A couple of years ago, I published this rant about the illogic of various cartoons published in the esteemed New Yorker magazine. I now have occasion to add insult to injury, thanks to the recent New Yorker cartoon below:
If you haven’t figured it out already, allow me to ask, in what direction does the mat on a treadmill travel? Once you answer that, you may make one of two inferences:
(A) The cartoonist (in haste) did not consider the direction that treadmills travel before incorporating the treadmill’s motion into the premise of the joke. If so, we may justifiably disrespect the cartoon and cartoonist, never mind the clothes hanging on the bars.
(B) The cartoonist did in fact realize that treadmill mats do not travel forward, and he/she used the absurdity of the protagonist’s comment as a kind of “comic spice” in the cartoon. The cartoonist hoped the reader would think: “Obviously, the guy never uses the machine, so no wonder he doesn’t know what direction it goes!” This (if intentional) would qualify as second-level humor.
It’s my experience that the humor-level of New Yorker cartoons, by some editorial decree, falls somewhere between 0.4 and 1.2, so anything above that level would mean someone hasn’t done his/her job. Therefore, I’m more inclined to subscribe to Inference A.
Dear Sirs and Madams at the New Yorker: I await your call to be your next cartoon editor. Under my iron-handed rule, no cartoonist could flout the laws of logic or physics without a decisive humorous payoff.
