A couple of days ago, Adam Holz wrote a post called “When Weather Attacks.” So I’m blaming him for the winter storm that dumped a few inches of snow on my house last night.
It wasn’t too bad, as October storms go. And it’s really not fall in Colorado Springs until we get a couple of feet of the white stuff. But it was enough of an excuse for my wife, my daughter and I to cook some nice, warm soup, hunker down on our sofas and watch Thou Shalt Laugh 4.
I’ve never seen a Thou Shalt Laugh video, and I went into the project with a certain level of trepidation. Christian-themed entertainment can be a little … spotty. Some of the best Christian “comedy” I’ve seen was never intended to be comedy at all. And I was a little fearful that, if Christian dramas (occasionally) make me laugh, would Christian comedy make me cry?
No such worries. All of us laughed heartily, sincerely and frequently at the six comedians onscreen (Rex Havens, Joe Wong, Dana Daniels, Michael Jr., Isaac Witty and Taylor Mason). The jokes felt, for the most part, fresh and contemporary. Most of the comedy was not overtly Christian, but a bit of the faith worked its way into some of the routines. My personal fave was Thou Shalt Laugh vet Michael Jr., who riffed on, among other things, folks who aren’t just saved, but “oversaved”—so saved they can no longer have a normal conversation:
“I’m thirsty. You?”
“Thirsty for the Lord!”
OK, granted, that kind of deprecation only works when it’s the self- variety. In the hands of Bill Maher, for instance, it would make a whole lot of people mad. And I should say here that not all the program’s humor was pristine—a little surprising, considering the source. We were treated to jokes pinned on bras and flatulence, and one of Mason’s ventriloquist dummies repeatedly tried to coax an audience member back into his carrying bag. “I’m a youth pastor!” he’d insist. Which, frankly, sounded a little creepy to me.
That’s some pretty racy stuff, actually … for the 1940s.
I talked with John Tesh, the host of Laugh 4, and found out that he was thrilled to be a part of the series—largely because it’s something he, his wife and his 15-year-old daughter can enjoy together.
“There’s no potty humor here, no meanness,” Tesh says. “If an 11-year-old can’t listen to it, they don’t do it.”
Parents, of course, should make their own judgments about what’s cool for their children to watch. But I’d have to agree with Tesh that it’s quite refreshing to see some real comedy out there that’s both mostly clean and mostly funny. Nothing to chortle at, that.
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