LOL

My lovely wife Jen and I were getting our nightly fix of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" this evening when Jen wondered aloud what sort of thing makes people like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert completely crack up. I couldn't say, although shortly afterward Colbert was interviewing author Frank McCourt and totally broke apart when McCourt made some offhand crack about nuns. So, there's part of your answer.

What sort of things do we find funny in this odd little universe most of us call home? (As an aside, what do these things say about us?) Hell if I know--I can't speak for you. But I guess I can speak for me:

• I find it funny when my cat Frodo runs himself completely ragged chasing around this little feathered teaser toy we got him for Christmas. His pupils grow to about the size of baseballs, he purrs like mad, he spreads his paws out like five little fingers, and becomes an incredibly dynamic ball of orange fuzz bounding wildly about the room.
• I find it even funnier when his brother Sam (yes, short for Samwise) forgets that any of his humans are home and wanders around the house talking to himself. Yes, I mean he meows. Of course he doesn't actually talk to himself. That would be silly and a waste of his time--English is not his native language. It would be as if I were to talk to myself in Portugese. No, Sam only uses English when he talks to me.
  
• I used to find it funny (okay, I still do) when my late great dog Buddy would sing along with the piano. Only, however, if you played in D-flat.
• You know that GEICO commercial with Speed Racer in it? Seen it a zillion times. Still funny.
• Why this comic is still not part of the Times-Disgrace's daily roster whilst such gems as "Mark Trail," "Rex Morgan, M.D.," and "Judge Parker" continue to take up space is beyond me, but I think "Frazz" is the funniest comic strip since "Calvin and Hobbes." And that, my dear readers, is high praise indeed. Especially considering that, if you look at my list of dream jobs, at the top you will find, "Serving as the voice of Hobbes in an animated version of 'Calvin and Hobbes.'"
• Ducks.
• The fact that the man with the nuclear launch codes can't pronounce "nuclear launch codes." (File this one under "really dark humor.")
• An album concept my sister and I came up with a couple of years ago: Cartman Sings Broadway.
• This joke.
  
• Two words: Mahna mahna.
  

Your thoughts?