Word: laughter
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...then some people don't like Coca-Cola, baseball games, or the Old Howard. Benchley's stock in trade is undiluted humor -- sometimes tempered with sophistication, cynicism, or satire, but invariably funny as hell. No one knows precisely what makes people laugh. Benchley's theory is that "all laughter is merely a compensatory reflex action to take the place of sneezing." If this is true, Benchley must be an awful pain in the neck for the manufacturers of Kleenex, a product which would have alarmingly small sales among the devotees of "Sly Old Bob"--as Benchley coyly refers to himself...
...fifty 25-ft. squirts) and engaged in duels with their tormentors. A Legion prankster who waved a dry but dangerous-looking red paintbrush in women's faces was clouted with an umbrella, several handbags, and a high-heeled shoe. But the Legionnaires welcomed competition with disconcertingly uproarious laughter, went right on gulping from pint bottles, dropping water bags and emitting an odd war cry: "Hya, Queenie, Queenie, Queenie-best old dog you ever...
...should have been detected so early in life. From that time to this we have exerted ourselves physically, mentally, financially and spiritually to her best development. She is now j> years of age and all facial Mongoloid characteristics have vanished. She runs about and plays like another child. Her laughter fills the house and her sense of humor gives us great joy. We make no attempt to urge her to "strive to keep up with others," for we know she is retarded in many ways. We compare her with no other normal child of her age; we are only delighted...
...years, Hollywood partygoers have shrieked with laughter at the impromptu gags and satirical songs of Radio Writer Abe Burrows (TIME, Feb. 11, 1946). But his celebrated fans have kept Abe jealously to themselves, assuring him that the sentimental public would never appreciate his acidly unsentimental humor. Columnist Earl Wilson once gloated: "Only us hot shots get to hear him." Last week, anyone with a radio set could hear Abe do his stuff. CBS had given him a one-man sustaining spot (Sat. 10:30 p.m., E.D.T.). Beefy, 36-year-old Abe Burrows was so delighted at getting...
...whisked back to Wonderland. A few U.S. citizens still saw them, last week; so did people in England, Italy, Chile, Iran, Holland, Japan and China (see A LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER). But by last week the "somethings" had petered out into a trail of rueful headshaking and self-conscious laughter...