Monday, October 26, 2015

Manic Monday Bonus--Why Political Satire Is Deadly!!

We're in post-WWII, Europe, and one entertainment figure has risen above the rest:


No, Zomboli uses his mastery of pantomime for dark and dire purposes:


Yes, I too have often left a theater chuckling at "a wonderful satire on the Secretary Of State and the collector of taxes"!! Ho, ho, the hilarity!

But it's not all just in good fun--there's a ulterior motive to this vicious satire!



Really? What's the connection?

Airboy is on the case:

Yes, that is actually the game--Zamboli makes any effective leaders ineffective with his incisive use of pantomime and satire, so the cities just fall without a fight!!

Airboy follows Zamboli...


Airboy is caught, though, and gets to see Zomboli's master plan in action...

See, Zomboli has a really big gun:

...and he loads his troops and tanks into a really big shell...

...and fires at the target that has been weakened by keen satire...



Fortunately, Airboy's warning meant the bad guys faced resistance for the first time!

Yes, Zomboli aimed to take over the entire planet with his scathing political comedy act!!

So next time you see a really good episode of Saturday Night Live that ridicules our finest leaders, be aware that's it's probably just the prelude to an attack!! Reject satire, especially in pantomime form!! Ridicule of your government will lead to its downfall!! Stop all laughter!!

From Airboy #111 (1953)

3 comments:

George Chambers said...

"Weakening target countries with biting satire" wasn't the worst part of this plan. "Loading my entire army into a huge artillery shell, firing it, and expecting them to get to their destination as anything but human raspberry jam" was.

snell said...

Ah, that latter part is just standard comic book silliness. The "making fun of our leaders could actually put our nation in jeopardy" is a seriously anti-free speech position for a comic book to take, and so was much more interesting to me...

Sina said...

Oh yeah, "laughter can be a very powerful thing...why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have" - Roger Rabbitt :)

After all, is anyone taking Korea seriously, with their leaders being mocked heavily at least as far back as 'Team America'? Or Osama, Saddam n' others (including Hitler) having their followings n' leadership threatened, questioned & undermined by over-exaggerated displays of incompetance and etc?

I mean, who's going to take someone seriously if everyone else is just laughing at them, right?