Friday, 8/25

Wow. I was almost close to being actually funny once!

With just a few days to go before we leave for Europe I've been spending a lot of time putting together the things that need to air while I'm gone. And because the program director in me refuses to allow my afternoon personality to be off the air for a week and a half, we usually air “best of”s that I've recorded and saved throughout the years. The past few trips they've been phone calls with listeners; after all, that's mostly what we do around here. But this year, I've dig really deep to see what I could find.

And I found some comedy bits.

The bits are what are know in the biz as “blackout bits”; just little 20 or 30 second items to run going into or out of a commercial break. And what with humor being a VERY subjective thing, I'm sure that there are many people out there who would take exception with my referring to them as “comedy” bits. But I've found nine or ten “comedy” bits that I put together somewhere between 10 and 15 years ago, back when I was doing “comedy” bits, and you know what?

I, at least, don't think they're half bad!

I was in my phase of doing “comedy” bits while I was also in my phase of listening to a lot of old-time radio. A lot of the radio I was listening to at the time were the master comedians, people like Jack Benny and Fred Allen and Jim Jordan in his character of Fibber McGee. The one thing all of these master comedians had was impeccable timing. They knew how to tell a joke, and they REALLY knew how to sell a joke. And while I've always thought my sense of comedic timing was a little better than the average person, it was nowhere near that of Benny or Allen or Jordan. So while I was listening to all of these classic comedians, I was also trying to see if I could preach what they were practicing.

Hence, the “comedy” bits.

Most (but not all) of them revolved around the fictional “Yooper TV Network”, and some of the, well, Yooper-centric shows the network might air. The shows might be Yooper reality shows, or Yooper dramas, but it was a way to make fun of what was going on in pop culture at the time while still making it relatable to people who live up here.

At least, that's what I tried.

As with everything in life, I kind of got away from doing the “comedy” bits as the years went by. I don't know if they were too much work or if I just had a limited amount of ideas and used them up, but from what I can tell the last one was put together in 2007. So it was interesting to dig them out and listen to them again, a reflection of where my mind was almost a decade ago. For some, I remembered them like they were yesterday. For others, I'd totally forgotten about them. And one of them, in particular, actually made me laugh when I listened to it again.

Wanna hear it?  Just CLICK HERE.

As I've written in here many times before, humor is a very subjective thing. All I know is that it made me laugh when I listened to it. Your results may vary.

So for the week and a half I'm gone (actually, just seven days on the air, thanks to Labor Day). You may be hearing things like that on the air. And even if you don't make you laugh, think of it this way—it'll at least be a window into my brain, at least they way it was a decade ago.

Have a great weekend!

(jim@wmqt.com)