He began with nominating Danny Kaye as "Man of the Year" for his professional work of the year, climaxing in a December 2, 1956 broadcast that propelled his fame and reputation here and internationally. That broadcast occurred as transiting Jupiter trined Kaye's natal Sun-Saturn trine.
He then addresses that this will startle many astrology students, and focusses on bridging astrology and psychology with a citation of Freud's Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious.It is this configuration that most interests us here because of the fitness of the symbolism involved. We've previously written about instances where chess champions won their titles and leaped into prominence when Jupiter was aspecting their natal Mercury, read simply as "mentation honored," and cases where the natal Venus of the beauty contest winners were aspected by Jupiter, equally legible as "appearance honored." The world-wide "honoring" of Danny Kaye synchronized with Jupiterian trines to his natal Sun and Saturn. Yes, he was honored for his "self-denial," inasmuch as Danny received not a farthing for his 3 1/2 year, 100,000-mile tour in behalf of the United Nations Children's Fund. He had paid all his own expenses, carrying only "a little bag of dried fruit, a little match stick on which to jot down little notes, and a pair of comfortable shoes." Yes, he was honored for his "hard work" and "dedication," connectable to Sun-Saturn symbolism, too.
But the full meaning of this planetary formation might escape us did we not know that Saturn is the sponsor of the sense of humor and that Sun-Saturn aspects are the commonest of all patterns in the charts of humorists ad comics generally! In fact, it is astonishing to thumb through a batch of comedian's horoscopes and note the frequency of Sun-Saturn aspects, usually within only a degree or so of being partile. Jack Benny's exact trine, for example, or Steve Allen's close square. The list is limited in length only by the unavailability of verified birth dat: Oscar Levant, WIll Rogers, Jim Hawthorne, Noel Coward, ad-libbing Pearl Bailey, and so on, even to Art Aragon, the boxer famous for his endless flux of witty remarks. The same goes for humorous authors, too, as witness Sun-Saturn configurations at the births of H. Allen Smith, Irvin S. Cobb, George Ade, Betty MacDonald, master pun-maker Louis Untermeyer, and joke-anthologist Bennett Cerf. Jupiter. we see clearly, was honoring Danny Kaye's inimitable clownship while trining his Sun and Saturn!
As Saturn is especially planet of taboo, much humor expresses things that it's socially improper to say any other way (e.g., belching in public, among other body expressions that come to mind). He observes that the sense of humor is "sharpened by physical fatigue," of which Saturn, of course, is a primary cause; slumber parties are an example, and comedians (he reminds us) know that later audiences are easier than early ones. Garth Allen concludes:...one cannot read beyond the first few pages... without automatically realizing that Saturn is the key factor in the formation of a sense of humor... Every planet carries its own antidote... and the planet of cares rules the function by which we can temporarily forget our cares. The planet of burdens lightens its own load. Animals, like primitives, have no genuine sense of humor for they have no inhibitions, since a response to humor is a psychic compensation for inhibitions. The more inhibited the mind.. the more likely it is able to see comedy in things which subconsciously bounce off repressed ideas and feelings. In other words, the more "civilized" you are, the more "repressions" you necessarily have; and the more repressions you have, the more overloaded and touch is your subconscious...
If you are doubtful that Saturn, whose very nature is repressive and inhibitive, is the planet responsible for wit, after all is said and done, reel off in your thoughts the central themes of the jokes and punch lines which make you laugh. "Shady" stories head the list, naturally, if you are socially normal. The vast majority of funny stories circle around the subjects of sex and death, in-law troubles, old age, marriage difficulties, physical defects, moronic behavior, the mishaps and embarrassments of others, and generally anything which is a mental throwback to the uninhibited period of childhood whether it be puns or pogo.
The peculiar appeal of childish double talk, exemplified so well by Danny Kaye's charming "git-gat-git-gattle" is probably the most obvious outwitting of adult inhibitions. It is no coincidence that the best known authors of children's books were born under stellar Capricorn, viz., Lewis Carroll, Jules Verne, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, Horatio Alger, Zane Grey, Thornton Burgess, A.A. Milne, and so on. Gertrude Stein who hypnotized the world with "A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose," is one of the same species as James Joyce whose verbal butchery is supposed to represent the historic crest of "adult" literary art. If you've ever waded through a few pages of Joyce, you were probably impressed at how comparable his technique is to the double talk of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh.
There is considerably more than the foregoing to this apparent paradox of Saturn's rulership of wit as contrasted with Jupiterian cheerfulness or Venusian delight. A full comprehension of the subject requires an exploration of the very core of human make-up, and we have bee skimming only over the surface... What a dreadful existence it would be without the malefics!