There have been tons of knock-knock jokes, ethnic jokes, and how-many-light-bulb jokes down through the decades. But 40 years ago, the joke that was sweeping the country was the Tom Swifty.
Never heard of them? Let your youth be your consolation. According to Wikipedia, the free internet encyclopedia, Tom Swiftys are named after the Tom Swift American adventure novels. Author Victor Appleton (or Edward L. Stratemeyer or Howard Garis, writing in Stratemeyer’s employ) would describe each and every action with an adverb. Tom never just said anything; he said it warily, happily, eagerly, etc. A Tom Swifty is a particular type of pun centering on the adverb in the following formula:
“You should go clean the lawn,” Tom said rakishly.
“I hate being on welfare,” Tom said dolefully.
“Those knives are dangerous,” Tom said pointedly.
“I dropped my toothpaste!” Tom said crestfallenly.
It was a rare television or radio show that didn’t include a Tom Swifty in its humor arsenal during the summer of ’63. At parties, friends would try out new ones, to which their friends gave groans of appreciation. Three years later, The Random House Dictionary of the English Language legitimized the Tom Swifty as “a play on words that follows an unvarying pattern, and relies for its humor on a punning relationship between the way an adverb describes a speaker and at the same time refers significantly to the import of the speaker’s statement, as in, ‘I know who turned off the lights,’ Tom hinted darkly.” In honor of the 40th anniversary, shall we whip up some Tom Swiftys with a Broadway theme?
“I will only listen to the original cast album of The Who’s Tommy,” Tom said acidly.
“We can save money doing Our Town, what with its bare stage,” Tom said unsettlingly.
“I’m sure you can remember the name of the performer who was billed under Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante in Red Hot and Blue,” Tom said hopefully.
“I can’t really say how Promises, Promises stacks up to its source material because I’ve only seen an abbreviated version of the movie,” Tom said aptly.
“Nothing in my cast album collection is filed after The Zulu and the Zayda,” Tom said at last.
“I can’t find a cast album of The Golden Apple anywhere,” Tom said fruitlessly.
“I won’t listen to anything recorded by Streisand, Cook, or Harris,” Tom said barbarously.
“Did you ever see that London musical called Mutiny?” Tom asked bountifully.
“I much prefer the score that Leonard Bernstein wrote before West Side Story,” Tom said candidly.
“Cats may be good, but I never deigned to see it,” Tom deferred.
“Let’s do a show with only women in it,” Tom demanded.
“I’m always impressed at the way Rose storms down the aisle in the first scene of Gypsy,” Tom said, entranced.
“Well, I do appreciate Dames at Sea,” Tom said fleetingly.
“Bet you don’t remember the name of Alan Alda’s character in the third act of The Apple Tree,” Tom said flippantly.
“What did you think of Hello, Dolly! after Carol Channing left?” Tom asked gingerly.
“I’m satisfied with the actress we cast as Daddy Warbucks’s secretary,” Tom said gracefully.
“I don’t know if you have the quality to be a good Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz,” Tom said heartlessly.
“I hate it when tickets are scalped,” Tom said icily.
“I enjoyed sitting in canvas-topped summer stock theaters,” Tom said intently.
“I saw every actor who played Richard Henry Lee in 1776 and, after careful analysis, none was as good as Ron Holgate,” Tom said irately.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a better choreographer than the fellow who did Guys and Dolls,” Tom kidded.
“Hasn’t Aida closed?” Tom asked, deep in denial.
“Too bad Richard Rodgers didn’t continue writing that musical with Alan Jay Lerner,” Tom said lackadaisically.
“I don’t have many good feelings about that sterile-looking theater in Baltimore,” Tom said mechanically.
“When the first album of The Baker’s Wife came out, I really missed that quintessentially French-sounding song called ‘Bread,'” Tom said painfully.
“Don’t you miss Theater Week?” Tom asks periodically.
“Let’s put Emily Skinner right next to Alice Ripley,” was Tom’s rejoinder.
“Why hasn’t there been a revival of Irma La Douce?” Tom asked tartly
“I think Kim McAfee and Hugo Peabody have broken up,” Tom said unsteadily.
“You mean there isn’t a big Moby Dick effect in that Moby Dick musical?” Tom wailed.
“The producer closed Two by Two,” Tom deduced.
“So what that I didn’t get the male lead in Once Upon a Mattress?” Tom said dauntlessly.
“May I appear once again in Man of La Mancha?” Tom requested.
“Miss Jones was great in Maggie Flynn,” Tom said surely.
“Whatever happened to that musical that Harold Arlen and Martin Charnin wrote?” Tom asked softly.
“Sondheim and Lapine shouldn’t have stuck so close to the original source material of Into the Woods,” Tom said grimly.
“I bought a whole bunch of tickets to The Lion King,” Tom said with pride.
“Wasn’t what happened to Eddie in Blood Brothers awfully lucky?” Tom said transparently.
“On June 7, 1998, Lillias White, Chuck Cooper, and Pamela Isaacs were thrown out of work and Broadway lost a good musical,” Tom said lifelessly.
“Ms. Henshall is no longer in Chicago,” Tom said ruthlessly.
(Why should we restrict all the fun to Tom? Here are four that use the same concept with other people matched to their adverbs:)
“If you’re going to write a musical about Da Vinci, you should do better than the authors of Leonardo did,” moaned Lisa.
“I’m just following in Jack Cassidy’s footsteps,” Patrick Cassidy said sunnily.
“I can’t believe we have to rehearse that ‘Confrontation’ number once again,” Robert Cuccioli said, beside himself.
“Now that the show is closing, I’m going to miss the Imperial Theatre,” said Les miserably.
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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@aol.com]