Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too.

I am currently in the midst of listening to Marc Maron’s interview with Tracey Ullman on his podcast, WTF. While Ullman is generous and gracious throughout, she reserves her highest praise — thus far, anyway — for Peter Cook, quickly and emphatically calling him a genius.

For most in the U.S., Cook’s reputation probably extends no further than his brief but memorable (to say the least) turn as “The Impressive Clergyman” in The Princess Bride, those in his homeland undoubtedly view him with more reverence, thanks to his work with Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, and, most notably, Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe. I don’t claim to be a true and proper scholar of comedy, but I am prepared to say that the sketch “One Leg Too Few,” featuring an eager actor arriving for an audition, is one of the best sketches ever delivered, practically perfect in conception and execution.

If nothing else, there are few better, smart entries in the pantheon of set-up-and-punchlines than the one that begins “I’ve got nothing against your right leg.”

Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Laughing Matters” tag.