humor

Chris Knight's avatar

Things like this usually doesn’t go past my notice.  Guess I’ve been so occupied with other stuff lately.  But yesterday was the anniversary of something very special and I need to make a note of it…

May 25th, 2025 is the twentieth anniversary of my… or rather I should say our… first motion picture, Forcery.  An almost hour-long parody of Rob Reiner’s film adaption of the Stephen King novel Misery.  Forcery depicts Star Wars creator George Lucas, hot off of finishing the script for Episode III, being rescued from certain death by his “number one fan” Frannie Filks.  It’s not long before Lucas, who used to create Star Wars for a living, is now making it to stay alive.

This was an idea that hit me about a week and a half before 9/11.  Indeed, I started writing the screenplay (though I had no idea HOW ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

This may or may not be a fun time to share this.  But there’s been a lot of good humor about the papacy in the past couple of days (I think the best joke I’ve heard is that Chicago’s NBA team is changing its name to the Papal Bulls) so why not?

Inspired by Steve Jobs (who had tried impersonating Henry Kissinger), in the spring of 1996 I attempted to telephone Pope John Paul the Second.  I had managed to find the number to the Vatican switchboard and so I called it.  I disguised my voice to sound like that of President Bill Clinton.  I told the operator who “I” was and that I had to speak with His Holiness.

Several minutes after being put on hold a gruff-sounding man picked up the line.  He said something in a thick accent and then demanded “Who is this??”

“Sir, I ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

There is a lot on my plate right now.  I’m having to figure some things out.  Time is not on my side.  But sometimes things percolate to the surface of my mind that I haven’t thought about in years, or even decades.  And that’s what happened today.

Waaaay back in 2001 and thereabouts  I was on the staff of TheForce.net, which at the time was the biggest website devoted to Star Wars on the whole heapin’ web.  It wasn’t long after I came onboard that I volunteered to take the vacant position of humor editor.  That was my main job for the next two and a half years, and it was a lot of fun!  I got to see quite a bit of reader-generated funny stuff that almost always left me smiling.

One of the things that I got to curate as humor editor was song parodies.  And they ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Barney Miller premiered fifty years ago today, January 23rd, 1975.  This is definitely high up on my list of most favorite television series ever.

Here’s one of my favorite episode, “Hash”.  This is the one when most of the detectives get stoned from eating cannabis-laced brownies…

Happy fiftieth Captain Miller and the staff of the 12th Precinct!...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

I spotted this clip yesterday and it is definitely one of the better pro-candidate videos that I’ve ever come across.  This is the kind of thing that the more creative types of candidates’ supporters should aspire toward.  For a lot of reasons I really like this one.

Behold “The Dukes of MAGA”:

So, about who I’m supporting in this election.  Something I’ve very rarely tipped my hand about throughout the history of this blog…

As many readers know, I have a rule.  It’s one that I initiated after my own run for public office years ago, and the TV ads I made for that campaign.  Here it is: I do not vote for a candidate if he or she runs a negative campaign commercial targeting an opponent.  I made three commercials and each of them was positive, upbeat, humorous at times and serious when need be.  There was another candidate ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Right when the world needs laughter the most, Weird Al comes through for us.

The last time that “Weird Al” Yankovic released a new song, other than “The Hamilton Polka” or the end credits tune from his movie, was ten years ago this week when his Mandatory Fun album dropped.  That was the final album he was contracted to produce and he said at the time that he’d probably release singles via digital platforms from now on.  But that hasn’t happened yet…

Until today.

This morning Yankovic unleashed “Polkamania” upon the world.  It’s one of his polka medleys of other artists’ songs.  It shows how out of the loop I am though in that I can’t recognize any of these tunes that Al incorporated.  And I was kind of hoping his new song would be something like a straight-up parody or a style parody… but maybe it’s true, that modern ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Earlier today I was going through a bunch of photos and came upon one showing me with “Weird Al” Yankovic: arguably the most successful recording artist in the history of pop culture.  I say that because not only has Al earned multiple gold albums and several Grammy awards for his work, he has also been part of many other endeavors throughout a career now going back more than forty years.  And awhile back  he said that he might still give us a song parody or two every year from now on (but I’m hoping he produces at least one more full album 🙂

I could have met Weird Al in October of 1996.  My best friends in college were driving four hours each way between Elon College and Asheville to see a concert on the Bad Hair Tour.  Ed and Gary tried their best to get me to come ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

It was on this date in 1974 that filmmaker Mel Brooks released his western spoof upon an unsuspecting world.  And comedy was never the same again…

It’s probably the number-one movie that has been said “it could never be made today.”  Which makes it all the more special.  Blazing Saddles is unadulterated political incorrectness as only Brooks and his crew could have made it.

How much does this movie mean to me?  I have owned a copy of it on every home media format going back to VHS.  It was the very first DVD that I bought.  Later on I bought it on Blu-ray and today I keep it loaded on my iPad Pro (along with the complete Star Wars saga, The Thing, and Airplane! among others).

There are two movies that I distinctly remember from early childhood and each of them was run on CBS (the network our ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

I knew it!  I just knew that I hadn’t imagined this.  A cartoon from 37 years that I saw only once ago and I still remember it!

Around the mid-Eighties there was an animated series based on the beloved Berenstain Bears children’s books.  The show ran on Saturday mornings on CBS.  It was pretty good as I seem to recall.  And often quite humorous.

Well, the other day one of the episodes sprang to mind as I was reading the news about the latest attempt to avoid a government shutdown.  It involved the Bear kiddies learning all about money.  How those little green pieces of paper don’t have value on their own.  Instead they must be backed up by something with real tangible worth.  In the bears’ world this happens to be the purest honey in existence.  Without that backing, as the kids’ father puts it there would be total ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Last night Tammy, my miniature dachshund, got on the sofa.  And she brought along one of her Christmas toys: a plush dachshund toy, which came courtesy of my cousin Lauryn and her husband.

So she got up under her blanket, on my lap, and I noticed that she and her toy each had their tale protruding out:

Which one is Tammy??  In real life it really does look like there are two dogs in my lap.

It doesn’t help resolve matters that the toy is almost precisely the same size as Tammy.  She could make serious trouble if she wants to 😀

...

Read more