“Still applying the test of the extent of the variation from the normal as shown in the effects, we conclude that serious consequences kill humor.  The mere idea of such consequences, when we know that in the circumstances they are really impossible, may convulse us with merriment, as when we see a comedian jab a long finger into the mouth of his teammate and the latter chews it savagely.  In real life this might sicken us with disgust—­I say ‘might,’ because we can easily conceive of such a situation’s exciting laughter if the victim were well deserving of the punishment.  It is human for us to laugh when the biter is bit; indeed, variations on this theme are endless in humorous writing.

“Sympathy also kills humor. The moment we begin to pity the victim of a joke—­for humor has much to do with victims—­our laughter dies away.  Therefore the subject of the joke must not be one for whose distress we feel strong sympathy.  The thing that happens to a fop is quite different in effect from that which affects a sweet old lady.  True, we often laugh at those—­or at those ideas—­with whom or with which we are in sympathy, but in such an instance the ludicrous for the moment overwhelms our sympathy—­and sometimes even destroys it."[32]

[Footnote 32:  J. Berg Esenwein Writing for the Magazines; published uniform with this volume in “The Writer’s Library.”]

This one thing bear especially in mind:  clean comedy is even more essential than clean drama.  It is so easy, when writing humorous material, to go wrong without intending it—­indeed, even without knowing it.  Under the guise of comedy some producers are responsible for scenes and situations that manage somehow or other to pass the censors, whereas the same scene in a dramatic photoplay would not be tolerated for a moment.  But these are exceptions.

The marital relation should be touched upon only in a way which admits of no offense being taken by right-minded and refined people.  Real infidelity had far better be left out of humorous photoplays altogether.  Here more than in any other branch of photoplay writing you should remember that what merely might be tolerated on the regular stage would never do on the screen.  It is well to remember also that just as the American public has tired of the chase and the foolish powder, it has also sickened of the coarse, suggestive, and even the questionable subjects that could once be depended upon to “get a laugh.”  There is absolutely no excuse for introducing anything into a picture today that would offend the good taste of any member of an audience.  The local censorship boards of some cities have made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of thinking photoplay patrons, but the work done by the National Board of Censors has been the means of slowly and surely causing the lower class of photoplay patrons to acquire an appreciation of good dramatic subjects as well as more refined comedy.