Tragicomedy

Face it. As long as it does't involve you — or anyone you know, love or admire — it's pretty easy to imagine comedy growing out of tragedy.

Neither pretty nor admirable, it is a fact that a 4-year-old kid finding a gun in the middle of the afternoon under the pillow of his napping dad and "accidentally" shooting him in the tummy has a certain comic potential. Similarly, the picture of a dad up a tree with an electric saw seems rife with possibilities for slapstick scenes. It becomes less funny when he drops it on his daughter, but still there is the sense of wonder at what was the dad thinking?

And face it, the irascible father is a staple of levity. A deadbeat dad swearing at a TV reporter makes for entertaining viewing. The "journalist" is intrusive; the father is getting the infamy he deserves; and the bleeping of the curses only makes it that much better. Of course, one can't help be left amused and awestruck at the impotence of a system that sends a dad owing $126,000 back to jail only to release him and return him into incarceration a couple years later when he owes $200,000 in child support.

Add up the rage and stupidity and threat of violence and dad and child and what do you have? A "Saturday Night Live" sketch: