eed, variations on this theme are endless in humorous
writing.

"_Sympathy also kills humor._ The moment we begin to pity the victim
of a joke--for humor has much to do with victims--our laughter dies
away. Therefore the subject of the joke must not be one for whose
distress we feel strong sympathy. The thing that happens to a fop is
quite different in effect from that which affects a sweet old lady.
True, we often laugh at those--or at those ideas--with whom or with
which we are in sympathy, but in such an instance the ludicrous for
the moment overwhelms our sympathy--and sometimes even destroys
it."[32]

[Footnote 32: J. Berg Esenwein _Writing for the Magazines_; published
uniform with this volume in "The Writer's Library."]

This one thing bear especially in mind: _clean_ comedy is even more
essential than clean drama. It is so easy, when writing humorous
material, to go wrong without intending it--indeed, even without
knowing it. Under the guise of comedy some producers are responsible
for scenes and situations that manage somehow or other to pass the
censors, whereas the same scene in a dramatic photoplay would not be
tolerated for a moment. But these are exceptions.

The marital relation should be touched upon only in a way which admits
of no offense being taken by right-minded and refined people. Real
infidelity had far better be left out of humorous photoplays
altogether. Here more than in any other branch of photoplay writing
you should remember that what merely _might_ be tolerated on the
regular stage would never do on the screen. It is well to remember
also that just as the American public has tired of the chase and the
foolish powder, it has also sickened of the coarse, suggestive, and
even the questionable subjects that could once be depended upon to
"get a laugh." There is absolutely no excuse for introducing anything
into a picture today that would offend the good taste of any member of
an audience. The local censorship boards of some cities have made
themselves ridiculous in the eyes of thinking photoplay patrons, but
the work done by the National Board of Censors has been the means of
slowly and surely causing the lower class of photoplay patrons to
acquire an appreciation of good dramatic subjects as well as more
refined comedy.

It may be said in passing that not all the companies producing
farcical photoplays or slap-stick, as it is generally called--exclude
the work of the outside writer. Su