372 Pages We ll Never Get Back

One of My Earliest Critiques

Added 2024-12-22 00:20:27 +0000 UTC

Maybe I should have realized I'd become a comedy writer, but when I was a kid there was a schoolyard parody set to the tune of the Colonel Bogey March (even then, WAY before our time) that went like this:

Comet / will make your teeth turn green
Comet / it tastes like Vaseline*
Comet / will make you vomit
So buy some Comet / and vomit / today

As an eight year-old, I had some problems with it. Number one: Comet was (and is) a bleach-based abrasive cleanser. No one would use it for his mouth, so the premise is a non-starter. Number two: even if you were insane enough to put it in your mouth, why would you then complain about the taste (assuming you think Vaseline is not palatable)?! It makes zero sense. And number three, the fourth stanza, "so buy some Comet / and vomit / today." I hate to be that kid, but after all the negatives, who would buy Comet? I mean, you might steal some from your parents if you were really curious, but you certainly wouldn't lay out your own money!
But the absolute killer of this whole endeavor -- you already burned the "vomit" premise in the third stanza! The last line is supposed to deliver the zing, really end on a high note, but all you're doing is repeating the vomit thing! It's horrible writing. Shame on you, prisoners! (An adult told me that all jokes and parodies were written by prisoners 'cause they had nothing better to do.)

*Evidently there's a "gasoline" variant, but I don't think it changes things much. Both petroleum based. Neither anything you'd want to ingest.