"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."

-Peter Ustinov

I think the above quote is the reason I enjoy satire so much. One of my favorite comedians is Stephen Colbert, who I think is an incredibly gifted satirist. At the heart of satire is a truth and seriousness that makes it so much funnier than a knock knock joke.

But not only satire is at its root serious. A common phrase applied to humor is that something is funny "because it's true." Humor based on a grain of truth has the power to move far more than humor that does not. That there is truth implies also that there is something serious about it. Comedy is how we laugh at the truths that stare us in the face.