Humor Studies in Ancient Greece

A humorologist looking for signs of humor in ancient Greece has a hard assignment on his plate. Sure, there are the jokes about what it took to separate the Greek men from the Greek boys (a crowbar), but I don’t understand the origin of those jokes – were the Greek Gods gay and I never knew about it? Even though there was nothing wrong with that back then, nor is there today because some of my best friends are gay? Or was it because the mortals in those ancient days could never complete a game of leapfrog? I must admit I’m not up on my Grecian Joke Formula or my studies of ancient Greece either. But bear with me anyway, OK? We’ll uncover a chuckle or two if we dig really deeply into the Sands of Time and have some friggin' patience for a change!

I may be week on Ancient Greece, but ancient coal and oil deposits are another thing – I’ve got a whole war chest of jokes in that category. Greek Gods and Legends just weren’t all that funny in my book – I know there were Greek Comedies, but they must not very funny or they would be on HBO in their umpteenth million reruns by now. The Greeks were Masters of Tragedy, I think, more than anything. Wouldn't you agree?

Take the original Homer, for example, the prototype for Homer Simpson if not O.J. Simpson. There was also a Marge’s Iliad, which was a comic masterpiece according to the Dead Sea Scrolls. But Homer’s is the one we remember, not Marge’s. I’m not positive that Homer was Greek, and if my backspace key worked I would start over and use a different analogy since I’m only fairly positive of that, not 100%. But I like the Simpson’s tie in, so I’m going to run with it for now.

So what if Marge’s Iliad had hit the big time instead of Homer’s? I think we would not have the Patriarchal, male-dominated society we now have in the Western World. Funny hairstyles would be more popular than they are now, and P.M.S. would have been cured centuries or even ages ago.

On that pertinent subject, P.M.S. is nothing but a humor gland that has taken a short rest to rejuvenate itself, I believe. An adequate supply of humor hormone can keep the sourpuss gland at bay during this time, but in some women this is not the case. I can’t blame them, really. It’s hard to trust anything in the entire animal kingdom that bleeds for 5 days in a row and doesn’t die. I don’t think menstruation is all that funny, unless you make jokes about menstrual cycles and compare them to bicycles or something. But those get very tiring after a while.

In the days of Ancient Greece, the tourist attractions were well maintained and were not in total ruins the way they are now. The Age of the Ancient Greeks waxed and waned, but mostly waned after tourism fell off, leaving only the olive export industry to keep the economy alive. It was pretty much wane from then on, and not Wayne Newton or his brother Fig either (who has been popular on the Isles of Greece for a long time).

Soon even Homer and Marge were out of work, and the olive fields soon failed and brought their whole ancient world crashing down around them. Depression in Ancient Greek times must have been like the Grapes of Wrath, but more live the Olives of Wrath in that part of the world. To be a Greek Comedian was to be unemployed to begin with, but when Greek Tragedians had nothing but the Depression itself to write about, that’s when things got really bad.

It was all visited upon them by their own Gods, according to Greek Mythology and Legend. Zeus was a Sourpuss Deluxe if there ever was one, at least from all the black-and-white photographs of those long gone days. He looks like Santa Claus but without the red suit or the twinkle in his eye. More like Santa Claus on Steroids, hurling lightening rods to earth to separate those men from the boys and all. Am I right or am I wrong?

The Greeks had the Ancient World by the you-know-what (yes, the petard) for centuries. Then someone in Rome came along with a new Agenda, called “A New Ancient World for Modern Times”. Latin was proposed as the standard character set, and a whole new category of humor began to sweep the ancient world. Roman comedians roamed the world during those days, which is probably where all the jokes about Greek men and boys came from. The Romans scoffed at the ancient Greeks, who would rather have strangled Laughter in its very cradle than spit on it, for crying in a ruin! (I know, it’s getting old, but so are the jokes about Ancient Greece).

In my next installment in the ongoing investigation into the historical roots of laughter, I will flog the Ancient Romans for a while – they had so many funny things going on that I may never get finished! An entire Book of Ancient Roman Comedy could be written, I truly believe. It would surely have lept off the shelves of the dusty marketplaces of Ancient Jerusalem! Of course, you would be crucified if you were caught laughing, but that’s why it was all done in secret.

More on that after this.