Pet Rocks Were Actually a Thing, and Were Almost Political in How Apolitical They Were
Dahl wasn’t selling people rocks—not really—he was selling them a joke.
Small Funny Things: The Subversive Gift of Tim Conway
Tim Conway shone a ray of light in a dark world by doing small things with great laughter.
Finding the Joke in Beautiful, Horrible People
We’re all beautiful, horrible people, and with both of these realities in mind we can ask, “What’s the joke?”
The Good Place Recap: The Brainy Bunch (Season 3, Episode 3)
My immediate thought after watching “The Brainy Bunch” is that The Good Place is starting to feel a little too normal.
The Good Place Recap: Everything Is Bonzer! (Season 3, Episodes 1 & 2)
D. L. Mayfield recaps the season three premiere of The Good Place, “Everything Is Bonzer!”
Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette Proves That Laughter Is Not Always the Best Medicine
Part of Hannah Gadsby’s subversive power consists in the fact she still manages to be hilarious even as she refuses to let us rest in the abridgments necessary to her former punchlines.
Should Christians Laugh at Dave Chappelle?
Can we be faithful to Christ and laugh with Dave Chappelle?
Lessons of the Emotionless
It is vulnerability that requires more guts.
Spawn of the Dark Father: ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ as Greek Tragedy
‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ which crescendos with one of the most famous reversals in movie history, is a tragedy—a monumental, epic, Sophoclean tragedy.
Tig Notaro’s Comedy of Dying
Comedian Tig Notaro turns her cancer diagnosis into the heart of her stand-up routine, making death itself the joke.
Seeing and Believing Episode 28: The Colbert-Cast
As Pale as Snow: The Publicly Private Faith of Comedian Jim Gaffigan
Jim Gaffigan’s normal, everyday approach to faith just might be his most profound content.
Mad Men: The Imperceptibility of Change
I’ve been trying to decide—for years, literally—if Mad Men is a tragedy or a comedy.
Revisiting M*A*S*H: Finding Faith, Humanity, and Humor at the 4077th
M*A*S*H isn’t just a great comedy; it’s also a thoughtful and touching exploration of the human condition that features an extraordinary depiction of publicly living out one’s faith in a fallen world.
Amy Poehler’s Yes Please and a Theology of the Middle
While mid-life crises are notorious in our contemporary age for dramatic grasps at youth, Poehler shows us a more productive conclusion, albeit one still lacking.
