“Although there have been witty big menOscar Wilde comes first to mindwit and humor seem more in the province of the smaller man. Chaplin, Keaton, the Marx Brothers were all small men. We expect a comedian to be small. He may also be fat. W.C. Fields was fat; so was Oliver Hardy. Fat is funny, small is funny. Lou Costello, of Abbot & Costello, was small and fata winning comic combination. Tall isn't funny, perhaps owing to its being too imposing, even slightly menacing. Tall and handsome conjoined are especially unfunny. One can always fall back on being the tall and silent type, of whom, in the movies, Gary Cooper was the apotheosis. But if oneis small and silent, one is likely merely to be counted shy. Small men are under an obligation to do more talking;perhaps this is why so many of them are always joking.”
