Comedy

My father disavowed April Fool’s Day as a holiday. He thought it was almost always shameful, and often a little mean. He didn’t think you should dupe people into believing something that wasn’t true just so you could make fun of them for trusting you. And, quite frankly, it’s not funny if it hurts someone’s feelings or makes them react poorly. 

One theory of April Fool’s Day links the tradition to the unpredictable weather of the vernal equinox, which falls near the beginning of April, suggesting the "fooling" aspect of the day relates to Mother Nature's whims. 

The earliest documented reference to a prank on April 1 is from 1561 in a poem by Flemish writer Eduard de Dene, describing a nobleman sending his servant on "fool's errands" on April 1. However, the first person to refer to the day's popular name in writing was John Aubrey in 1686, noting the "Foole's holy day. We observe it on ye first of April."

The unexpected, unanticipated, outlandish and absurd is what often makes something funny. If what you did or said was mundane or expected, you wouldn’t make someone laugh, right? Then, explain Gallagher’s Sledge-O-Matic. Everyone knew he was going to smash fruits and vegetables. And yet, people laughed. 

There were five forms of drama to Aristotle: tragedy, comedy, epics (heroic figures, often in verse), Dithyrambic (choral performances, often religious rituals) and lyric poetry (personal emotions and thoughts). Originally, the word comedy didn’t apply to something that was funny. For Aristotle, comedy represents human beings as "worse than they are." Comic characters are not necessarily evil, just ridiculous and laughable. Aristotle contrasts comedy with tragedy, which represents humans as "better than they are." 

Why represent people as worse than they are? To be able to give the audience that feeling of “At least I’m not that guy! At least I’m not that angry, stupid, self-indulgent, self-absorbed. I hold onto the better things of life. I’m more courageous, temperate, full of liberality (spending money well). I live well, take appropriate pleasure in accomplishments and stature. I’m concerned with the noble rather than the petty. I am gentle, truthful, witty, friendly, modest, righteous and just.” 

And so, when you are looking for a way to describe the fool, look at the opposite of Aristotle’s 14 virtues enumerated above. Create a coward, who spends his money foolishly, is boastful, dimwitted, harsh, lies and is unjust. And if you do it well enough, you’ll create a comedy, not a tragedy. Think of the typical comic super-villain. They are funny, not just evil. And really just the name “comic” if you think in terms of Aristotle’s Poetics is people worse than they are. It’s about the villain, not about the superhero.  

April Fool’s Day is a comedy to represent people as “worse than they are.” But if you’re going to do it right, create a full production. Any drama needed mythos (a plot), ethos (characters), dianoia (a theme/concept), lexis (words with rhythm and style), melos (songs) and opsis (costumes and scenery to create a spectacle).

The great comedies are funny through generations. I recently attended Ross Hamlin's Dovetail Orchestra, which provided a live, original score to Buster Keaton's silent film, "Sherlock, Jr.” (1924). Buster Keaton is as funny as Aristophanes’ play “The Frogs” (405 BC). There is something human that is captured in these comedies that transcends the trendy, lives on despite the language dying and continues to tickle the funny bone. 

My friend Beth Kelly says that:

I hope that you’ll figure out all of today’s April Fool’s Jokes before they make you feel foolish. But, if you do feel the fool, then know you are part of a long tradition.