The video that captured the ramming and collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge has a morbid fascination, and you don’t even have to rubberneck to see it. I watched it a few times this morning, marveling at how what looked like a tap – but of course was tons of mass colliding with the structure – could bring the whole thing down so fast.

Then again, we’ve all had similar experiences on a (fortunately) smaller scale. One time I brushed ever so lightly against a stack of dishes drying in the rack, and much of the stack lost its cohesion in a moment, with the dishes suddenly rearranging themselves in a clatter, a handful tumbling to the sink and the floor, though I don’t remember that any broke.

I was also reminded of something I’ve written about before, some comedy about a previous (1989) shipwreck.

“About a week after the [Exxon Valdez] spill, I went to the Second City comedy revue… and they did a 15-second skit about it, a to-the-point gag.

“Silhouetted on the stage was a fellow standing behind a large ship’s wheel. From offstage, an announcer said something like, ‘And now, what really happened on the Exxon Valdez…’ Pause. Then the stage lights went up, reveling a familiar red shirt and white sailor’s cap on the fellow at the wheel, who was fumbling with it. At the same instant, a familiar voice boomed from offstage, startling the fellow: ‘GILLIGAN!’ the Skipper bellowed.”

If Second City had a mind to, they could do exactly the same sketch this weekend, only changing the line to “what really happened to the Key Bridge in Baltimore.” It would be in bad taste, since it looks like six men lost their lives in the collapse, but death doesn’t always nix comedy. In fact, often not. For example in ’86, NASA = Need Another Seven Astronauts.

Would many in their audience miss the Gilligan reference due to their relatively tender age? Maybe, but Gilligan is better remembered than a lot of ’60s TV characters. As an enduring stock character, the bumbling moron, he participates in something bigger than mere TV entertainment. Something that probably goes back a lot further even than Plautus, to the most rudimentary forms of pratfall entertainment among our remote ancestors.