How to Handle a Failed Joke

For whatever reason I was never a huge SCTV fan. I recognize it was great, but it just never lodged in my brain the way Monty Python, Saturday Night Live, The Kids in the Hall, Bob and Ray, and Mitchell and Webb did.

There’s only one SCTV sketch I can remember clearly. I’ve embedded it below. I’m about to spoil it, so you might want to watch it if you have 10 minutes. If you don’t, or you’ve seen it, or you just don’t care, read on.

Anyway, it’s about O. Henry. In it he wrote a short story with one of his characteristic surprise endings, in this case the hero is in a bar, planning to kill himself. He decides not to, then a lion walks into the bar and kills him. O. Henry’s friends all make fun of him and his terrible ending. In his despair, he goes to a bar, gets drunk, considers killing himself, decides not to, and a lion walks in and kills him. His last words are “A lion! They do come into bars, I was right!”

Since I’ve become a fiction writer, I often come up with something based on what I’m sure is a common occurrence that everyone can relate to, but then self-doubt creeps in. I wonder if I’m the only one who’s had that experience. I remember O. Henry and want to say out loud, “A lion! They do come into bars, I was right!”

For Missy’s sake, I usually don’t.

Usually.

True love is not blurting out lines from sketches your spouse hasn’t seen every time they pop into your mind.

Thankfully, true love is also putting up with it when your spouse does occasionally blurt out the punchlines to sketches you’ve never seen.

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