GOOD

Clapter

In Mike Sacks’ wonderful new book Poking a Dead Frog: Interviews with Today’s Top Comedy Writers, the author asks longtime Saturday Night Live head writer James Downey for a comedy pet peeve. Downey responds, “What has bothered me most for the last few years is that kind of lazy, political comedy, very safe but always pretending to be brave, that usually gets what my colleague Seth Meyers calls ‘clapter.’ Clapter is that earnest applause, with a few ‘whoops’ thrown in, that lets you know the audience agrees with you, but what you just said wasn’t funny enough to actually make them laugh.”

 Mark Peters
06.21.14

In Mike Sacks’ wonderful new book Poking a Dead Frog: Interviews with Today’s Top Comedy Writers, the author asks longtime Saturday Night Live head writer James Downey for a comedy pet peeve. Downey responds, “What has bothered me most for the last few years is that kind of lazy, political comedy, very safe but always pretending to be brave, that usually gets what my colleague Seth Meyers calls ‘clapter.’ Clapter is that earnest applause, with a few ‘whoops’ thrown in, that lets you know the audience agrees with you, but what you just said wasn’t funny enough to actually make them laugh.”

Downey cites Bill Maher as a frequent seeker of clapter, describing Maher’s humor as “the ass-kissiest kind of comedy going, reassuring his status-anxious audience that there are some people they’re smarter than.” Clapter plays it safe and isn’t funny or original. According to Downey, anyway. Tina Fey has also dismissively mentioned clapter.

I can understand why a professional comedy writer might look down on clapter. When you’ve written hundreds (or thousands) of sketches and jokes, you’re bound to be a bit jaded and picky about reactions. But laughter has many purposes. We don’t just laugh when we hear a brilliantly constructed joke: we laugh to commiserate and show appreciation. Sometimes we laugh to belittle someone. Most of all, we laugh when something is true. Truth is the sweet spot in the Venn diagram between the “pure” humor Downey prefers and the “ass-kissy” comedy he dislikes.

Just telling the truth can often register as funny when either 1) few people are saying it or 2) there are higher than usual levels of malarkey surrounding the topic. So I wouldn’t write off clapter as the refuge of comedians preaching to the choir. After all, the choir needs to laugh, or just feel like someone is speaking their language, too.

Illustration by Tyler Hoehne

language
Features

The cost of having a baby even with insurance equals average the monthly income of a woman

upload.wikimedia.org

Childbirth is the number one reason American women visit the hospital, and it ain't cheap. In fact, it's getting more and more expensive. A new study published in Health Affairs found that the cost of having a baby with employer-sponsored health insurance increased by almost 50% in the past seven years.

The study evaluated "trends in cost-sharing for maternity care for women with employer-based health insurance plans, before and after the Affordable Care Act," which was signed into law in 2010. The study looked at over 657,061 women enrolled in large employer-sponsored health insurance plans who delivered babies between 2008 and 2015, as these plans tend to cover more than plans purchased by small businesses or individuals.

Keep Reading
babies health insurance healthcare

U.S. cancer death rates are declining. Here's what we're doing right

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Cancer is still the second leading cause of death after heart disease for both men and women. The American Cancer Society predicts that 2020 will bring almost 1.8 million new cancer cases and 600,000 cancer deaths, but there's also some good news. The American Cancer Society recently published a report in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians stating the U.S. cancer death rates experienced the largest-single year decline ever reported.

Between 2016 and 2017, cancer death rates fell by 2.2%. While cancer death rates have been steadily falling over the past three decades, it's normally by 1.5% a year. Cancer death rates have dropped by 29% since 1991, which means that there have been 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths in the past three decades than there would have been if the mortality rate had remained constant.

Keep Reading
smoking american cancer society health cancer death rate cancer
Health

The most checked-out book at the New York Public Library is a diverse children's book

In order to celebrate the New York Public Library's 125th anniversary, the library announced a list of the top 10 most checked out books in the library's history. The list, which took six months to compile, was determined by a team of experts who looked at the "historic checkout and circulation data" for all formats of the book. Ezra Jack Keats's "The Snow Day" tops the list, having been checked out 485,583 times through June 2019. While many children's books topped the top 10 list, the number one choice is significant because the main character of the story is black. "It's even more amazing that the top-ranked book is a book that has that element of diversity," New York Public Library President Anthony W. Marx said.

Keep Reading
new york public library children's books diversity the snowy day
Design