Oftentimes I find myself doubled over in hearty laughter--over a good joke by a friend, or a particularly rich episode of America's Funniest Wild Animal Maulings, or the sight of a portly child stuck in a doorway--when I suddenly pause to ask myself, why do we laugh? What evolutionary advantage does our species gain by being able to take convulsive physical pleasure in Oscar Wilde's witticisms, or Buster Keaton's physical comedy, or John McCain's gorilla-rape jokes?

Well, I'm not alone in wondering. In fact, an article in Intelligent Life magazine confirms that "after millennia of untested speculation by armchair thinkers, moves are afoot to bring the study of laughter into the mainstream of experimental psychology." For example, one researcher chronicled a variety of experiments for a recent textbook on the subject:

Blindfolded subjects are tickled by experimenters who they are told are machines. The sexual banter in an all-night diner in upstate New York is surreptitiously observed. People study cartoons with pens stuck in their mouths

--I know, I had to read that part twice, too. It's "pens."

...with pens stuck in their mouths (to contract the facial muscles associated with smiling). An experimenter "accidentally" spills hot tea on herself when a jack-in-the-box erupts nearby.

Spills tea on herself! Somebody get that lady a show on Comedy Central. In any case, the experiments were detailed in Dr. Rod Martin's book, which I believe was titled I Am Too a Real Scientist.

However, recent studies did turn up one bit of less-than-hilarious news for comedy fans:

... [I]t appears that cheerful people actually live less long than their gloomier peers, perhaps because they are too jolly to worry about their aches and pains. It may be true, as the proverb says, that he who laughs last laughs longest. But it seems that he who laughs longest does not last.

So laughing less is actually better for your health? Yet another piece of good press for The Love Guru!

You know the drill by now--I take a film which the nation's critics have deemed a steaming pile of cinematic sewage, such as The Love Guru or Hancock or Deuce Bigalow vs. Predator, and using my deft quote-dicing skills, make it sound like Citizen Kane In 3-D.

But occasionally I like to mix things up, which is why today I was planning on doing the exact opposite--taking a film which has been universally hailed as a work of genius, and turning it into Ishtar the Duck. I would do this mainly as a favor to all the other poor suckers whose movies have the misfortune to be opening this weekend--so producers of Space Chimps and Mamma Mia!, you can send the fruit baskets to my home office. (Coincidentally, it's the same address as my dad's garage.)

The premise was simple: I'd grab some choice clumps of praise, snip-snip here and there with hilarious results, unveil the masterpiece of "Turding the Polish: The Dark Knight," and be home kicking back with a Tecate faster than you could say "Mario Kart."

... at least, that was the plan. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that Turding this particular Polish* wouldn't be so easy. Just take a look at some of the gushfests I had to work with:

An explosively provocative [film]. ... Exhilaratingly straightforward action sequences matched by moral complexity of a sort not usually associated with comic-book movie franchises.

The Dark Knight is a masterpiece, easily the strongest effort in the history of its genre and one of the best movies of the decade.

Whatever the causes, the effects of The Dark Knight are subtle and powerful. It's rejuvenating, it renews the faith.

Right about there was where I started to question this whole endeavor. However, I didn't spend my career becoming the world's greatest quote-whisperer just to accept defeat at the hands of a bunch of fawning critics angling for DVD-box immortality. Not without a fight! So, from Scott Foundas of The Village Voice:

The Dark Knight [sounds] like heavy stuff -- and it is. But I should add that [Christopher] Nolan also delivers the kick-ass goods, from an opening bank heist a la Michael Mann to a climactic episode of vehicular mayhem a la William Friedkin.

It may not be much, but baby, it's all I need.

*No Polish people were turded during the writing of this post.

Beloved American comic Bernie Mac, who is often referred to as the black Bill Cosby, found himself facing a hostile crowd when he made what the press is calling an "off-color" joke at a fundraiser for Barack Obama last Friday:

"My little nephew came to me and he said, 'Uncle, what's the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?'" Mac said. "I said, I don't know, but I said, 'Go upstairs and ask your mother if she'd make love to the mailman for $50,000.'" As the joke continued, the punchline evoked an angry response from at least one person in the audience, who said it was offensive to women.

For shame! Anyone who can make a joke about prostituting one's wife to the mailman for fifty grand has obviously never had to face that terrible choice. (And as my wife will tell you, after taxes, $50,000 is really not a whole lot.)

But rather than just jumping on the outrage-pile, we'd like to offer some constructive criticism in the form of the following jokes, which have been focus-group tested, run by Legal, thoroughly pre-vetted by various committees, and are guaranteed to be 100% safe for your next Democratic fundraising gig:

• "Why did the laid-off factory worker cross the road? To get access to decent heath care, which he'd never get under George W. Bush, so he tried to go to Canada, but he got stopped by the border patrol and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay, where he was waterboarded into giving false confessions. That's not my America."

• "A Democrat, a Republican, and an Independent walk into a bar, and the bartender says to the Democrat, 'You clearly have the best vision for our nation. Here, take my guns!'"

• "My little nephew came to me and said, 'Uncle, what's the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?' I said, 'I don't know, but go upstairs and ask your mother if she'd like equal pay for equal work. And tell her I'm so sorry for the crimes committed by my gender; if she needs me, I'll be in the shed whipping myself."

• "A Democrat and a Republican show up at the pearly gates. The Republican goes to hell because it turns out God is a lesbian of color."

• "Take my progressive taxation and domestic infrastructure reinvestment plan, please!"

As long as there are summers, there will be summer blockbusters, and you can bet that as long as there are summer blockbusters, there will be cinematic atrocities in desperate need of some positive press.

Well, fortunately for Hollywood, I've never met a celluloid turd I couldn't polish to a robust sheen, and this summer's latest megadud is no exception. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Hancock!

Let's begin with this less-than-glowing take by Newsweek:         

There's lots of potential... though the question arises whether the concept is more suitable to a five-minute "Saturday Night Live" skit than to a feature film... Then, nearly an hour into this misshapen 90-minute entertainment, "Hancock" takes a disastrous left turn, abandoning all its satirical setups, and all sense ... Oy, what a mess! ... The superhero genre screams for a makeover, or at least a smart deconstruction, but "Hancock" isn't that movie. It just ups the foolishness ante.

Hm. Tough enough to keep me interested, but not so much that I break a sweat. How about:

Then there's this little gem from Mike McCahill of The Daily Telegraph (UK), which is so bursting with ripe quote-bits that it almost seems like the reviewer is winking at me: