Rare Equals Funny?

I'm working on a humorous middle grade novel. I've been thinking a lot about what is funny and what is not so funny. Humor comes in many flavors--everything from slapstick to sly nuance. And what's funny to one person isn't necessarily funny to another. Take the movie Napoleon Dynamite. I enjoyed every minute of it. Some friends didn't make it through the first ten minutes. My mother thought Charlie Chaplin movies were hysterical. I found them boring. But we could both laugh until we cried at Lucille Ball and her sidekick stuffing chocolate in their mouths while working at the candy factory.

My dad, on the other hand, used to guffaw when he watched Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Perhaps because he grew up with chickens on a farm. It made me laugh just to hear him laugh. I'm not sure I'd have ever found that pompous old rooster funny without seeing him through my dad's eyes.

Walking the beach in Florida we see an abundance of shore birds. I never tire of the brown pelicans. They look prehistoric and odd--some would say funny. But they're so graceful and acrobatic when they fly, I don't laugh at them. I simply smile with enjoyment.

Royal terns used to be my favorite shore birds with their whimsical tufts of Spring head feathers. The photo of this guy makes me laugh. He looks like the baddest bird on the beach!

This year a new bird has caught my fancy and tickled my funny bone (the bird in the center of the photo below). It's a black skimmer. One day we saw a single skimmer in with a bunch of terns--it stood out with its bright orange beak and long, sleek body.We took a picture and later read about its long lower mandible. Unique in birdom--skimmer's lower jaws are longer than their upper jaws, which comes in handy for skimming food on the fly.

Several days later we came upon a whole flock of skimmers. We watched them for a long time as they arranged themselves in rows facing into the stiff wind. Every so often they would rearrange themselves. Birds in the front would move to the back. But they were so precise and orderly about it, I found myself laughing. Then Greg took a front-facing shot of several of them (first photo above). The head-on view made me giggle. But, then I felt bad. Why do I find the most different looking birds funny? Why does unusual equal funny? Why do I seek to write characters who say and do quirky things?

Of all the amazing creatures on this beautiful planet, I favor the unusual. I'm sure that's not unique. For me, a photo of one ordinary gull doesn't equal a photo of a whimsical skimmer. Unless maybe the gull is doing something unusual, like the other day when one was sitting all by himself on the beach with his feet out in front. I'd never seen a gull do that. Greg suggested maybe it was simply enjoying watching the waves rolls in--like us. Wish we'd had a camera along!

After some pondering and more beach walks, I've decided the pleasure of humor lies in the fact that sometimes we're not really laughing at someone--like Napolean, Foghorn, Lucy, or the skimmers, or my granddaughter wearing her hat backwards, we're simply appreciating them with glee. Laughter is our childlike response to delight. The sweetest kind of humor, that's what I hope to fill my stories with.... And, well, okay, a smidgeon of bathroom humor every now and then, but that's another topic!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so is humor!

02-18-2012