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.

Among the overabundance of instances when I’ve tapped out eager celebrations of The Ben Stiller Show in this digital space was a brief but loving notice of the sketch “Tom Cruise: Dress Casual,” which imagined a one-man Broadway show featuring the Top Gun movie star acting out famous bits from some of his best-known films.as someone who scowled all the way through the 1990 cinematic debacle Cruise Like Thunder, one of the first big-screen offerings I watched out of obligation for my pending stint as a movie critic, I found Stiller’s impression of Cruise to be extremely funny. Apparently, Cruise agreed with that assessment.

And a few years later, in a bit created for the MTV Movie Awards, Cruise proved he was a good sport, too.

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