Thursday, March 21, 2013

THE LURE OF JUVENILE HUMOR: JUST ADMIT IT






Okay, if you crinkle your nose and won’t acknowledge that you once snickered at your grade school acquaintances’ manic competitions to produce the silliest names…or even contributed to the lists, just stop reading.  And spare me the acrimonious comments on the subject.  I get it.  You’re a grown-up and I’m not.  Happy? 

This is my third go-round.  I participated in this brand of humor in my own youth, re-visited it when my children entered the age group that glories in it, and now have a grandchild who has discovered it.  If you’re drawing a blank, I’m referring to such famous novels as “Yellow Rivers” by I. P. Daily, “One Hundred Recipes for Hamburger” by Chuck Roast, and down the endless list.

The best names are the ones that you don’t have to make up.  They occur naturally, but you have to pay attention to catch them.  I"ll never forgot the car salesman with the unfortunate moniker, “Orson Buggy”.  It’s kind of like looking at those weird patterns that contain a picture, if you stare at them long enough.  How does a guy with the name “Rusty Steele” wind up working at a body shop?  It should be an automatic disqualification for a woman named “Frieda Wander” to sit on a parole board.

Is there an ice rink caretaker named “Sam Boney”?  A barista who answers to “Bruno Moore”?  There just has to be a French lawyer named “Jacques Hughes” or a laid-back counselor who goes by “Saul Wellingood”.  Did you ever worry that if you quit going to the gym, you’d wind up wearing that dreaded clothing line by “Hugh Jass”?

I could go on, but my favorite juvenile television show just started, and I don‘t want to miss what happens this week when that mean vampire, Dustin Dubree, gets pushed out into the sunlight.   

2 comments:

Connie J Jasperson said...

there was a Dr A. Legg in this town for YEARS! My grandmother swore the A stood for Armand. When he passed away we found he had no first name--just the initial!

Unknown said...

Oh, this brought back some memories. Like in my first job, at age sixteen, putting calls out over the tannoy for a Mr C Lion, Mr T Bag, and Mrs D Light (to name but a few. Lol