TELLING JOKES AT THE MONA LISA'S EXPENSE

I spent some 20 odd years as a comedy writer in late-night television so I've come to appreciate how the topical news stories of the day become the necessary fodder for jokes.  If I had been plying my trade 100 years ago, the theft of the Mona Lisa would have been a ripe topic.

In researching my film, I came across quite a few one liners, cartoons and even poems that poked fun at the painting, the thief and everyone involved in what was the crime of the century.

Here are some of my favorites.

This first one was published in the Syracuse Herald on Sunday, August 27, 1911, 6 days after the theft.

Aren’t there enough live painted women in the world without a man having to run away with the Mona Lisa?

This next one was published in The Mansfield News, Mansfield, Ohio on Tuesday, November 7, 1911, more than two months after the theft. 

Although Mona Lisa is lost, everything seems to be going along about the same. And it never did create the one-tenth part the interest evoked by the world's series ball games.

(That year the Philadelphia Athletics beat the New York Giants four games to two. )

The German publication Lustige Blaetter published this exchange between a wife and her husband:

WIFE: "Don’t you think there is a great likeness between me and Mona Lisa, my dear?"

HUSBAND: "Yes, You can follow her example and get stolen too, if you like."

With the papers full of tales of the Leonardo's missing masterpiece, the hunt was on to find her and collect the reward. This five-panel cartoon in The Des Moines News shows two would-be sleuths, Adolph and Oscar, stumbling on what they think is La Gioconda.

In Panel 1 (below) Oscar, reading the latest headlines, says in his thick German accent: "'Still no trace of that famous painting that was stolen from the Louvre. Police of Paris mystified over fate of the great masterpiece. Large reward goes begging.'"  He says to his short compatriot: "I wonder, Adolf, what became of that canvas?"

Unbeknownst to Oscar, Adolf has spotted something in the trash.

He takes it from the trash barrel and looking at it, says: "Wait a minute, Oscar. Could this be the missing masterpiece?"

"Give it here," Oscar says grabbing it from him.  "Your barbaric hands should not profane it.  Sure it is the 'Mona Lisa' -- I know it by the description of the frame. Come, we take it to a connoisseur."

The "connoisseur" is not impressed: "This is the Mona Lisa?  Bah!  This is a cheap chromo entitled 'Patching Willie's Pants.'"

As is normally the case with comedy teams (Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy), the lesser of the two gets the blame.   "This is the 'Mona Lisa?'  Bah!" Oscar says smashing the painting over Adolf's head.

The Mona Lisa even caused some to wax poetic.  The poem below was published in the Janesville Daily Gazette (Janesville, Wisconsin) on February 5, 1914 -- about a month after the Mona Lisa was restored to the Louvre.  Apparently, the painting's charms were lost on the author of this ode simply entitled "Mona."

I can't stand Mona Lisa,

I do not like her face;

I'd hate to have her tagging 

Me round from place to place.

I'd hate to be as grouchy

I'm free to tell you flat,

Imagine eating breakfast

 Each morn across from that.

Her look—oh, mercy, save us, 

Would bore a hole in steel,

I'd hate to be as grouchy 

As Mona seemed to feel:

That smile the'y tout so loudly— 

Those artists and their ilk—

I'm very sure would curdle 

A ten-quart pan of milk.

Perhaps she was a beauty;

But this I surely know,

She'd have a hard time singing

With any musical show.

Why fuss about that picture—

Da Vinci' famous work?

She couldn't hold a candle

To our own Billie Burke.

Billie Burke was a popular stage actress of the time.  We know her today as Glinda, the Good Witch of the North from the 1939 classic "The Wizard of Oz."

For more Mona Lisa jokes, visit our earlier post: http://monalisadocumentary.blogspot.com/2010/09/mona-lisa-jokes-start-rolling-in.html