AUTHOR’S NOTE: Since there seems to be some confusion lately over what is funny and what is not, I will perform a public service with this column and point out everything that is funny by writing “ha ha” in parentheses after it.
With every new decade, people start getting nostalgic for whatever happened two decades before. In the ’70s people reminisced about the ’50s and in the ’80s they reminisced about the ’60s. So I guess it was only a matter of time before people started getting weepy over the ’70s.
This has been the subject of some of my more disturbing nightmares lately, although I think the one involving Roseanne Barr, my editor, an Uzi, and a bullmoose is slightly more disturbing (ha ha). So I guess I should have been prepared when I saw a commercial sponsored by the Seventies Preservation Society.
I wish I were making this up, but I’m not. The commercial was for a three-record set of rock and roll from the 1970s. The collection includes such classics as “The Night Chicago Died,” “You’re Having My Baby,” “Play That Funky Music, White Boy,” and “Macho Man.” Can anyone forget these milestones in American music? Not without the aid of extensive psychiatric counseling, I’ll bet (ha ha).
But the commercial got me to thinking, which is really saying something (ha ha). It got me to thinking about the ’70s things that are still around. Things like…
I hadn’t seen this show for a while until last Christmas Vacation (or “Winter Recess,” as the atheist school board calls it)(ha ha), when I had the golden opportunity (ha ha — note the special humor device known as “sarcasm”) to view a special Christmas episode. Now, “Little House on the Prairie” was a pretty sweet show most of the time, but when it came time for a Christmas show, they must have put the sap on overdrive (ha ha — amusing metaphor). This particular episode pertained to the general theme of them being snowed in on Christmas Eve, and how was Santa going to get the presents into the house? You’d never have guessed, but believe it or not, Santa did manage to get through and Christmas was saved and as the credits rolled by, all 485 cast members gathered together to sing “Silent Night.” It was mind-numbingly heart-warming.
The opening paragraph, with its accompanying "ha-has," was my only public reaction to the woman who didn't like my "kill-people-with-an-Uzi" joke in this column. Unfortunately, that paragraph was cut out in publication. To make matters worse, not all of the "ha-has" were removed, the result being that the column had "ha-ha" randomly placed throughout it with no explanation. (These are professional editors we're dealing with here -- people whose JOB is to edit things properly.)
My mom LOVED the lava lamp joke. She still referred to it for a long time afterwards. It's been years now, but I'm going to see if she still remembers it. Hang on....
Yep. She does. She still giggles about it. Such a joyful woman, my mom.
