Last night I was sitting in my easy chair watching 30 Rock on the TIVO. I know it was probably a rerun, but Thursday night is my bowling league night and up until I got the TIVO, I always missed the Thursday lineup. Now I can watch The Office and 30 Rock. I love Scrubs but I still haven’t seen the fifth season, so I prevent myself from watching it out of order.

Anyway, I watched 30 Rock and all I could think about was how funny that show was. Not very many television shows these days make me laugh — I mean really laugh. I may chuckle or my shoulders may do a slight lurch like a hiccup that was almost a laugh. But it is quite seldom that I guffaw or find myself leaning to the side, laughing so hard that I think I may pass out from the lack of oxygen. But 30 Rock and The Office are genuinely funny shows, sometimes hilarious. And that’s when I realized something. I miss laughing.

When I was a kid, laughter came so easy to me. Everything was funny. I was the kid in grade school who laughed at a joke, then twenty minutes later when everyone had their heads down scribbling their lessons, I was still stifling a guffaw. I liked to run jokes in my head over and over again until the imagery they presented was no longer humorous to me. It took quite a while.

Even 20 years ago Thursday night was THE night for television. The Cosby Show was the big thing when I was a kid. Pleasant memories. Me, my mom and dad, all huddled in front of the television. I couldn’t wait until Thursday night rolled around to see what the Huxtables would do next. Then you had Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court. It was great. I spent the whole evening laughing and couldn’t wait until the next day of school when all my friends and I would gather and say repetitiously, “Remember when so and so did this, and remember when so and so did that?”

Then Roseanne and the Simpsons came and tried to dethrone Bill Cosby. And they succeeded. I remember being the only kid in college who sat in my dorm room, loyally watching the last remaining seasons of Cosby. My friends had long deserted Dr. Huxtable for the more crass, irascible Bart Simpson. Not that the Simpsons weren’t funny. They were. But they were dysfunctional. Just like Roseanne’s family was dysfunctional. Something about that bothered me. What was it?

Years later when Cosby made it to syndication, I remember turning it on and not liking it as much as before. I felt like something was missing. Something seemed off, disingenuous. I found myself laughing more and more at the Simpsons and Roseanne. Cosby had changed. Truth is, though, Cosby never changed. I did. Years of cynicism will do that to you. I guess I finally realized that life wasn’t as wholesome and squeaky clean as the Huxtables made it appear. I mean, in truth, if I had started singing Ray Charles to my grandparents from the staircase, they would have had me committed. Made for great T.V. though. But it didn’t make me laugh anymore. I’d been mired in anxiety, depression, disappointment and hopelessness for too long. Things looked bleaker than they did in my youth and so I was only entertained by those who seemed to illuminate the bleakness and at times mock the absurdity of it. Seinfeld was superb at doing this. If you’re lucky, you’ll always have a show or two that will make life a little more palatable.

And that brings me back to 30 Rock and The Office. I think Tina Fey is brilliant and Jerry Lewis is a gray haired schmo. Years ago, Jerry Lewis said the following about women in comedy

“I don’t like any female comedians,” “…A woman doing comedy doesn’t offend me, but sets me back a bit.” “I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies into the world.”

Hm. I don’t want Jerry Lewis to be judged solely by this one remark. I mean, he should know a lot about babies. He built a career off of acting like one. Thing is, I used to really dig Jerry Lewis when I was a kid. Every Sunday, the local station here would show a Martin & Lewis film, and I wouldn’t miss it. I thought he was the funniest person in the world. I loved his scenes and hated every time they took a break to let Dean sing one of his sappy tunes. “Get back to the funny!”, I thought.

Then I turned 12. And just like that Jerry Lewis was no longer funny to me. In fact, his act seemed a bit idiotic. At 19 I had done a complete 180. No longer did I crave the comedic scenes. Instead, I couldn’t wait until Dean Martin came onto the screen and with that deep baritone made the whole world feel like velvet. At 19, Jerry Lewis was a clown, and not a very entertaining one. I wondered how the French could adore both him and Woody Allen. To me, one was a genius, the other a buffoon.

Then, years later, Lewis says what he said about women comics and I realized he was completely old school. I respected him in a way, what with the telethons and his generosity towards others. But I’ve also heard other stories that weren’t so nice. Plus, I don’t think he could write anything half as funny as Tina Fey. I think the fact that she wrote “Mean Girls”, was the head writer on SNL AND created 30 Rock all prove that her best productions are the funny. Maybe she’ll produce a few babies too, but, hopefully, she’ll never quit her day job. She’s not the only woman that I feel that way about. I think Julia Louis Dreyfus and Wanda Sykes could be the Lucy and Ethel of the 21st century. They’re magic together. But when a woman can write the jokes as well as act them out…well, that makes her a force to be reckoned with.

I said all of that just to say that I miss laughter. It doesn’t strike me as frequently as it used to. However, there are flashes every now and then, like the crackle of lightening against a dreary, overcast sky. Someone will come along at the right time and say the right things that truly tickle my funny bone. Tina Fey, with your smart-girl glasses and biting wit, I adore you. You make life much more palatable for me. Jerry Lewis? Well, thank God you were wrong about women comics. You haven’t made life more palatable for me since 1982.