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What ever happened to Jack Handey?

By November 14, 2006Humor

Pug_puppy
Many of you may remember Jack Handey from the old Saturday Night Live days.  He was the guy who did ‘Deep Thoughts,’ which were hyper-wierd observations that were offered with the innocent patois of a Hallmark Greeting Card.  You never got to see Jack Handey.  You only heard his soothing voice as he said something like:

"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason."

Every once in awhile I would wonder what happend to Jack Handey.  Then just the other day I came across this article he wrote for the New Yorker about his First Day in Hell.  The opening paragraph immediately drew me in:

My first day in Hell is drawing to a close.  They don’t really have a sunset here, but the  fires seem to dim a bit, and the screaming gets more subdued. Most of the demons are asleep now, their pointy tails curled up around them.  They look so innocent, it’s hard to believe that just a few hours ago they were raping and torturing us.

Go on, read the whole thing.  Maybe it will motivate you to start looking for salvation.


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4 Comments

  • Michael says:

    Sometime the truth hurts…because its so funny, my side aches.

  • Sophmom says:

    A master of deadpan.

  • A.R. Rhoads says:

    I just finished reading a compilation book of humor articles from the New Yorker over the years, some of them date back to the 30’s. The book is called “Fierce Pajamas” and includes a fair number of Jack Handey pieces, as well as classic Thurber, Woody Allen, and Garrison Keillor articles from the New Yorker over the years. Available at any fine bookseller.

  • Sarah says:

    Funny! I always assumed Jack Handey was the work of a SNL staff writer. My favorite Jack Handey quote …

    If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let ‘em go, because, man, they’re gone.

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