Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog, E.B. White famously said: "the subject dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."
Despite White's warning, funnyman Keegan-Michael Key and his writer-director-producer wife Elle sat down with Second City's Kelley Leonard to discuss their recently published book The History of Sketch Comedy last week at the Frances Parker School as a part of the Chicago Humanities Festival fall series.
Both Keegan-Michael and Elle share a fascination with what makes a joke work—the various "beats" that add up to a laugh, and throughout the discussion, expertly moderated by Second City's Leonard, they provided plenty of examples—including this one, the first joke Elle ever told Keegan-Michael:
A little boy is sitting in the park, smoking a cigarette. Shocked by the sight, a man walks up to the boy and says, "What are you doing? Don't you know smoking is bad for you?!"
The little boy mutters to himself..."my 94-year-old grandfather..."
The man responds, "what? he's a smoker"?
"No," says the little boy. "He minds his own fucking business."
Prevented by SAG-AFTRA strike rules, the pair were restricted in what they could talk about during the discussion: past broadcast performances were strictly off-limits. So, no Key and Peele and no Schmigadoon. But those restrictions allowed the evening's discussion to roam further afield than a simple recitation of Keegan-Michael's greatest hits.
Instead, the couple—whose shared devotion to comedy is obviously equaled by a similar devotion to each other—traced the history of—if not sketch comedy as a whole, then the history of their own comedic influences, which range from the cerebral...Mike Nichols and Elaine May... and radio legends Bob & Ray, to the visceral... Mel Brooks and Catskills borscht-belt stand-ups.
Throughout the night, they stressed the importance of using comedy to build communities and connections between people. As moderator Leonard aptly put it, "the shortest distance between two people is a laugh." At a time when too much of our public discourse is focused on tearing other people down, perhaps that was the evening's ultimate punchline.
The Chicago Humanities Fall Festival continues through November 16, and features other comedians such as Bob Odenkirk, Maria Bamford and Sarah Cooper. The full schedule can be found at www.chicagohumanities.org.
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