When was the last time you experienced a helpless, hysterical fit of laughter? I’m talking about the kind you could barely control, that left you snorting and panting. If you’re like me, those moments happened more often during childhood. I still remember discovering Deep Thoughts at age 12, when my parents were reading Jack Handey’s bizarre and hilarious musings to their friends at a party. To me, it was like discovering alchemy. I was in pain. The cliché ‘I laughed so hard it hurt’ has been wildly overused, and it’s true about as often as someone who types ‘lol’ is actually laughing out loud. But the laughter became so violent and unstoppable that I literally felt my stomach seizing up. That was the power of Handey’s humor. When I read sentences like, “Whether they ever find life there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet,” it felt like I was on a different planet, one in which connections were drawn down from the ether to construct perfect comedic jewels.
Other works that inspired those gasping moments of hilarity have become cliché, some have faded from memory, and others still are obscure. There was the night I saw Saturday Night Live’s Blue Oyster Cult sketch as it originally aired, when the interplay between Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken was so funny it left me shocked. The greatness of that scene has been diluted by the prevalence of the ‘more cowbell’ meme, but it was raw and brilliant at the time. Certain Far Side comics have done the trick. Ditto for Achewood and the Perry Bible Fellowship. A few novels, too, like Catch-22 and A Confederacy of Dunces and Terry Southern’s lesser-known The Magic Christian. The book Letters from a Nut, by a man named Ted L. Nancy—possibly a pseudonym used by Larry David—has reduced me to tears. So have Arrested Development (Gob making the boat disappear) and Airplane and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (“The Gang Gives Back”).
But for one reason or another, as I grew older, I thought I was beyond being reduced to hysterics. After I’d consumed enough comedy and written some of my own, I tended to start enjoying it more quietly. Even the very satisfying moments, when I could tell something was perfectly constructed and just surprising enough to add that critical twist, left me nodding happily or laughing in a more civilized manner. It’s not that I enjoyed it any less; it’s just that with time, everything seemed more familiar, and I wasn’t impacted in a way that left me gasping for air. Those days, I thought, were gone.
I was wrong. Enter, into my life, one Mark Proksch, a comedian who now plays the small role of Nate the handyman on The Office. In the spring of 2010, before he moved to Los Angeles, Proksch made seven appearances on morning news shows in Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri. But he didn’t go as himself; instead, he was Kenny Strasser. Or K-Strass. Or, once, Karl Strassberg. No matter the name, he appeared in character as a “yo-yo artist.” He wore brown shoes, rumpled socks, green shorts, dark blue suspenders, a light shirt with the words “Zim Zam!” written on the front, and a plain yellow baseball cap. Strasser was short and hunched, always standing with both hands in his pockets. He spoke in a nasal Midwestern accent, with a halting cadence that was both awkward and deliberate.
Someone posing as his agent (likely Proksch himself or his writing partner Joe Pickett) booked him on these shows via email. They wrote that Strasser represented Zim-Zam Yo-Yos (a company that combined yo-yos with environmental causes) and went around entertaining kids in schools with his “zany sense of humor.” The email went on to claim that Strasser “was runner-up for Rookie of the Year in 1995, grand champion at the Pensacola Regional, and was nominated for the Walt Greenberg Award in 2000.” Reading these fake honors now, I have to laugh at the modesty. Making him a runner-up for one prize, and only a nominee for another, is a stroke of genius. Not only is it harder to verify, but it also humanizes a fictional character.
Four of Strasser’s seven performances survive online, and they are some of the most incredible comedic bits of live television ever recorded. I hesitate to recap them, since they’re available if you have slightly above-average Internet searching skills, but visual comedy can have a strange way of coming to life in a different way in print. With the hope that Kenny Strasser’s brilliance is no exception, let’s revisit the four appearances.
1. On Action News 12 in Joplin, Missouri, Strasser began his live interview by asking the host which camera he should focus on. Once he was directed to the one in the middle, he began to speak about the death of his friend, Eric Stringer. “He was the Garth Brooks of yo-yoing,” Strasser said. The host tried his best not to laugh. After requesting a moment of silence, Strasser removed his hat and whispered, “it was a jet ski accident,” to the befuddled interviewer. He went on to talk about how it was becoming difficult for him to get into schools to interact with kids, though he didn’t elaborate. Instead, he discussed his charity work, like going to inner cities and giving out yo-yos to the homeless in a program called “yo-yos for hobos.” “If just one of them ends up on the pro circuit,” he said, “then my job is done.”
As the host tried in vain to push the interview forward, Kenny began recounting his personal history. He spent his twenties working at a restaurant, and then began selling shrimp. He told the host he’d just come from Omaha, Nebraska, and was heading down to Arkansas (absurdly far) for another show the next day. “There are about a dozen official yo-yo masters,” he said. “And I am not one of them, because I don’t compete.” Finally, he talked about the environmental lessons he teaches the kids in school, such as “switching out traditional light bulbs for non-traditional light bulbs,” and “you don’t have to flush if you just pee.”
Somehow, he lasted to the second segment, where he came out with four yo-yos in each hand to perform a trick called “The Blue Flying Angel.” He started with a rap: “Hey there, up in the sky, it’s K-Strass, the yo-yo guy!” followed by an odd bout of high-pitched scatting. The host moved out of the way, and Strasser spoke into a fake headset as he let all eight yo-yos fall and began twirling them in swooping circles. “Let’s take it down and we’ll get into a huey!” he yelled, as he began whirring the yo-yos around and above his head. They quickly became tangled. With an alarmed expression, he whispered, “What should I do?” to the host. Receiving no answer, he spun around in a circle until he fell over. The host asked if he was okay, and Strasser told him he’d become dizzy. “Honestly,” he said, disheartened, “I think I’m going to give up some of the yo-yo stuff. I don’t have the muscle memory.”
The host closed the segment as best he could.
2. KQTV in St. Joseph was Strasser’s next stop. As the segment began, the two hosts asked him about his experience working with kids. “I’ve only been in one school so far,” he said, “and I’ll be honest—it didn’t go so hot.” He went on to describe the misbehavior of the students, and told the story of his own father, who used to spank him with a switch or a belt. “I am literally terrified to this day,” he said. As he reached the end of that story, the hosts quickly tried to push him onto the theme of going green. “I kind of have breaking news,” he said. It appeared that Zim-Zam YoYos had decided to go in a different direction and fire Straser. “Am I angry about this? Yes I am,” Strasser said rhetorically. The hosts, beginning to sense disaster, asked to see his tricks. He told them he had invented one named after the station. Unfortunately, it never got that far.