I used to run a Circus Arts club at the elementary school. We'd do some hula hooping, some slapstick. It was pretty fun. We got to holler and run around. But when it rains. 24 kids who were expecting to be clowns for an hour, stuck IN A CLASSROOM? BRRRR.
One rainy day this fall, at a loss for an activity, I had a brainstorm for a quickie little vaudeville-y act, something two kids could do to distract the audience while we changed scenery between acts. Jokes! We'd have two kids tell jokes! So on this rainy day, I challenged them to come up with jokes. You ever hear what an elementary school kid thinks is a joke?
"Why did the headless kid survive the shipwreck?
Because he was Otto von Bismarck!"
Otto von Bismarck whut? And why a headless kid? But never mind - we must have done 25 minutes of headless kid jokes. The time passed pleasantly and we came up with an act.
There's a lot of this spirit in The Underground Gators. Why are school buses orange? Because "Nobody wants to argue with an alligator who is holding a paintbrush." Why do doughnuts have holes? So that the alligators can carry an extra on their tails!
YESSS!! It's nonsense, pure and simple, taking as its starting point the persistent myth that there are escaped pet alligators living in the sewers of New York City. Lynn Munsinger, who has always excelled at depicting adorable rosy-cheeked tykes beset by the less-cuddly members of the animal kingdom (David Greenberg's Bugs!
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