upon matters of
public interest The extreme humor of
Wallace Irwin's Togo lies in the fact
that when a Jap says things in his pig
con English which would otherwise be
quite commonplace, the ineongruity is
such as to bring home certain truths
which has become too obvious In othe"
words, we are startled out of our mental
ruts. There are no new truths, but the
old truths are so much part of us
that we fail to see them until some hui
morist comes along and presents them
from a new angle And that is much
more valuable service than it seems.
Satire on the other hand is quite
different article, and inasmuch as 1t
generally presents certain conditions,
trather than objects, and thus requires
greater effort on the part of the pop
! ular imagination, it is not so well re-
ceived. Satire proceeds upon the as
sumption that a certain thing is so, the
mere statement of this being enough to
| throw the people aimed at into con-
| fusion.
| In one family there is usually one per-
son who displays as ambition to become
an oracle. II is common satire for some
other member of the family, when this
individual has uttered his opinion, to
say with a smile:
1T must be so if you've said it."
Everybody knows that you are per-
feet"
In other words, satire not only meets
the other fellow, but goes the limit with
him. And to this there is no answer
| Bernard Shaw, in his recent book,
ssHeartbroken House." wishes to convey
the idea that the theatre is better than
the church He therefore satrizes the
church in this manner:
IF ever revolution makes me die
tator I shall establish a heavy charge
for admission to our churches But every
one who pays at the door shall, receive
ticket emitting him or her to free ad-
missions to one performance at any the
atre he or she prefers. Thus shall the
sensuous charms of the church service