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You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.

September, 2011

Joking about Banana Peels

The art of making a banana peel joke fresh.
I started reading Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World and have been really enjoying it so far. Thought this little tidbit about banana peel jokes was too good not to share:
A decade or so later, Charles MacArthur, writer of a film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, asked Chaplin how to make something so tired seem new: "How, for example, could I make a fat lady, walking down Fifth Avenue, slip on a banana peel and still get a laugh? It's been done a million times," MacArthur asked. "Do I show first the banana peel, then the fat lady approaching, then she slips? Or do I show the fat lady first, then the banana peel, and then she slips?" Chaplin's answer: "Neither. You show the fat lady approaching," he said. "Then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps OVER the banana peel and disappears down a manhole."
September 26, 2011
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Noah Brier | Thanks for reading. | Don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk.