Comedy Is When the Normans Invade England, Tragedy Is When I Get the Theme Song Stuck in My Head
So in the past couple of weeks, my daughter has discovered Horrible Histories, a British television program based on a series of books. It’s basically a sketch comedy program that takes historical fact as its source material. As a result, my daughter has a far better understanding of the Tudor and Stuart dynasties than I do. My wife has the theme song to one recurring bit, called “Stupid Deaths,” stuck in her head.
My daughter has been watching these episodes on YouTube because they are region-blocked at the BBC’s website. It’s not the first time I have thought to myself that I would gladly write the BBC a check for the television license fee if I could have access to all the stuff they put up for streaming.
It also has me thinking about how effective comedy can be as a teaching device, at least as an entry point. You probably need to have at least some interest in the topic in order to really get the humor, but if something makes you laugh then maybe that will spark your interest in going further. There are jokes or bits of physical comedy that I’ve done in class that students talk to me about later – this year’s seniors have made several references to the song-and-dance I did to They Might Be Giants’ version of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” when they were 9th graders. I just wish I were a better, and funnier, writer. Or that I had a staff to help me come up with 180 bits a year. 🙂
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.