April Fools, Fooling, & Kids’ Stories

Why the young like moron jokes, stupid folks, & playing the dummy

Moron jokes–“Why did the moron eat dynamite? So, his hair would grow out in bangs”–are staples of the very young. Adolescents like films in the “Dumb and Dumber” category which feature Pee-wee Herman, Beavis and Butthead, Happy Gilmore, the Simpsons and other dunderheads. What gives? How to explain the fascination of the young with stupidity and the empty-headed?

Laughter is certainly one of the pleasures evoked when parents read to their offspring about the moronic behavior of the Stupids in the series of picture books written by James Allard and illustrated by James Marshall. In the first of these (The Stupids Step Out), the Stupid family readies for their day’s travels by assembling at the bottom of the stairs and then mounting the banister (they are stunned when they can’t slide up); they then join in the bathtub (but do not add water since this would get their clothes wet). As both the pictures and other incidents suggest, these characters are genuinely stupid; and stories like these offer a zany liberation from the humdrum of everyday behavior and logic.