Funny Girls

"Well-behaved women seldom make history." 

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich 

   My joketelling prowess (and maturity) stopped somewhere around the age of eight or nine. Then, as now, I had a love of knock knock jokes and weakness for puns. I don't believe puns are the lowest form of humor. Arguably, a well-executed pun can be clever word play.
   I think Freudian slips and malapropisms are hilarious. A librarian friend once told me, with a worried look on her face, that she thought a library patron with a suspected heart disorder would require genital testing. I bit my lip, trying hard not to laugh, but wound up guffawing until tears rolled down my face. She realized her mistake and gasped out,"Genetic testing -- genetic!" Too late - I was roaring with laughter. To this day, it still makes me giggle.
   My cousin has an entertaining story, now a family favorite, about  an aging minivan with a stubborn window that wouldn't go up and a grizzled carwash employee who was neither patient nor amused. His disdain was evident by his clenching of a cigarette while growling "son of a bitch" and fighting with the window. The punchline is that the window eventually worked on its own, and the employee was last seen still grumbling and shaking his head. 
  The late essayist Christopher Hitchens set off a firestorm by stating that women aren't funny.(www.vanityfair.com)  His essay asserts that women can be witty and comic, but don't NEED to be...if humor is seen as a way to attract a mate. He also floats the idea that men don't want women to be funny, preferring women as an audience. Sorry, Mr. Hitchens, I don't agree. This tired idea that women aren't funny is wrong on so many levels.
   I still miss Gilda Radner's Roseanne Roseannadanna and Lisa Lupner - characters on the 1970s Saturday Night Live.
   Flash forward 25 years. Also missed is Radner's heir apparent, Kristin Wiig. Wiig's manic Target Lady and pitch perfect imitations of Suze Orman and Kathie Lee Gifford were falling-off-the-couch-roaring-with-laughter hilarious.
   Do you need to laugh?
   How about the bawdy, raunchy humor of Bridesmaids' Melissa McCarthy?
   Or Betty White's man crazy "Happy Homemaker" on The Mary Tyler Moore Show?
   Carol Burnett's Gone With the Wind curtain rod dress?
   The befuddled innocence of Gracie Allen?
   Lucille Ball's vitameatavegamin routine?
   The biting sweetness of Melissa Rauch's Bernadette Rostenkowski on Big Bang Theory?
   The mononymous women who raised our eyebrows and our spirits - Roseanne and Maude? 
   If you enjoy celebrity bashing, you're probably a fan of Kathy Griffin or Chelsea Handler.
   Then there's Tina Fey. I was misty-eyed while watching the final episodes of 30 Rock. Long live Liz Lemon! 
   April is National Humor Month. Whether you enjoy slapstick, sarcasm or even knock knock jokes, there is a book for you.

Laurie Notaro - The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death- Reflections on Revenge, Germophobia and Laser Hair Removal. 

Erma Bombeck - If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits? 

Tina Fey - Bossypants.

Jenny Lawson - Let's Pretend This Never Happened. (Check out her blog, www.thebloggess.com. Forbes magazine has named the blog one of the top 100 websites for women.)

Jean Kerr - Please Don't Eat the Daisies.

Lisa Scottoline - Meet Me at Emotional Baggage. (Who knew that the queen of Philadelphia mysteries was so funny?)

Dorothy Parker - Portable Dorothy Parker.

Merrill Markoe - What the Dogs Have Taught Me. (Markoe is, in part, responsible for David Letterman's success.)

Yael Kohen - We Killed - the Rise of Women in American Comedy.

Nora Ephron - I Feel Bad About My Neck.

Laurie Perry - Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair. (I was alternately laughing and weepy throughout the book.)

Regina Barreca - They Used to Call Me Snow White but I Drifted.

Carol Burnett - This Time Together-Laughter & Reflections.

Jen Yates - Cake Wrecks. Check out her hilarious website: www.cakewrecks.com Don't read the book or the website at work - you'll drive your coworkers crazy with raucous laughing.

Tad Hill - Knock Knock Who's There? My First Book of Knock Knock Jokes. (The list had to include one knock knock book)

Yes, there's more...

Books by:
Ellen DeGeneres
Roseanne Barr/Arnold
Kathy Griffin
Chelsea Handler
Whoopi Goldberg
Mindy Kaling
Lizz Winstead
Rachel Dratch

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Special note: the gifted writer, E.L. Konigsburg, died April 19. Thank you, Ms. Konigsburg, for many wonderful stories (for all ages), including "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler."