Thursday Thirteen - 46 - 13 Things That Made My Dad Laugh

My dad enjoyed a good laugh. He was an incurable impressionist, and every one of these following comedians were part of his personal repertoire of characters.



1 - Laurel and Hardy

Dad couldn't resist Stan Laurel's doomed attempts at just about everything.














2 - The Three Stooges

The Sitter Downers

I surely inherited my own love of slapstick from my dad...


3 - Gone With The Wind

Big Sam rescues Scarlett from shanty town, climbing in the buggy and saying, "Hoss, make tracks!"


This isn't a funny part of the film in the least, but that line was one of my dad's favorites. Whenever we needed to get somewhere fast, my dad would often say, "Hoss, make tracks!" just like Everett Brown did. And he'd laugh.

My dad often bought me Gone With The Wind memorabilia over the years. He knew how much I loved this powerful, gorgeous epic. For some reason, this movie always made us think of each other.






4 - Ernie Kovacs Nairobi Trio

Dad was a big fan of Ernie Kovacs' early comedy shows.

"Kocacs' off-the-wall style was extremely unorthodox in early television. He approached the medium as something totally new. While his contemporaries were treating TV as an extension of vaudeville stages, Kovacs was expanding the visible confines of the studio. His skits incorporated areas previously considered taboo, including dialogue with the camera crew, the audience, and forays into the studio corridor." - Frank J. Chorba, The Museum of Broadcast Communications





5 - Foghorn Leghorn

"I keep pitchin' 'em and you keep missin' 'em. Ya gotta keep your eye on the ball. Eye. Ball. I almost had a gag, son. Joke, that is."










6 - Cookie Monster

Like most parents, Dad had his own favorite Muppet - Cookie Monster. He quickly perfected his Cookie Monster impression, which strangely morphed into his own version: "Mmm! Mushroom soup!" Every time he sat down to his favorite soup, he would say that in Cookie Monster's voice.








7 - Blazing Saddles

This sequence was so unexpected, rather like the one that comes on the list at #10. Dad was a huge fan of westerns, slapstick, boxing and big dumb lugs. This scene with Mongo has it all.










8 - Puttin On The Ritz

Young Frankenstein

My dad was a good dancer, so this routine had him in stitches.






9 - The Blues Brothers

Jake and Elwood meet up with The Penguin

Dad went to Catholic school. The image of the nun hovering over them at the top of the stairwell had him in tears of laughter.






10 - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Dad loved this ode to 40's adventure flicks. But he wasn't prepared for the scene where Indy meets up with the scimitar-wielding tough guy. No one was.









When Indy wearily pulls out his gun and shoots him after a lengthy build-up to an out-matched showdown, the audience I was with must have laughed for about 10 minutes over this scene. And any time Dad talked about it over the years, he'd laugh all over again.
















11 - A Christmas Story

Though he loved everything to do with this film, especially the narration by writer Jean Shepherd, my dad's favorite line from A Christmas Story was:




"In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan."






12 - Seinfeld - Shrinkage

I'm not sure if Dad had a favorite character on Seinfeld or not. But he had several favorite moments, and the shrinkage episode ranked right up there.









13 - Muhammad Ali

My dad's all-time favorite impression was his Muhammad Ali. Over time he took on his own persona: Muhammad Normi.

Dad was a big boxing fan, and I used to watch boxing matches with him. Call me crazy, but I was a bloodthirsty little girl! I loved the awesome power of the boxers duking it out. Of course, when I was a girl in the late 60's and early 70's, when Ali was fighting, the matches were much more strategic and less gorey than they seem to be now. Dad would explain what each fighter was likely up to. Then we'd both go "Oh!" when our guy landed a good one.

Dad loved Ali not only for his unsurpassed fighting skill, but for his verbal sparring as The Greatest.

Here are some of the best of Ali's witty digs at his opponents:


"Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head."

"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and got into bed before the room was dark."
('74 pre-fight build-up ahead of facing Foreman)

"I handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick."
(before the 1974 Foreman fight)