Global News: Video: Hollywood Funnyman Harold Ramis Dies: A Master of Quick-Witted Off The Cuff Humor

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

Harold Ramis will be missed for his comic writing and acting because he comes from the old school, which is about being funny, but being funny in an intelligent way. Instead of being funny in a clumsy way, telling the fans to look at the klutz, Ramis brought intelligence to his humor that wasn’t obvious. You had to think to get it. To me, Harold Ramis was a master of dry wit and humor that wasn’t obvious, but definitely noticeable if you paid attention and figured it out.

Harold Ramis’s movies were about real people who tended to be bright but were underachievers or slackers who needed inspiration to reach their full potential. The movie Stripes is the perfect example of that, where two lazy wiseass guys sign up for the U.S. Army because they needed something constructive to do. Groundhog Day is another example, where an obnoxious fellow who considers himself superior to the Pittsburgh weathermen gets stuck repeatedly in Groundhog Day and discovers what is really important and how to deal with his colleagues responsibly.

The movie Vacation, perhaps one of the top five comedies of all time, with Chevy Chase, is a perfect example of a middle-class family man who aims to give his family the vacation of their lives. He drives his wife and children from Chicago to Los Angeles to an amusement park called Wally World. He is over his head, with the trip turning into a series of disasters. The dog incident is hilariously brilliant, although theoretically should be sad. Enough said!

Harold Ramis’s movies weren’t based on klutzy people and his humor wasn’t cookie cutter, borrowing lines and humor from other films because supposedly everyone laughs at the same thing. His humor was smart and off the cuff, with a great innovative wit. Harold Ramis would have been a great writer for Saturday Night Live and MASH because he had their type of humor. That is what I’ll miss most about him.

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The Onion: ‘Report, High Unemployment Linked to One Man with 42,000 Jobs’

Source:The Onion– the man with too many jobs, while millions of Americans are unemployed.
Source:The Daily Press

“High Unemployment Rate Linked To One Man With 42,000 Jobs. A recent report finds that one man is selfishly working thousands of jobs while other Americans go without even one. (Aired 10/25/11)”

From The Onion

Maybe if we didn’t have so many damn workaholics like the Jim Richmond’s of the world who work in three difference cities on the same say, doing three different jobs at once, we wouldn’t have the high unemployment that we have. Just throwing a stupid thought out there.

Source:The Daily Press– the three men along with Jim Richmond who are responsible for the high unemployment in America?

No wonder we have so much unemployment in this country. Jim Smith lets call him (for lack of a last name) has 42K jobs. You know to be honest with you, I have a hard time believing that one person could manage 42K jobs. I mean he would have to be Superman on steroids. A man with 14-21 thousand clones to pull this off, even making Mitt Romney jealous of all the clones he has. Perhaps Jim borrowed some of his clones from Mitt. He would have to be the worst workaholic imaginable. Someone who never sleeps, perhaps always on caffeine picking up a caffeine addiction while working at Starbucks and running another Starbucks.

Jim Smith with that caffeine addiction, to be able to fly planes on the weekend, while he’s air traffic controlling other planes in another city, at the same time. Flying from New York to St. Louis, while landing planes in Miami. His kids probably don’t remember the last time they’ve seen him. His wife or several of his wives (perhaps he’s Mormon) and ladies he’s met on 2000 of his jobs, have already filed missing person reports. But the problem that police have, no not that they ran out of coffee and doughnuts, Jim gave them a new supply, while working at Dunkin Doughnuts. The problem that police have is that they don’t know which Jim Smith to look for.

How do you track someone down with 42K jobs? Not only that, but how do you track down someone with 42K jobs named Jim Smith? You look up that name in a phonebook and you see 1K guys with that name and then maybe you say: “Well, how many guys named Jim Smith with 42K jobs?” Well, only one if any, but I’m skeptical that one guy could have all of those jobs. I know what you are thinking to be skeptical of that there is a guy with 42K jobs, would be like trying to believe that Mitt Romney is unemployed, or Barack Obama is a Socialist or Santa Clause doesn’t really exist.

Well, call me crazy then, but I don’t believe it to begin with. I have this weird suspicion that this story was made up by Onion News and I know what you are thinking. That Onion News reports more facts than Fox News. Well thats true, but if Mitt Romney is unemployed, then anything is possible. I mean who says that President Obama’s economic policies aren’t working: 42K jobs were created for one man alone.

With that type of job growth, we can create so many jobs, that we won’t have enough unemployed workers and then we won’t need as big as a safety net. Which of course would drive so-called Progressives (hyper active Socialists, really ) crazy to the point where they would come up with policies to layoff more workers, but wouldn’t that be a nice problem to have.

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Alan Alda: ‘Through The Wisecracks’

Source:Venus– the great comedic actor and comedian Alan Alda, as U.S. Army Captain Benjamin Hawkeye Pierce, from CBS’s MASH.

Source:The Daily Press

“M*A*S*H – Season 11 Episode 5 – WHO KNEW
Hawkeye gives a serious eulogy for new nurse Millie Carpenter, who we never see and no one really knows. She is killed overnight by a land mine after a date with him.

This episode is written by Elias Davis and David Pollock and is one of nine episodes directed by the late Harry Morgan (Col. Potter). I love how they replace the laugh track with the singing and chirping of birds.

PSALM 23
A Psalm of David.
THE LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”

From Venus

“Alan Alda was the leader of the wise cracks, I think we can all agree on that.
Yet, from time to time, he would turn from “shallow cut up” to “deep personal reflection”. We often remember the quick one liners, so let’s take a walk into the serious side of the Hawkeye character.”

From MASH Fan

“They say with age come wisdom so therefore I don’t have wrinkles, I have wise cracks!!”

Source:Spice of Life– good quote about sarcasm.

MASH, is my favorite sitcom of all-time, because of the writing and Alan Alda is one my favorite comedic actors of all-time. But also because of the writing, they could find humor everywhere and it was humor that you hadn’t heard before. Which is my style of humor. They would see a situation, or somebody and right away spontaneously find the humor in it. Rather than borrowing a line from someone, or something else.

A lot of the sitcoms and movies today, they find something that works like in a focus group and they repeat over and over, in show after show and movie after movie. So you wind up hearing the same lines on the street, because they heard those lines on some show, or movie they just saw. Rather than thinking for them self. Hollywood’s gotten lazy with its humor, so the people on the street have gotten lazy with there’s. That’s just not me, my humor is spontaneous, off the cuff, from my own brain, rather than someone else’s.

If you were to classify my sense of humor, I would tell it’s Captain Benjamin Hawkeye Pierce. Not saying I’m as funny as either Hawkeye or Alan Alda (I’ll let you decide for yourself) but that’s my sense of humor. I see things and try to look for the funny side of them, even if they’re really serious and even dangerous. Not to make fun of people or bad situations and try to make them seen less serious than they are, but to try to show people the funny side of a person or situation. And to let people know that it’s not the end or the world can we or you can get through this.

Not every situation deserves or should have a funny side, but without humor, I’m not sure life is worth living, because there’s so much bullshit that we all have to live with and if we can’t make fun of it, we might as well all check into mental institutions or look for the nearest bridge to jump off.

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