Teach your kid to speak wrong.

You want to play a dirty trick on a 3-year old?

I was trying to think of something funny for my dad to listen to while he took his nap. He’s been listening to Mystery Theater, but has heard a bunch. I poked through a few podcasts under comedy, but most are comedians I don’t recognize and this isn’t a time to try out something new.

Let’s go with what we know works.

Let’s go with guaranteed laughs because you’ve laughed before to the same thing. Wow, what, 35 years ago? Whew. Ahem. Whoa.

It’s what we know, what we love, what we grew up with. I know every line and my dad knows most and if he doesn’t, they at least jog his memory when he hears it. Then we laugh all over again.

Language guy that I am, I love the skit on how to play a dirty trick on your 3-year old. “Whenever you’re around him, speak wrong. That way, when he goes to his first day at school, he’ll raise his hand and say to the teacher, ‘May I momo dog face in the banana patch?'”

I think my dad really liked it. He was so tired. I like to hope it brought him back to happier times, back, man, seriously? What? 30 even 40 years ago? Nah, must be more like 30. Back when he was 47. Listening to Steve Martin together with his son (and probably neighbor friend as he also listened as much as we did) on the record player. Probably from the HiFi setup in those cabinets that hung on the walls (that we JUST took down a few years ago) with the cables expertly wired through the attic and then down to the monster-size speakers acoustically perfectly placed in the room.

I hope it brought him a few minutes of laughs today.