You had to be there...

...and even then, you wouldn't have laughed as hard as I did.

Allow me to explain:

I was watching an episode of The Time Tunnel at hulu.com. Not familiar with The Time Tunnel? It was a one-season, hour-long drama that originally aired in 1966 with the futuristic plot (it all happens in 1968!) of two guys trapped in a mostly-malfunctioning time machine that hurls them into a different historical event (and sometimes, into the future) where they either learn or teach An Important Lesson For Us All.

Sidetrack: Why does the time machine always plop them into the middle of something historically significant? For example, in the first episode, they found themselves aboard the Titanic. In another show, they wound up trying to stop Lincoln's assassination. I mean, if the time machine took them to 1492, it would be a sure bet that they would be tossed onto the deck of either the Nina, the Pinta, or the Santa Maria. No way would they spend an episode in Greece tending sheep.

Anyway, I was watching the episode where our intrepid time travelers were trying to keep a young bugler from riding to the Little Big Horn with General Custer. It was all very super-serious and who's really the savage here?

The young bugler, named Tim, had just made some kind of suggestion about something and the taller, older, scientist-from-the-future looked him directly in the eyes and seriously intoned, "I don't think so, Tim."

Well, I've seen far too many episodes of Home Improvement to hear that phrase and not picture Al Borland trying to keep Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor in line.

I laughed...really hard...all by myself.

And yes, I know, even if I had been in a room full of people watching the same thing, I still would have been the only person laughing.