Ode to the Nyuck, Nyuck Trio

Growing up with a handicapped brother had its interesting moments. Todd's deafness, autistic tendencies, and other issues complicated our increasingly tricky relationship. Somehow, we discovered ways to communicate.

One thing we found that we could share was TV. However, finding a program that left us both satisfied was not an easy task. I had become a huge fan of the show, Get Smart. This program was about a bumbling detective, Maxwell Smart, a.k.a. Agent 86, and his clever female counterpart, Agent 99. Smart's signature was his always accessible, secret shoe phone. The show hinged on these shoe-talking conversations and provided little plot that was nonverbal. Unfortunately, this left Todd unaware of the storyline and puzzled by Smart's choice of phones. So, Get Smart was not a good pick for us.

My next favorite program was Land of the Lost. In this story, a dad and his two kids live in a cave, while outside dinosaurs and other creatures roam freely. If that was not scary enough, in nearby dark tunnels live the spine-chilling sleestaks: large lizard-like creatures. For one reason or another, the family continually had to keep entering into these sleestak-infested tunnels. This always left me spell-bound and on the edge of my seat unable to breathe. While I enjoyed this horrifying amusement, it was just a recipe for disaster for Todd. Todd had trouble differentiating fantasy from reality. His watching Jaws one night left him resolved that he would never swim in our summer campground's lake again. There was no convincing him otherwise. This meant that a show about dinosaurs and sleestaks was just a candidate for leaving him with irrational fears and nightmares. Now we were 0 for 2. My shows just weren't working for him.

One day Todd stumbled on a show of his own, one that he could follow in its entirety and that was completely visual- The Three Stooges. This program quickly became his favorite and the living room would fill with his laughter. I, on the other hand, did not see the humor in it at all. Three people whacking each other with various odd objects accompanied by loud smacking or thud sounds was not my idea of fun. It was these scenes however, that left my brother doubled over in laughter, and left me cringing, doubled over in imagined pain.

Watching this show became a routine that I endured for him; wincing through its entirety. As an adult, I still abhor that crazy, 'Nyuck, Nyuck' Trio, and I've thought long and hard about why I suffered through those seemingly never-ending episodes with him. I believe it was because of love. I loved seeing my brother deliriously happy, momentarily unaware of the harsh hand that life had dealt him. Ultimately, Todd had selected a show that was a good parallel for life; you can't get through it without your share of bumps and bruises. The lesson from the three stooges was that sometimes the pain will make you cringe and other times you'll laugh in the face of it. Leave it to my brother to have found a show where life and laughter came together in a way that was picture perfect.