I WAS A COMEDIAN FOR THE FBI

Bruce Springsteen and Vanna White were scheduled to co-star in an epic musical Western to be filmed in Arizona, according to a front-page article in the Phoenix weekly newspaper, New Times, which also carried an ad for hiring extras. More than a thousand calls came to the number--which turned out to be the governor’s office. It was April Fool’s Day.

Meanwhile, at the State University campus here, Claudia Foy was delivering a keynote presentation--”The Rat Funeral: Humorous Traditions Set by Colleges for the Deaf”--speaking in sign language while a translator sat in the front row and spoke her words into a microphone. This was not some kind of hoax, however. It was the opening session of the sixth international humor conference, where the causes and effects of laughter were being taken extremely seriously by 1,500 theoreticians from 35 countries.

I was the only performer among all these pedagogues, who delight in analyzing that which I do instinctively, or hopefully instinctively. That evening, I emceed the annual joke-telling contest. The judges were warming up by telling jokes to each other. The favorite was labeled as the joke of the ‘80s: One kid says to another, “Hey, I just found a condom on the veranda,” and the other kid says, “What’s a veranda?”

Claudia Foy was one of the contestants. In the interest of fairness, I confided to the audience (although her translator actually told the joke) that she had merely signed in gibberish. Naturally, he translated this remark for her. She smiled. My role as a professional brat had now been clearly established in this instant academic community.

The Russian delegation arrived the next day. I had dinner with the group at the Holiday Inn. They were all having barbecued pork ribs, so the waitress placed gigantic bibs around their necks. The bib on Alexei Pyanov, editor of Krokodil, the satirical tabloid published by the Soviet government (circulation 5.3 million) read, “Superman.” The bib on Vladimir Mochalov, art director of Krokodil, read, “Miss America.”

We were discussing censorship. They insisted they have none, although it came out in conversation that a particular cartoon idea--showing British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a compromising position, with an American saying, “Where do you want these missiles?”--was not published because it was “too coarse.”

I, in turn, said that I can publish anything I want in The Realist, but that I also write a column for National Lampoon, and recently they turned down my account of snorting cocaine with the Pope. The Lampoon editors loved it, but were afraid of an organized letter writing campaign to their advertisers. Would Krokodil be interested in publishing the piece? Superman and Miss America graciously declined my offer.

That evening my keynote presentation was titled, “Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut.” I explained that the phrase came from a poison-pen letter-to-the-editor of Life magazine sent by the FBI after Life had published a profile of me in 1968. The letter stated: “That a national magazine of your fine reputation would waste time and effort on the cuckoo editor of an unimportant, smutty little rag is incomprehensible. . . . To classify Krassner as some sort of ‘social rebel’ is far too cute. He’s a nut, a raving, unconfined nut. . . .”

Presentations at the humor conference ranged from “Are Animals Capable of Humor?” to “Computer Conferencing: High Tech Humor.”

From “ ‘Tuna Fish?’ ‘No. But I Can, a Piano!’ A Semiotic Analysis of the Pun” (A woman in the audience called out, “Use a pun--go to prison!”) to “Satiric/Ironic Humor in International Interfacing of Jokes and Other Comic Media in Three Psycho-Social Areas: Civil Rights, Religion and Feminism.”

From “Attitudes Toward Hospitalization as Viewed Through Humorous ‘Get Well’ Cards” to “The Role of the Innocent in the TV Situation Comedy Series.”

From “Black Humor and the American Baseball Novel” to “Humor in Certain Segments of Stendahl’s ‘The Red and the Black.’ ”

From “The Unkosher Comediennes: Sophie Tucker to Joan Rivers” to “Anti-Nazi Humor During the Holocaust.”

From “Satire as Persuasion” to “The Ethics of Humor.”

From “A Comparative Study Measuring the Sense of Humor of Italian, Austrian and Yugoslav Students” to “A Comparative Study Measuring the Sense of Humor of Lawyers, Physicians and Painters.”

From “How Many Jokes Does It Take to Change a Zeitgeist ?” to “Models of Humor Incompetence: What It Means Not to Get a Joke.”

From “Humor and the Rural Mailbox” to “Humor Intervention Theory.”

From “The Significance of Laughter in the Yellow-Naped Parrot” to “A Comparative Analysis of Laugh Response of 20- and 70-Year-Old Male Subjects.”

From “Humor of the Disabled” to “Humor in South Africa.”

From “The Role of Humor in Managing and Treating Violent Patients” to “The Use of Humor to Alleviate Stress and Achieve Goals.”

There were disputes as to the difference between comedy and satire, between tragedy and catastrophe, between science and art, between nitpicking and hairsplitting.

One speaker claimed that there were no more jokes about the Pope since the attempted assassination, even while a Pope joke was circulating around the corridors, about how the premier of Russia wanted clocks to be the same time around the world, complaining: “I called Queen Elizabeth to wish her happy birthday, but I was a day late. I called Rome to express my sympathy for the attempted assassination of the Pope, but I was two days early.”

Indeed, it was a priest speaking on “humor and religion” who ended his talk with this joke: “What happened when the Pope opened the window? He invented Polish Air Conditioning.”

Moreover, another presentation featured a roast of the Pope with the aid of imaginary slides on a screen that remained blank. I couldn’t help but yell out, “Focus!”

On the final day of the conference, the Russians took the stage. The subject was “Soviet and American Humor.” With charming sarcasm, Pyanov admitted that American humor was greater, holding up an envelope labeled “Rattlesnake Eggs.” He and his comrades had been quite frightened by this novelty-store item presented by one of their hosts.

The hope was expressed that “explosions of bombs would be replaced with explosions of laughter, and stereotypes based on hatred would be converted to handshakes of friendship.”

It was all very polite. Nobody referred to the underground joke making the rounds in the Soviet Union: “Why are we still in Afghanistan?” “Because we’re looking for the people who invited us there.”

Emil Draitser, editor of “Forbidden Laughter,” a book collection of Soviet underground jokes, had told me that the humor in “Krokodil, about productivity and absenteeism, “is not for the people, but for the state.” Jon Pariser, translator of the book, was now concerned that these visiting Russians had to be careful what they said here because they would have to answer for it back in the U.S.S.R.

When the session was just about over, a man asked: “Who among you is the KGB agent? Please identify the FBI agent traveling with you.”

Suddenly there was a feeling of discomfort that permeated the auditorium.

I had no choice but to surrender to the impulse. I stood up and wordlessly acknowledged that I was the FBI agent. And the tension was broken by a wave of appreciative laughter.

Paul Herzich had spoken a few days previously on “The Evaluation of Stand-up Comedy,” emphasizing the importance of parsimony. Now he said to me, “That was the most parsimonious punchline I’ve ever seen.”

For me, it was a moment of functional humor, even if I had blown my cover in the process.

The next day, we took the show on the road. At UCLA, there was a special event, “Soviet Humorists Meet American Humorists.” As a member of the panel, I was asked to try to make the Russians laugh. I chose what I felt would be an appropriate demonstration of freedom of humor.

“For a political satirist,” I began, “these are ripe times.” I paused for the interpreter to translate. “Of course, the arms-for-hostages scandal is different from the Watergate scandal. There we had the Nixon tapes, with 18 1/2 minutes missing. Now all we have is former CIA Director William Casey getting a brain operation. But what makes this suspicious is that they only removed the section from August, 1985 to November, 1986. . . .”

And the Russians laughed along with the Americans.

Vladimir Mochalov was busy drawing caricatures of the other panelists and individuals in the audience. He winked at me. Our plan for him to defect to the Venice boardwalk was already in motion.