Back when old Monty was slaving for the tall, knuckle dragging peabrains of the corporate world, your humble servant was asked to present his game-changing ideas to a group of about 60 people during a bus ride to a corporate retreat.

When my turn came, I bounded to the front of the bus, excited to share my thoughts on how to turn this profit-less enterrpise into a thriving business. But, before I could get a word out, the over-six-foot, bumbling chairman of this illustrious organization, which I’m happy to report slid into the crapper a year or so later, called out, “Why don’t you stand up so we can see you?”

Of course I was standing, as he well knew.

How do these insecure halfwits wind up heading so many organizations? And how do you deal with such clueless bullies?

The answer, my wee friends, is humor. It is no secret that many of the great comedians stand at less than average height—Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, the Marx Brothers, George Burns, Jack Benny, Charlie Chaplin, Billy Crystal, the list goes on.

It’s an interesting phenomenon. Anger and insecurity turned to humor. Short men and their fiery tongues.

In their book Stature and Stigma, an insightful scientific analysis of the short man’s pain, psychologists Leslie Martel and Henry Biller offer four explanations of why short men tend to be funny:

  • Fear. “Humor allows for sparring with larger males while still remaining safe from physical harm. The short male will often have a rapier wit that allows him to get his point across while not risking the possibility of physical injury.”
  • Avoidance. “Humor also serves to distract others from what the short male fears most: discussion of his short stature.”
  • Release. “The underlying anger at being discriminated against and made to feel inferior often surfaces, in part, as a sarcastic sense of humor.”
  • Acceptance. “Since the short male will rarely be admitted to the desirable peer group based on physical prowess, he must barter for entry with a different currency. As part of the contract, he agrees to serve as the mascot of the group.”

Mel Brooks captured it more graphically in his interview with Playboy all those years ago, “… I was brighter than most kids my age, so I hung around with guys two years older. Why should they let this puny kid hang out with them? I gave them a reason. I became their jester. Also, they were afraid of my tongue. I had it sharpened and I’d stick it in their eye.”

The mascot? The jester? That is the role open to us? And they wonder why we are so angry.