HISTORY OF THE CLAP

Ever since homo erectus strolled these shores ritual of clapping in approval and/or appreciation has been with us. Why did such an odd ritual gain such favor within societies as remote as the Maori in New Zealand and the Utes in North America? Were ancient peoples really only trying to kill flies when the curtain went down? What did early entertainers from places like the Fertile Crescent think when the audience began slapping their hands together at a particularly moving moment on stage? We have no idea. Maybe they thought it was locusts. Nonetheless, here are some of the more pronounced developments chronologically introduced through the ages.

5000 BC a clumsy Bornean orangutan (spanking monkey) falls from a branchwater eucalyptus tree while applauding a traveling mango juggling troupe near the Mount Kilimanjaro. Millenniums later, his straw-hatted ancestors ritualistically repeat a version of the same act at national political conventions.

2750 BC   Early Hitites disguised as edible crustaceans receive the first recorded standing ovation after a lackluster performance of Don’t Cry For Me Hattusa!

1523 BC Nefertiti is applauded by Egyptian talisman after acquiring her own checking account despite the protests by hubby and noted Vaudevillian, Akhenaton. Popular Nile Valley punk band, The Pharaohs, jam for an additional fourteen hours after a third ovation (or was that played for three after 14 ovations). Sadly, fruit loops and canned laughter were hurled at the musicians toward the end of the performance, resulting in injuries to the fourth buffoon and the bass player.

900 BC Sumerians invent beer and sell it in cardboard 6-packs to the chagrin of many who have not yet mastered mathematics or the Mesopotamian shekel. Profits were said to be “immoral”. Gobshites with cumbersome wind-generated clapping and stomping machines first appear on the Peloponnese.

401 BC Xanthippe, wife of Socrates appears in public wearing kid gloves made from Cyprian bat guano and impotent polyester. While stifling unwanted crowd noise, the fashion accessories effectively limit the pain inherent to excessive clapping by other Greek philosophers. In 402 she showed up with Khandian ear plugs hurling her and her entourage into periods of scorn and insignificance while in exile in the mountains of Karpathos.

559 BC – Confucius releases his classic One Hand Clapping Backwards. 2500 years later it becomes the film Karate Kid.

522 BC Prophets Ezekiel and Zoroaster simultaneously predict the emergence of Elvis and snow making. Spanking, called subdued applause by the Druids, replaces crucifixion as punishment for misdemeanors on the Isle of Man.

200 BC After a tedious reading of Reconnoiter My Arse, Gaelic warrior Courvoisier, bows from the waist and is beheaded by Roman legions. The clapping lasted well into the next century.

11 BC First case of fruit throwing at in indoor venue, Carthage. See The Pharaohs above. Perpetrators were arrested after Cairo police performed a juice scan and a mean soft shoe. Wordsmiths in Constantinople disavow crude slang words associated with an appreciative audience.

2 AD Invention of the trash bag heralded as man’s finest achievement up to that point in history. Clapping after the main meal gradually disappears in the Urals, replaced by a convivial, boisterous burp.

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