When comedy doesn't work

Sometimes comedy happens spontaneously.

Sometimes comedy happens with a great deal of planning.

And sometimes comedy doesn't happen at all.

I've had my eye on a nifty little gadget for a long time, but considering I have no real use for it, I could never justify its purchase. The other day I came across a good deal, and I finally broke down and bought an automotive DC to AC power inverter. Basically this little box turns your car cigarette lighter into a bona fide 110 volt electrical outlet.



Once I had the device in my hands, a comedy feature began to grow in my head like a fungus. I didn't have all the details worked out, but I figured I'd just go around the house and find a bunch of craaaaaaazy electrical appliances that you wouldn't normally need or want in your car, then shoot some photographs and work from there.

"The package says that you can use the inverter to charge your laptop or cell phone, but what if you wanted a LAVA LAMP in your car!" Oh, oh, my sides! Now that my friend, is comedy.



In broad daylight, the results were less than impressive, so I didn't wait for it to warm up to goo melting temperature. I just made a note to come back and reshoot at night.

That reshoot would never end up happening.

My next trip into the house yielded what I figured would eventually be the coup de grâce of the piece: My record player.

I could already see the words coming together. "Who needs a CD changer or an iPod when you can have the convenience of twelve inch vinyl records right at your fingertips! It's the ultimate car audio experience!"

My plan was to mount the record player on my dashboard, and then shoot a video of me cruising down the street listening to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' perennial favorite Whipped Cream and Other Delights. When I drove around the corner, the needle would scratch across the record to another track, and I'd just keep driving as if that's what it was supposed to do. Comedy gold.



But you see, the inherent comedy in mounting a record player on your dashboard is that it doesn't work. Not even long enough to shoot ten seconds of stupid Internet comedy. I did take after take after take of this goddamn thing, and each time, be it gravity, pedestrians, or mechanical failure, something went wrong.

After about two hours of circling the block in an increasingly ridiculous record road rage, I just gave up and scrapped the whole feature before it had even really begun. Now that it's several days later, I can look back and laaaaaaugh.

For your viewing pleasure, here's a video compilation showing why having a record player on your dashboard is not funny. At all. Ever.