The Dying Art Of Deadpan

No one is here to be funny. And I'm no exception. Although in a meeting once after a panel of psychologists complained that a video we produced contained only good looking women, after others on the team pointed out there were indeed two guys involved, I added, "And one of them was downright homely." I didn't say it to be funny. The guy was. But everyone laughed. Except the psychologists.

Others though, make serious intentionally funny. Ed Asner has a knack for that. In response to a question about what he attributed Betty White's longevity in show business he answered "all the trips to Romania to get those monkey gland shots."

It's the art of dry humor. Delivered deadpan.

Deadpan began many years ago when cavemen discovered that if you say something with a straight face other people don't really know you're not serious. And irony was born. Right after that Buster Keaton ("The Great Stone Face") pioneered the art in film comedy simply because he discovered the only way he could be funny was when he didn't laugh at his own jokes. His humor, coming from the era of vaudeville and silent pictures was largely physical. A subject he once covered with the apology, “I'm so sorry I fell down.”

If you like to sing but find your singing makes others ill, deadpan may be a good option for you. Basically, you can still sing inside but outside you do nothing with your voice but keep it right where it was when you started talking. Leslie Nielsen, who liked to sing but didn't really want to, preferred doing nothing although he once admitted, "Doing nothing is very hard to do. You never know when you're finished."

So, in summation, not only don't you have to sing, but you'll never be off-key and you'll never have to remember how the tune goes. And you won't have to decide what facial expressions to use because you only need one. (Which is easy on the facial muscles.) It's like simplifying your behavior. And your life.

Surely, that's a good thing.

(I know, I know. Don't call me Shirley.)