Louis Roney: Humor or wisdom?

JUST FOR FUN: A bicycle can’t stand alone because it’s two-tired.

A will is a dead giveaway.

She had a love affair with a guy who had a wooden leg, but she broke it off.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

She got married, and got a new name and a dress.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

You feel stuck with your debt if you can’t budge-it.

Every calendar’s days are numbered.

A lot of money is tainted. ‘Taint yours’ and ‘taint mine.’

Great English writer Joseph Addison said it: “We cannot guarantee success, but we can deserve it.”

Funny is funny and wise is wise, no matter whose mind or mouth is the source. Being funny, and being smart, seem to be innate fixtures in some people.

When I was a boy, I looked forward eagerly to radio programs that brought humor – and, underlying wisdom – of Will Rogers, Irving S.Cobb, Amos and Andy, Eddie Cantor, Ed Wynn, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, George Burns and Gracie Allen, and Jack Benny.

Later, I was a great fan of Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar, and especially of Jonathan Winters. These diverse people had a hand in making a big industry of humor in the American living room. Being funny on command is not easy.

George Burns said, “People think all I have to do is stand up and tell a few jokes. Well, that’s not as easy as it looks. Every year it gets to be more of an effort just to stand up.”

My own first memorable exposure to live wholesale humor was in the Catskills during World War II.

I was a gunnery and torpedo officer on a U.S. Navy warship. We were in dry dock in the Brooklyn Navy Yard for repairs. Hal Rosenberg, who shared a cabin with me aboard ship, took me with him to a “singles week-end” at Grossinger’s Hotel. Grossinger’s was a favorite place for entertainment in the “Borscht Belt,” a couple of hours north of New York City.

Things I remember most:

1) I had never seen that many single girls in one place before.

2) I had never seen that much delicious, rich food in one place.

3) I had never before seen a “stand-up comedian” at work. Henny Youngman was the first comedian I saw that weekend.

Henny brought me a lot of laughs through the many years before he died.

The first joke Henny told at Grossinger’s, I didn’t laugh. The second one, I grinned. The third one, I laughed softly to myself. After that, I never stopped laughing.... No one joke Henny told would ever have “broken me up.” He was a master of the “cumulative effect of gags.”

He was used to playing for people who offered a little resistance before they smiled – as part of the game. Henny soon “got to” the biggest sour-pusses in the crowd with, “Take my wife.... Please!” – or something better.

I still remember the joke he “got me” with: “Two drunks are walking along Broadway in New York. One walks down the steps into the subway by mistake. He comes up out of the subway entrance across the street.

The first drunk, “Where were you?” Second drunk, “I was in some guy’s basement. Boy, has he got a set of trains!”

“Television has proved that people would rather look at anything than each other.” – Ann Landers. “It takes years to make an overnight success.” – Eddie Cantor. “I’ve been rich. I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” – Sophie Tucker.

“Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your children.” – Sam Levenson. “Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen.” – Mort Sahl. “Too bad that all the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.” – George Burns. Nobody has a lock on humor or wisdom, and those two sine qua nons for a good life often have a way of joining hands.

“Don’t threaten a child. Either punish him or forgive him.” – The Talmud.

“You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough.” – Joseph E. Levine. “There is only one way to find out if a man is honest. Ask him. If he says, ‘Yes,’ you know he’s crooked.” – Groucho Marx. “Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.” – Lauren Bacall. “The meaning of life is that it stops.” – Franz Kafka.

“Anybody who gets out of college having had his confidence in the perfection of existing institutions affirmed, has not been educated – just suffocated.” – Al Capp. “When there is the possibility of danger, do not depend on a miracle.” – The Talmud. (The Irish call this, “Murphy’s Law”) Henny gets the last word: “I have the nicest doctor. If you can’t afford an operation he touches up your X-rays.”

Humor or wisdom?