The life, death, and Substack return of Jim Earl’s Mourning Remembrance, one of the funniest bits you’ve never heard of. Who’s choppin’ onions?
This past May, my father died. I’m not looking for sympathy. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease five years prior, and afterwards it was a gradual, slow-motion passing as, little by little, who he was literally faded away. It was hell for him, for my mother and sister, and for myself. Anyway, with him now at peace, there came the date of the funeral, and I was tasked with delivering the eulogy that would begin the service.
With a hard deadline approaching, I sat down to write a speech that I had honestly been dreading for months. I started with the obvious stuff—his distinguished military career, his work as an attorney, his family and personal life, etc.—but it all came out sad and depressing. Seeking to alleviate some of the gloom with a joke, I added an old story I indirectly heard about my father from when he was in college, where he allegedly got into a bar fight in New York City and broke a chair over someone’s head. Now, I’m sure he had his reasons, but the funny thing was that, when questioned about it, he admitted that he didn’t remember it happening, and that his friend had to tell him about it later. Unfortunately for him, what he attempted to pass off as plausible deniability sounded an awful lot like a memory blackout caused by alcohol. Now, it didn’t make me think less of Dad—I’ve done some stupid stuff myself after a few drinks—but it humanized him in my eyes. I got to see a side of my father that he didn’t often show.
Anyway, I told the story, and it landed well. People seemed to appreciate the break in solemnity. And, looking back, it serves as a reminder that humor, whether lighthearted or of the gallows variety, is always needed, even in matters related to death. We collectively fear death—the finality, the uncertainness over whether or not there’s an afterlife, the fear of Final Judgement, etc.—so, what do we do? We deflect our discomfort using jokes. After all, as the old saying goes, if we didn’t laugh, we’d cry.
This insight is probably best embodied by comedian and comedy writer Jim Earl. For nearly twenty years now, Jim has laughed at death, the dead, and the dying in a comedy segment called Mourning Remembrance, in which either he or his author surrogate, Grief Correspondent Mort Mortenson, offer the audience joke obituaries mocking the recently (and not-so recently) deceased. Appearing on a number of radio programs and podcasts over the years, it has recently resurfaced on Substack.
A veteran comic with a career going back decades, Jim got his start as part of a duo with his high school friend Barry Lank, forming the comedy team Lank and Earl.
Later, after years working as a road comic, he became a staff writer for the pre-Jon Stewart incarnation of The Daily Show, a job that would eventually win him both an Emmy and a Peabody Award (“Jim”). Later, in 2004, he—along with Barry and several of Jim’s Comedy Central alumni—began writing material for Air America Radio, the former liberal talk radio network that was initially programmed with shows matching progressive voices with outspoken comedians. And while he wrote material for several of them, it was the morning show—named Morning Sedition, no doubt as a backhanded tribute to NPR’s Morning Edition—where he made his biggest contribution.
Hosted by comedian and soon-to-be-podcast king Marc Maron and noted New York political commentator Mark Riley, Morning Sedition became a canvas upon which Jim would provide his provocative, outside-the-box approach to political talk. The creator of multiple weekly recurring sketches, he would cover the Bush Administration’s attempts to subvert reason and scientific advancement in The War on Brains, satirize the encroaching strength of the Religious Right with Rapture Watch, and make fun of President Bush’s foolish stance on stem cell research with the hilariously profane Sammy the Stem Cell. But it was Mourning Remembrance (originally called Morning Remembrance) that would stand the test of time.
(Sadly, there are no available tracks of the original Air America Radio clips to post. As a replacement, please enjoy this video from 2016.)
When asked about the genesis of the sketch series, Jim had this to say:
I used to do a lot of science, invention, [and] oddball jokes on The Daily Show where it was appropriate. I started writing the occasional obit there, like when Hitler’s secretary died. But the idea first arrived to me doing family genealogy years before. [R]eading the obituaries in rural newspapers, each obit pretty much adhering to a similar formula: name, reason person was notable, manner of death, how body was discovered, family reaction, short bio, manner / location of burial, [and] list of survivors. So, lots of opportunities to find jokes in those sections.
For months, Jim Earl wrote obituary after obituary, lampooning his targets with sardonic, sometimes venomous, wit. Some victims were obvious, some less so. Samuel Alderson, inventor of Crash Test Dummies. George Molchan, Oscar Meyer mascot. Edward von Kloberg III, public relations representative for dictators. Thurl Ravenscroft, voice of Tony the Tiger. Dan Taylor, hunter of the Loch Ness Monster. Gerry Thomas, inventor of the TV dinner. All of them funny, informative, and—sometimes—oddly moving. It certainly helped that laughter on the radio can sound like labored crying and sobbing.
But here’s the weird thing: even as the bit could be interpreted as vulgar and mean-spirited, it did what it was supposed to do. To this day, I still remember that Rebecca Webb Carranza was the inventor of the tortilla chip, and that Lucy O’Donnell Vodden was the inspiration for the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” By making fun of the dearly departed, Jim Earl—in his way—has immortalized them, archiving their victories and foibles for all time. Through his obituaries, they will be remembered.
Following the cancellation of Morning Sedition, the sketch moved to The Marc Maron Show, a late-night radio show that was originally intended to be syndicated by Air America Radio, but they reneged on their promise, leading to the show’s demise months later. Now called Weekly Remembrance (as it was no longer on in the morning), Jim continued to laugh at dead people, this time as co-host of the show. Afterwards, Marc served as guest host on a string of AAR shows and, more often than not, Jim Earl would accompany him, either in-studio or over the phone. It was during this time that it was finally renamed Mourning Remembrance.
After Air America, Mourning Remembrance moved to podcasting, appearing as an infrequent feature on podcasts such as WTF with Marc Maron, The Jimmy Dore Show, and The Final Edition Radio Hour. He’s also tried his hand at committing his material to paper—his 2012 self-published volume, Mourning Remembrance: A Collection of Mocking Obituaries Ripped from the Deadlines, featuring a forward by Marc Maron and an afterword by another AAR alum, Rachel Maddow. He also created a website in October 2010 where he published his material, but earlier this year he relocated to Substack. It warms my heart to see that he’s still out there mocking the dead.
That said, it’s a shame that his output is now limited to the written (or typed) word, because his obituaries were best heard live. Sadly, his Air America recordings have been lost to the Internet, but you can still pull them from the full episode MP3s from the show archives on the Sedition Radio homepage. As for his later work, I’ve created playlists of his Final Edition obituaries on SoundCloud and his YouTube posted videos from Jimmy Dore. And, of course, you might want to check out his own YouTube page for other examples of his funny.
A military veteran, my father’s remains are currently in storage, waiting to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. It should happen sometime this October. On that somber day, I’m sure I’ll once again try to puncture the melancholy with a joke. Taking a cue from Jim Earl, perhaps it would be something like this: “The deceased requested that his body be interred at Arlington, buried between our foreign policy mistakes and the Tomb of the Unknown Lobbyist.”
Fortunately, I have some time to workshop it before then.
Works Cited
“Jim Earl.” IMDb. IMDb.com, Inc. n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0247243/>.
Image courtesy of Jim Earl. “Mourning Remembrance: John Galardi (Founder of Der Weinerschnitzel)” courtesy of The Final Edition Radio Hour; YouTube videos courtesy of Jim Earl and The Jimmy Dore Show channels.
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