History of Humor Writing, Pt 1

For today's Good Humor Monday post, I thought we'd have a little history lesson on humor writing.

Part 1: The Beginning

Although many people like to think that the art of writing humor began in the 19th century, the fact is humor writing has been around a lot longer than people think.  Despite what writing purists would want you to believe, humor writing is in fact the oldest form of writing.  It even pre-dates the Epic of Gilgamesh which was written over three thousand years ago. 

To find the origins of humor writing, one has to go back over thirty thousand years to the cave paintings of prehistoric man.  One particular prehistoric man, to be exact.  His name was Steve. 

(Another uncommonly known fact is that  the name Steve has been around for at least 50,000 years.  It is the oldest name in the history of mankind.)

As the historically accurate reenactment goes, Steve was a prehistoric man living in the Chauvet region of France around 33,000 BC.   Late one Wednesday evening, Steve was returning home from another fruitless day of hunting bison.  It had been days since he'd had a successful hunt, so he knew he'd have to put up with another night of criticisms about his failures as a hunter from his wife Karen, which as it turns out is the second oldest name in the history of mankind. 

When Steve finally returned home his wife Karen was gone.  She had moved back in with her mother, an act that was often parodied many years later on such shows as The Flintstones.  Alone and dejected, Steve chose not to write a sad poem about his predicament (poetry would not be invented for at least another 30,000 years).  Instead, he picked up a piece of charcoal and drew a picture of his wife with the head of a bison.  Granted he didn't actually use words, but this humorous charicature can be considered the earliest form of humor writing.  He shared his drawing with his other cave buddies, who agreed that Karen was in fact quite bison-like and that Steve could do much better.

Two weeks later, Steve was eaten by a bear.

We here in the Gather Writing Essentials group salute pioneers like Steve for seeking humor when faced by a depressing situation.  To this day, humor writers everywhere honor the memory of Steve with our own humorous stories about our failings, ineptitudes, and misunderstandings with the opposite sex.  We are also on the constant lookout for bears.