Three Rights

A Tribute to a Very Funny Man

Last Friday we learned that the comedian Gallagher, born Leo Gallagher, had passed away at 76 years old from organ failure, probably from the multiple heart attacks he had over the years. I cannot let the event go by without mention in this column. First, because he was such an iconic comedian in the 1980s when he was in his prime. The other reason I have to mention his passing is because the name of this column that I have written for the better part of two decades is taken from one of his beautifully crafted observations. “Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three rights make a left.”

While his unique prospective on everyday things is memorable, his most iconic bit was his famous “Sledg-O-Matic”, a big, and I mean big, wooden sledgehammer made of a block of wood on a large stick. During his concerts, he would introduce it to welcoming audience members who would break out raincoats and sheets of plastic in the front rows in anticipation of what was to come. He was most famous for busting watermelons on a stool sending pieces and juice into the audience, but he would admit it was apples that went the farthest into the seats. Before the show he would accumulate a couple of carts full of produce and anything else that he could smash and send into tiny pieces into the audience.

In a 1984 interview with The Miami Herald, he spoke of people’s worries about money, family and responsibilities. “If you make fun of it, the people laugh,” he said. “They release the tension and are somehow healed — a bit.”

In 1987, United Press International reported that researchers at Loma Linda University in Southern California studying laughter took blood samples from 10 medical students while they watched Mr. Gallagher in action. Not only did they laugh uproariously, but their white blood cells also increased. The comedian, the scientists said, appeared to have boosted the subjects’ immune systems.

If you search for his act on the internet, I’ll warn you that a lot of his jokes aren’t so clean and some of them border on racism. But that is not what I remember Gallagher for. Here are just a few of the clean, wholesome jokes he told. If I remembered wrong and attributed one or two to him that actually belong to some other comedian, I ask for their and your forgiveness.

“If I were in charge of Emergency Management, I would build decoy trailer parks just outside of town to attract tornados.”

“If aliens landed and they were naked, how would you know what not to look at?”

“If your knees bent the other way, what would a chair look like?”

“Remember this advice: Never let your mom comb your hair when she’s mad at your dad!”

“Wonder why it is God didn’t give us wheels. He must have known we’d get skates for Christmas.”

“I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. They got one marked ‘brightness’ but that doesn’t work, does it?” “Hey, what do you expect from a culture that parks on driveways and drives on parkways?” “When yogurt goes bad, how can you tell?” “Why do they call that funny little statue a bust when it stops just before the body part it’s named after?”

“Why do they put the little ‘on/off’ words on a light switch? If the light’s on, you can see that it’s on. If the light’s off, it’s too dark to see the words on the switch.”

“Why do you need a driver’s license to buy liquor when you’re not supposed to drink and drive?”

“If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?”

“Why are they called ‘apartments’ when they’re all stuck together?”

“If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?”

“Why is bra singular and panties plural?”

“Why isn’t phonetic spelled the way it sounds?”

“Why are there interstates in Hawaii?”

“Why are there flotation devices under the seats of planes instead of parachutes?”

“Why are cigarettes sold at gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?”

“If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, why are there locks on the doors?”

“You know that little indestructible black box that is used on airplanes?...why can’t they make the whole plane out of the same material?”

I hope Gallagher gave you a few more laughs today.