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It was difficult to hear the news.  Out of two classes, nobody, not a soul, had ever heard of Laurel and Hardy, the comedy duo who earned international fame in the early 20th century.  The lesson for the day had to do with the evolution of humor.  Students had the choice of writing down their thoughts on the matter and then bringing that small essay to class.  Writing.  Critical thinking.  The boxes were checked for a typical composition class.  But Laurel and Hardy were not to enjoy any commentary.  They were strangers to my students – relics from the past so old that seeing them in black and white pretty much summed up the situation.  Laurel, the slim Englishman who was prone to, in his words, “dumb” behavior and crying while kneading the hair on the crown of his head was in cahoots with Hardy, the portly, hotheaded leader of the two with the toothbrush moustache also made popular by Charlie Chaplin and Hitler.  Together, they entertained millions with situational routines that involved a lot of slapstick and even Three Stooges-styled physical violence. 

In one bit, Hardy mistakenly believes that Laurel had a leg amputated.  Feeling bad, he pledges his undying devotion to caring for his friend before getting slapped by someone who is trying to reclaim the wheelchair Laurel is using and then physically carrying his two-legged friend to his car.  Hardy stumbles and struggles, drops his bowler hat, gets doused with a water hose, and eventually falls over. The routine is amusing and indicative of what counted as funny in the 1930s. 

While Laurel and Hardy proved to be an archetype for a certain kind of comedy duo – think Abbott and Costello, Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza, Chris Farley and David Spade, John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd, Steve Martin and John Candy, and even Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy – what stood out was that, while the two were making people laugh with strong physicality and sometimes violence, the world in the 1930s was experiencing something quite telling. 

Nazi Germany.  Fascist Italy.  Imperial Japan.  We do not, dear listeners, need to walk through a history lesson, but suffice it to say that while Laurel and Hardy were entertaining audiences far and wide, the world was steadily marching toward world war.  Violence beget violence; the first alarmed, the second was to cope.  Put another way, the violence on screen mirrored the violence in the world.  What is interesting, though, is that we laughed at Laurel and Hardy.  What does that say about how we collectively dealt with the rise of naked aggression? 

The Laurel and Hardy bit mentioned in this episode takes place in a convalescence home for veterans.  Laurel is a patient; Hardy – again with the toothbrush moustache -- is the visitor.  The joke is centered on Hardy’s belief that Laurel is an amputee.  He believes he only has one leg.  Viewers, though, know the truth that Laurel is very capable of walking by himself, yet the physical comedy pokes them in the ribs.  The comedy, in one sense, might be called dark.  Dark humor for a dark time. 

Only when Hardy sees Laurel walking away does he realize his folly – the last to know – making the end of the bit all the more hilarious.  Or that was, at least, the intention.  Even so, we might conclude that the best way to face our fears is to laugh at them.  This is Laurel and Hardy’s lesson to us.  What is more, we might see how other funny men and women throughout the decades make us laugh and then imagine what they might be reacting to.  We project our fears onto the stage or screen and allow those steeped in the craft of comedy to translate those fears into laughter.  What were we afraid of when Seinfeld was popular?  Or the Blues Brothers?  Or Bridesmaids?  There have been many iterations of Laurel and Hardy.  What else were they iterating beyond being skinny and fat?