
I switched the topic of this week’s column at the last minute. I was all set to write about Michelle and Layla and the “Rise of LayCool”. I had completed the outline and had my hoodies all picked out. But something has been nagging at me for a few days…
In my last column I broke one of my own rules. Truthfully, this has been bugging me ever since I posted it last week. I promised myself when I started writing this column that I would try to be informative, insightful, and funny, all within certain boundaries. I would not go for the cheap laugh at somebody else’s expense unless there was some validity to what I wrote. At first I thought the joke was funny. The more I kept reading my column the more I began to wonder if the joke was as clever as I originally thought. After reading my column for the 457th time (hey, somebody has to read it!), I really started to sour on it because I realized I may have just gone for the cheap laugh. I am a little disappointed in myself because I know better. There is really nothing funny about hitting below the belt. I’m also not a fan of obvious humor (think Tiger Woods jokes, Monica Lewinsky jokes, etc.) Anyway, I spent a lot of time reflecting on this specific joke and decided that I needed to either 1) defend it or 2) apologize for it.
Before I do, however, I want to be very clear about how I define “smart humor” and “cheap humor”. My boy Mike Knox is actually the perfect person to use for this example. Here is something I think is funny: During his last few months in the WWE, the announcers would make a big deal about how Knox studied “kinesiology” and knew all kinds of special ways to hurt people and inflict pain. Personally I think he should have spent more time studying “how to win matches” because he didn’t do that very often. (Insert laugh track) Now that to me is funny, and it is also fair game based on the silly commentary and poor character development. (Note – If you didn’t find this joke amusing, I’m probably not headlining Second City any time soon.)



