The Vietnam War began to boil over in the late 1960’s; communal stress infected the USA like an epidemic, intensifying the “Cold War” gloom—that still hovered like The Sword of Damocles. Hardly anything steals joy more than living under the specter of fear! Enter—Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-in, bringing torrents of laughter. It was created in September 1967 to be a one-episode, idiosyncratic, slapstick, television comedy show. It touched a deep cord of human hunger for humor in the American public! Its unbridled sheer laughter was both sunshine and refreshing rain for our parched souls. Four months later, launched as a series, Laugh-in exploded onto TV unseating a Monday night mainstay, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. After Laugh-in, many of the original comedians—such as Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin became solid comedy personalities.
Good humor is vital to a healthy life. A solid precursor to the idea that humor-helps-health, may be found in the Book of Proverbs:it is good medicine—a happy heart tends to be a healthy heart. But hold your horses here; let’s linger on the laughter matter: Almost everyone enjoys a good joke, or humorous story. Vacation misadventures often become treasured family humor stories, told and retold for years.
And then there are the “Dad Jokes!” (“Bad Jokes” —my daughters call them.) There are tons of Dad Joke books—some better than others; bookstores have whole sections of jokebooks. People love to laugh—especially, a good belly-laugh. Laughter is like refreshing rain of a dry field; cleansing, nourishing, and refreshing
Humor should never be used to embarrass, belittle, or otherwise cause hurt or harm in any way. Appropriate laughter can loosen tense situations, and often brings cogent insight to discussions. Whether you’re guffawing at a sitcom on TV or quietly giggling at a newspaper cartoon, laughter does you good. Laughter is a great form of stress relief, and that’s no joke. A good sense of humor can’t cure all ailments, but data is mounting about the positive things laughter can do.(The Mayo Clinic).
An ironic episode of laughter in Bible is in the book of Genesis; Sarah (90 years old) overhears messengers telling her husband, Abraham, that she would get pregnant and bear a son. She couldn’t hold it back. Sarah laughed! Abraham apparently had not told Sarah, that he, too, had laughed earlier when the Lord told him, 1) that at 93 years old—and childless— he would become the father of nations and , 2) that—Sarah would bear him a son! Abraham laughed—-as Sarah would later when she heard that news!
Their laughter was not entirely joyous humor—-it came as much from disbelief as derision of this bizarre news. To paraphrase Mary Poppins, “….a little bit of (laughter) makes the medicine go down…” However, after little Isaac was born, lots of laughter likely filled the tent as he grew up. The Bible is peppered with references to laughter (not all are warm-fuzzies). These verses from Psalm 126 illuminate the joy of laughter; The Israelites had experienced a dramatic change of their circumstances. God had blessed them mightily; their immediate response was joyful laughter!
Let this truism linger long: Laughter helps tide us over in the dark times of life whether through pain, sickness, grief, loneliness, disappointment, frustration or anger. Paige, my late wife, always recognized that she was not the only one suffering. Often she said, “Everyone is dealing with something.”, thus we focused on filling life with laughter. Yep Laughter is like a good medicine!
©Copyright Willis H. Moore 2022
I can relate to the sitcom Laugh 😂 n