War Humor: Negotiating a Minefield : Comedy: On television and in clubs, comedians are struggling to find a way to deal with the Mideast conflict--without offending any sensibilities.

“Tell us why we’re in the Middle East? It’s not for democracy--they don’t know democracy from yellow paint. The only freedom women have over there is deciding which part of the desert they want to sweep up while dressed as bee keepers.”

Political comedian Wil Durst gets what he feels is tentative laughter to that line, but it’s an entertainment industry showcase at the Improv in Hollywood, which means a roomful of casting directors, producers and agents. An industry crowd is always considered tough.

Durst shakes his head in disbelief afterward. “That worked in Milwaukee and Minneapolis--blue-collar enclaves.” However, Durst admits that he’s got one war bit that doesn’t seem to go over anywhere in the United States:

“Can we believe everything the Pentagon tells us about this war? If you remember, they didn’t even admit we were losing the war in Vietnam in 1974 . Hey guys, that’s not a light at the end of the tunnel--it’s a muzzle flash.”

The war in the Persian Gulf has become both fertile territory and a minefield for comedians. On television and in comedy clubs, comedians are struggling to find a way to deal with the war--without offending sensibilities.

Richard Belzer echoed many comedians: “I’m still grappling with my material,” he said. “I don’t want to trivialize things that may come back to haunt me and the nation.”

“Humor should be valve and steam vent during war, but the wrong joke only increases the pressure, and could explode in your face,” says political comedian Kevin Rooney.

According to psychologist Carol Lieberman, humor can function as a release during a crisis period but timing is everything.

“The stress of being barraged constantly by war news is becoming chronic. Mentally, this can cause anxiety, depression, nightmares, racial tension,” said Lieberman. Physically, this stress can cause a diminution of the strength of the immune system. An antidote to this stress buildup is laughter.”

The idea of what’s funny may always fluctuate with the fortunes of war. Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” failed in 1940 in part because audiences could no longer view Hitler as a cartoon figure; the Smothers Brothers’ network series was canceled in 1969 during the Vietnam War because their humor was considered too controversial.

“Although people may feel guilty about laughter, it’s both vital and patriotic,” Lieberman said. “We must keep ourselves physically and emotionally fit. Of course, it’s impossible to laugh during the moment you’re glued to your television set watching imminent threats of death. But afterwards, during the lull, humor serves its psychological function as a tension release and we’re going to see many of these cycles of tension and release.”

On television, “The Tonight Show” was preempted during the first two days of bombing. When it returned, six of Johnny Carson’s 13 jokes pertained to war topics (“Mideast weather topic: Iraq cloudy, temperatures in the mid-’80s followed shortly thereafter by partially flat “) but the studio audience seemed to laugh most wholeheartedly at the non-Gulf material.

More recent monologues have also reflected the news media’s extensive war coverage. After the invasion of Kuwait, two or three jokes might have dealt with the Middle East. The first Tuesday of the war, more than half the monologue had become Gulf-related and by the second Tuesday eight of 20 jokes.

Substitute host Jay Leno had Scud jokes--”Scud stands for Stupid Crazy Ugly Dictator.” But the evening after the missiles caused deaths in Israel, Leno’s war material was almost exclusively anti-Hussein, and received with thunderous laughter: “Saddam’s favorite movie is ‘The Godfather.’ . . . If the war continues to go the way it has been going, I think his next favorite movie is going to be ‘Home Alone.’ ”

As psychologist Lieberman explains, “Saddam Hussein has become the main cartoon target because if you give an enemy feet of clay you feel in control of an uncontrollable situation. Make him look a fool and you’re less afraid.”

By the third week of the war, Leno combined the two topics--”A lot of people in the Middle East are now naming their babies Saddam . . . are Adolf and Genghis already taken? What about Scud?--that’s a nice name.”

“The Tonight Show” monologue is well known as a gauge of what the American people want and need to laugh at. Few other shows, however, have managed to read the public pulse so well.

“Saturday Night Live” was quick out of the gate with war jokes on Jan. 19--and with mixed results. Easy audience laughter (and critical praise) greeted a “Wayne’s World” skit in which the teen dudes analyzed TV news coverage. “Worst name: Wolf Blitzer . . . it’s like ‘Now we take you to our war correspondent, Howitzer Explosion Guy.” Dennis Miller’s innocuous missile reference (that “Scud” has been accepted as a Scrabble word) was greeted tentatively, but Al Franken, as the self-obsessed Baghdad correspondent wearing a satellite dish that attracted a bomb, prompted a rash of protesting telephone calls to NBC.

“Everybody knew when the war started--not saying anything is like going to a funeral and ignoring the corpse,” says Jeff Jena, who is currently plying his political humor in, of all places, Las Vegas.

“I had trouble with those high-school math word problems, maybe somebody can help me with this one?” Jena asked from the stage at the Riviera Hotel. “On Monday, a man buys 80,000 gallons of gasoline and puts it in the tank under his service station. On Tuesday, Iraq invades Kuwait. How much more is the gasoline worth on Wednesday morning?”

Jena said he had gotten a good reaction to that bit when he taped a segment on the Arts & Entertainment Channel’s “Caroline’s Comedy Hour” two days after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but “now audiences seem confused--like they suddenly don’t want to acknowledge that oil companies may be profiteering.”

Randy Credico is a political comedian who gives a crowd little quarter in the best of times--and expects none from them during a conflict he can’t support. “I haven’t worked in a comedy club since the war; I don’t want to be lynched. I don’t present a balanced point of view because the system and the media is already lopsided to the right wing. I’m strictly anti-war, which could now be misconstrued as anti-Israel, or not supporting the troops.”

Although he may be avoiding clubs at the moment, Credico generally lives out the courage of his convictions; he’s made 13 trips to Nicaragua to entertain American social service volunteers and write jokes for Daniel Ortega’s campaign. “I was anti-Saddam when he was gassing Kurds and Bush was embracing him--but that’s too easy now.” At anti-war rallies, Credico imitates Bush bashing Hussein, “Saddam uses poison gas--that’s evil. We used napalm, which was not, because when we killed you your organs were still good for transplant.”

“People were very receptive before the two quick touchdowns that created war fever,” says Credico sadly, and bitterly predicts that pacifist comedy will be back in vogue, “two or three months from when the body bags start rolling in.”

Currently, the crowd at the L.A. Cabaret responds enthusiastically to Tom Sheikman’s rabble-rousing war ballad sung to the tune of “The Beverly Hillbillies”:

Now it’s time to say goodby to Saddam and all his kin

Kuwait would like to thank you jerks for kindly droppin’ in

You better keep your butts away from that locality

Or you’ll get a heaping helping of our hospitality

--Nuclear style ... mushroom cloud ... blow your towel off

Y’all stay away now.

Slightly uncomfortable with this unabashedly pro-war stance, Sheikman defends his position on several levels, “I was against our involvement in El Salvador, but I believe we’re doing the right thing now. I worry that I’m oversimplifying, but of all my political material that’s the stuff that works the best right now.”

Although Dana Gould’s eccentric and intelligent black-tinged humor isn’t exclusively political, he simply can’t ignore the setup of a madman statesman in the Middle East. “Iraq could be a crater, and Hussein reduced to nothing but a head in a mayonnaise jar, but he’d still be screaming, ‘I win!’ ” On the other hand, Gould refuses to “go after the Iraqi people because that would approach jingoism--I had a joke about Iraqi war brides I dropped because it got big laughs for the wrong reasons.”

American comedians may be self-censoring, but American comedians abroad are encountering other barriers.

“War is ludicrous and ludicrous is a great route for comedy,” says Wil Durst. Unfortunately, two weeks ago Durst was working in England, where the ludicrous is officially banned. Normally, British prime time is less restrictive than the American networks, but, according to Durst, “Rushdie-ization” had set in, and anything that could be construed by Muslims as offensive (and might incite terrorism) was being pulled from the air--including silly films like “Carry On Up the Khyber,” Monty Python episodes and any of Durst’s previously approved Persian Gulf material.

Back in the States, even opening acts are working in the war. Dana Snow claims that he gets big laughs even on the coffeehouse open-mike circuit with this bit: “I was too compassionate for the Army. My drill sergeant said ‘Bayonet that stuffed dummy,’ and I argued, ‘First let’s try economic sanctions.’ ”

Recently, comedian Jimmy Tingle discussed the glorification of combat at a college concert in Pennsylvania. “They never show you a GI Joe doll in a wheelchair wounded or maimed and choking on chemical weapons, a GI Joe doll without a head.”

Although the college crowd was receptive, a woman with friends stationed in Saudi Arabia told Tingle afterward that the images he evoked were “disturbing.” Tingle has friends of his own in the Gulf and doesn’t feel he’d be doing them a service by glossing over the realities of battle. But Tingle admits of his comedy “You’re not telling them anything they don’t know. Maybe they just don’t want to hear it now. Maybe they’re going to a comedy show to get away from the war.”