Panel Finds What's Funny; Nixon Funniest, Says Capp

"Humor is where you find it," Al Capp told a Law School Forum audience last night, and then proceeded to say that the funniest thing in America-today is Senator Richard Nixon.

Two other members of the forum--Max Shulman and Ira Wallach--disagreed with Capp, and the by-products of the conflict kept a capacity Rindge Tech audience chuckling for two hours.

The humorous highpoints of the evening were quotations from Mark Twain and Ring Lardner; however, the panelists managed to define their particular concepts of what humor is--or should be.

According to Shulman, humor must satisfy the temperament of an age. "Today," he said, "people are looking for something to cling to, a homesy-folksy humor, the endless spectacle of each other." He cited Frank Galbraith's "Cheaper by the Dozen" as typical.

Wallach told the audience that humor must serve a purpose other than to make people laugh. This, he said, can be accomplished through parody and satire, the type of humor which aids people to redefine reality. Aristophanes, Wallach said, was a successful satirist, as were Shaw and Cervantes.

Capp said the funniest thing in the thirties was any picture of Calvin Coolidge, claiming that humor was anything people laughed at. Shulman concurred in this definition, pointing out that the cynicism, parody and destruction that characterized the humor of another age were not funny today.

Condemning the "Yok" jokes of the modern school, Wallach spoke against the "Hooper rating approach to humor." Humor, if it is genuine, must create enemies as well as friends. The humorits, he said, "must have their own concept of reality, and must defend it."

The forum was moderated by authoress Felicia Lamport (Kaplan), but featured speaker Henry Morgan was unable to attend.