When Fart Jokes Are No Longer Funny, It’s Time To Walk Away

Tommy Dempsy 

Comedy. It’s a wonderful but hard business that I’ve been blessed to work in for over 40 years.  But as my mentor, Cy Goldman told me in 1965, “Tommy, when the fart jokes are no longer funny, it’s time to walk away.”

Well folks, the fart jokes are no longer funny, and neither are the Jew jokes, the black jokes or the Holocaust jokes. Even my favorite child-molesting joke  (the one about how hard it is to clean blood out of a clown suit) doesn’t make me laugh, giggle or snicker anymore. In fact that joke now makes me a little nauseous.

What’s the problem? Are those bad jokes, evil jokes? No. The jokes are fine. They haven’t changed. It’s me who’s changed. I’ve lost my comic edge. I’ve lost my ability to see life from the outside. And, like Cougar in Top Gun, I need to hand in my joke wings before I start saying stuff like ‘I don’t think you should joke about things like that.’

Dear friends, don’t ask me to stay in the business, because I would only bring you down. I’m like the guy who’s been bitten by a zombie. I may look okay now, but soon I’m going to change into one of them; and when I do, I won’t think like you. I’ll think only in terms of Chili’s baby back ribs, The GAP and how funny Two And A Half Men is....Please, just let me go.

And I know you young guys think I’m a crazy old pussy. Hell, I thought Cy was. But the same thing that’s happening to me will happen to you just like it’s happened to Chevy Chase, Charles Grodin and Steve Martin (though for some reason, I think he has some comedy left in his batteries. If you do Steve, SPEND IT.). So please kids, while you can, enjoy your time in comedy, cradle those hook-nosed Jew jokes, treasure every N word uttered in jest and count your blessings every time you laugh at a fart. It’s so very precious. And it all goes way too fast, too fast.