Why can't we be funny?

The law firm of Trolman, Glaser & Lichtman has produced a television commercial with the following setup:

An actress in her 30s sitting at a kitchen table says, “The pain was excruciating: It’s like I had this huge, really sharp machete chopping down on me every time I tried to move.” She continues, “It was the worst paper cut I ever had – they made the paper way too sharp.” Raising a hand to reveal a bandage on her index finder, she concludes, “Someone has to pay.” The tagline, “There are some cases we can’t win,” appears on the screen, and a voiceover concludes, “If you’ve been injured, call us, but keep in mind: you really need to be injured.”

How about this for a television commercial for engineering firm XYZ - - setup is at a local golf course:

A pastor (rabbi/imam/priest - - you pick, based on local market conditions), a doctor, and an engineer with Firm XYZ are waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. Annoyed, they decide to ask the greens keeper, who explains that they are behind a group of blind golfers who play for free whenever they want. The pastor remarks, “That’s so sad, I’ll pray for them.” The doctor says, “I know an ophthalmologist who might be able to do something for them.” The engineer from Firm XYZ looks into the camera and says, “Why can’t they play at night?” Someone who looks and dresses like Ted Knight in his role of Judge Elihu Smails in the movie Caddyshack walks onto the green and says, “At Firm XYZ we believe that when you ask different questions - - you get different answers. How we ask or what we ask really doesn’t matter to us.”

The ad is not without problems. It reveals a mindset focused completely on the practical side, in the interest of problem solving, to the exclusion of human relationships and even basic compassion. It casts engineering as a profession that is not a helping profession in contrast to medicine and the ministry. Maybe we can’t or shouldn't be funny.