From American Cornball, by Christopher Miller:
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An intelligent being from a planet with humor but not water might conclude from earthling humor that there is something uniquely funny about that substance.
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Old comics would be even more cluttered with tin cans if comic-strip goats didn’t keep their numbers down.
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In Disney's "Trombone Trouble" (1944), Donald Duck's neighbor Pegleg Pete makes so much noise with his trombone that it annoys not only Donald, whom everything annoys, but the gods themselves: Jupiter and Vulcan give Donald magic powers so he can silence Pete.
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In "You're Darn Tootin'" (1928), Laurel and Hardy are cast as bumbling musicians--players of a clarinet and a French horn, respectively. Though the movie... leaves no doubt as to who plays what instrument, the original 1928 movie poster shows Hardy playing the clarinet and Laurel playing a /tuba/: either the illustrator couldn't be bothered to watch the twenty-minute film, or else he reasoned--correctly--that a tuba is funnier than a French horn, even in a silent movie, or on a silent poster.
[Miller neglects to mention the comedic wisdom of *transferring* the clarinet to Hardy so that the hefty guy has the weedy instrument and the scrawny guy the big fat brass.]
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One reason armchair quarterbacks are funny is that armchairs are funny. Even ones that don't recline. Sitting itself is a little funny.
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[From the afterword]
Bicycles: Never hilarious, or not since the day of the velocipedes. But always slightly funny, even now.
[...]
Elopement: Funny only if a ladder is involved.
[...]
Gravy: One of the funniest substances omitted from this book.
[...]
Incompletion: As no less an expert than W. C. Fields once observed, "The funniest thing a comedian can do is not do it."
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[Quoting S. J. Perelman] “Who was that confounded idiot?” she spurted, her magnificent bosom heaving in accordance with the laws governing the upheaval of magnificent bosoms.
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[Quoting Georg C. Lichtenberg:] "There are people who think that everything one does with a straight face is sensible."
