Main content:  Slap-happy comics  Curtis, 7/21/06  Wow, Curtis,
you make me feel all funny inside, in the following ways:    •
Is it OK to be appalled at the child abuse joke and yet still
impressed by the wordplay of “slap the taste out of your mouth”?
• Are the Curtises’ black apples left over from some sort of
twisted goth Adam and Eve musical number?  Gil Thorp, 7/21/06
See, Ben Franklin, there have been some advances in histrionics
in the 216 years since your death. Nowadays, when people shout
“No-o-o-o!”, they usually shake their fists at the skies, get
down on one knee and pound the earth, and weep openly. Perhaps
putting an index finger on the lower lip was a sign of great
emotional distress during the 18th century, but nowadays it just
makes you look contemplative.  Marty Moon may refer to his
winnings as “only” $20, but he’s holding and staring at that
Andrew Jackson-festooned note with an expression of rapt wonder,
as if he were a starving Darfurian refugee and somebody just
handed him a steak.