The best humor is either the silliest or the cruelest, but let’s focus on the former for now. There are two dumbshit lines that have made me chortle or at least smile for years. (Every so often a guffaw will break through.) No matter how many times they’ve flown in and out of my head, the reaction is the same.

And I’m not mentioning them because I think they’ll “get” anyone else. My point is that we’re all susceptible to dopey chuckle pellets.

Pellet #1 happens every time I visit the default representation site, www.whorepresents.com, and say to myself “yup, whore presents.” The site has been apparently been healthy and solvent for 21 years now.

Pellet #2 is a bit from Woody Allen‘s horribly racist and deeply nauseating What’s Up, Tiger Lily (’66). I’m overdoing the adjectives, of course — I love this dopey film. At the same time you know that if the right kind of Millennial or Zoomer fanatics were to happen upon it, they’d emerge all the more convinced that Allen needs to be triple-shunned, scalded with molten lead and dropped into the hottest cavern of hell.

I’m speaking of an exchange inside an ornate golden palace or temple of some kind. The players are Tatsuya Mihashi‘s “Phil Moskowitz” (amiable zany, lovable rogue) and Tetsu Nakamura‘s “Grand Exalted High Macha of Rashpur.” The subject is ruthless Tokyo gangster and egg-salad recipe thief Shepherd Wong (Tadao Nakamaru).

At one point the GEHMR reaches into a breast pocket and, for Moskowitz’s edification, unfolds a hand-drawn map of a residence. High Macha to Moskowitz: “This is Shepherd Wong’s home.” Moskowitz reply: “He lives in that little piece of paper?”