Make Gibbons Laugh #60
In MGL 58, I included in the P.S. some of my neighbor's old Jokes Of The Day from summer 2020. I was reading through those old jokes, rediscovering old Popsicle Stick Jokes and ubiquitous Joke Jokes (the sort of quick, crafty one-liners that live more in the public domain). I was thinking about jokes, remembering jokes, hearing rhythm, seeing set-up, anticipating punch lines (and anticipating tags we never get with the punchiest jokes), that I felt compelled to write about—maniacally, lovingly analyze—my favorite Joke Joke of all time.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
“To me, you're perfect," the sappy sign reads in Love Actually. To me, this joke is perfect.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln,"
The set-up is a clean magic trick: opening with a dependent phrase—literally depending on the ensuing independent clause it modifies—that hangs in the air, waiting for a subject and a verb to ground us. Even the language is perfectly dependent, groundless, unhelpful-but-still-TANTALIZING. What is ”that?!” Where is that?! What just happened?! We only get THREE words! They all matter! They all compel! Entice! Confuse! Disorient! We’re dropped into a conversation that might be well underway, or, possibly, we’re hearing the beginnings of a new conversation. Regardless, there’s crucial context we’re missing.
This isn’t some pretentious, young academic speaking, who starts EVERY sentence with a wordy, impenetrable dependent phrase, clearing their throat after every period, saying so much but so little, making the audience LABOR through their constipated syntax. No, this is strategic and propulsive.
I cannot stress this enough: the placement of "Mrs. Lincoln" changes everything. Like the best cinematography, our eyes and ears are drawn to a certain, MANIPULATED point. Great art is a Rube Goldberg Machine of manipulation. "Mrs. Lincoln" rests dead (too soon?) center. We realize precisely at the TURN of the joke that the speaker is directly addressing Mrs. Lincoln—it's a very different sentence, with very different world-building, if we START with "Mrs. Lincoln, other than that..." The rhythm slows, feels choppy. The voice sounds awkward, almost too formal. There's a gravitational pull towards "Mrs. Lincoln,” towards the center.
We've gained steam, careening downhill to the punch line...
"How was the play?"
First, the technical: “Play” wears two hats (I can only assume Lincoln stovepipe hats, not to be confused with A Hat On A Hat, in comedic terms, a premise on a premise which both become convoluted): 1. the reveal and 2. the actual laugh line. Narrative clarity and the punch line arrive at the theater in unison.
There’s no syntactical clutter. There are no wasted words—before or after the reveal. There’s no debriefing after “play.” No room for a tag, a call-back, or a closer. The reveal is all of ONE word, the VERY last word, a one-SYLLABLE word (!!) that pops and is easy to say. In this movie, we get the big twist in the last frame then spend no time decompressing on screen with a heavy-handed voiceover. The director doesn’t do a talking-head interview during the closing credits, explaining what just went down. There’s no hint of a sequel.
To me, that’s the most satisfying kind of art. I think there's a wisdom in tactful restraint, in Writing Big Things Small. I think there’s a brilliance here in not showing us Mrs. Lincoln’s response or excessively explaining terms (I also think, as Orson Welles said, that "the absence of limitations is the opposite of creativity." This work of art is nine words. That’s a miracle.).
The emotional: In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, "laughter and tears come from the same place. I prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."
Was Lincoln's death shocking, tragic, profoundly upsetting, the first president to be assassinated? Is there a more admired president in American history? Would Mrs. Lincoln, of play fame, maybe, you know, be a tad bummed out at this point? Might this not be the best time to ask her about her thoughts on the local dramaturgy?
And yet, as Victor Borges reminds us, “laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” And yet, as Gloria Steinem reminds us, “laughter is proof of freedom.”
My favorite show-biz anecdote in this vein: Zach Galifianakis tells a story of Bradley Cooper confiding in him after a break-up (2:18–3:44).
“We’re in the same hotel. And he goes, ‘hey, can you meet in the lobby?’ I go, ‘ok.’ I could tell he’s upset on the phone. And he had a movie called Limitless out. And he goes, ‘can I talk to you?’ And I’m like, ‘yeah, what’s going on?’ He goes, ‘well me and so-and-so broke up.’ And I go, ‘oh did she Limitless?’ It was like I couldn’t help it. Oh this is in my brain. I GOTTA say this. And then he starts smiling. That’s the point: that’s my way of going, ‘it’ll be ok. It will be ok. The timing is real off. REAL off. But I look at it [as] a bit of a lifeline. Let me make you feel better in this moment.”
How much time has passed before the speaker asks Mrs. Lincoln?! If Comedy Is Tragedy Plus Time, then doesn't this nine-word question feel like an exception to the rule?! If the speaker asks Mrs. Lincoln ASAP?! While she's collecting her things and leaving the theater?! Isn’t that even funnier than a year or 10 later? Is the speaker more of a smug-and-disaffected Bill Murray from the first two acts of Groundhog Day or a clueless-and-mostly-harmless Bill Murray from Caddyshack?
No, I think it’s a silly-but-thoughtful Zach Galifianakis, in 1864, just trying to make her feel better in that moment.
P.S. I can’t say enough great things about Somebody Somewhere, a show I adore, in my second time through now. Poignant. Huge-hearted. Delightfully raunchy. Delightfully unhurried. Tender. Silly. Refreshing representation on screen—with characters, setting, story, casting, queer life in small-town Kansas. An all-time great platonic love story at its center. All-time great diarrhea gags. Brilliantly-written easter eggs. A nice companion piece to Better Things, if you’re feeling a Pamela Adlon-sized hole these days.