Channel Chuckles

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Channel Chuckles is the title of a comic panel created by Bil Keane which ran from 1954 through 1977. Keane received the National Cartoonist Society Special Features Award for 1976 for his work on the strip.

In its daily form, Channel Chuckles consisted of a single panel gag on the general theme of television, or specifically relating to a particular television series or TV commercial. The Sunday version of Channel Chuckles consisted merely of several unlinked spot gags in color, all on a television theme.

One "Channel Chuckles" gag depicted the fictional character Mr. Spock from Star Trek receiving letters requesting advice on child-rearing (a reference to Doctor Benjamin Spock). Another "Channel Chuckles" gag depicted a mad scientist working in his laboratory while a nearby television intoned the slogan of a current DuPont ad campaign: "Better living through chemistry".

Most of the "Channel Chuckles" gags were simple wordplay references to the titles of contemporary television programs. Probably the wittiest "Channel Chuckles" gag was the one depicting a small TV set on top of a larger TV set, each of them displaying on its screen the title of a current TV sitcom. While the upper TV set showed "Love on a Rooftop", the one underneath blared "Hey, Landlord!".

Just occasionally, Keane would subdivide the narrow space allotted to his "Channel Chuckles" feature in order to squeeze in two panels rather than the usual one. "Channel Chuckles" once featured a two-panel gag based on the titles of two current TV series. In the first panel, a man asks his wife "Why can't you be more like that show?" while pointing to a TV set as it displays the title "Occasional Wife". In the second panel, the wife points to the same TV while asking her husband "And why can't you be more like THAT show?". This time the title on the TV screen is "The Man Who Never Was".

At irregular intervals, some of the panel and Sunday gags featured "Aunt Tenna", a matronly woman with her hair done in the form of a TV antenna, who spent all her time watching television or engaged in TV-related activities. The only other recurring character in "Channel Chuckles" was "Dim Viewer", a grumpy old man who always had something negative to say about whatever program was on television.

A second comic series of the same title, without creator attribution, was started in 1988.

[edit] References

• NCS Awards
• Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1.