Why a Pie in the Face is the Greatest Joke of All Time

      If any of you people know me, you know that I have always found the "Pie in the face" joke to be truly hilarious. 

    Now, I know what you are saying:  "That joke's a stupid cliche."  You are right about this being a cliche.  However, behind this cliche is a truth which has been along as long as people have been on the earth.  That is:  No matter who you are, when a pie hits you in the face you have immediately been humbled. 

   Sure, you might say the banana peel slip or a simple trip does something similar but a pie to the face must be initiated by another person and therein lies it's genius.  Whether it be a servant who hits another servant in the face or whether it be that same servant who hits his master in the face, either way a power shift between two people has occurred in the most immediate of ways.  The receiver of said coconut custard cream pie has been made aware of his or her inability to realize that they are not impervious to the influences of the people which surround them and that they must be held accountable for their thoughts and actions.  And there is nothing more satisfying than a fool realizing he's a fool.

     If you think about great moments in comedy, they all will lead back to this same joke.  Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd did it constantly, only their Banana Cream Pie was a double barrel shotgun.  Indiana Jones and that scimitar wielding crazy person in Raiders of the Lost Arc- a man with great skill, thus great pomp, is immediately humbled by Indiana's less classy pistol.  Or what about the guy who is reluctant to go in the water, yet somehow winds up being dragged behind a boat going at top speed on a single water-ski?  It's all the same joke! 

    Now you might say that a kick to the crotch is a better version of this joke, but you'd be wrong.  The reason?  A pie to the face doesn't discriminate between male and female.  A wealthy female dowager getting plugged with a pie is just as telling as some male gorilla from the slums.  A kick to the crotch can only focus on one gender thus can never reach the same level of truth that the pie can.

    So, I think it is time we started respecting the Pie to the face again because it is, in my opinion, a crystallization of everything that is funny.  It exposes the constant that no matter how important we think we are, any shmoe with a pie can put us in our place with one single splat.

                                                                                                                -VP