Laughter and The Boldest Experiment In Advertisement History
I’ve watched this scene at least 50 times in my life and laugh every time. It brings me joy. Why? I don’t know. Laughter is a mystery that is sacred to me. How could anyone get through a day without a good belly laugh?. I do notice that the funniest scenes or stand up bits tend to face Shadows, that is, darkness, shame, hopelessness, disgrace, and such. Laughter lives in this nether region and somehow alchemically redeems it. This scene is a great example. David Howard and his wife Linda decide to drop out of the rat race of the advertising business, gather their savings (“nest egg”), and travel across America in an RV for the rest of their lives. See the sights, “touch Indians”, live like they were characters in Easy Rider. However, on their first night, they make a fateful decision to stop in Las Vegas and just live it up a bit. David goes to sleep only to wake and see that Linda isn’t there. In his bathrobe, David goes down to the main casino and discovers that Linda lost all of their “nest egg”, all of their money, all of their life savings, playing roulette while caught up in the reverie of gambling action. So David, a former advertising executive, faces the hopeless and tries to change it. Albert Brooks is a comedic genius and I’m glad he was born.