Parody

NEW YORK'S hottest off-Broadway ticket, "Forbidden Broadway," dares to lampoon the stars and plots of musical theater's sacred cows.In the Big Apple's longest-running revue (now in its 10th year and currently playing at Theatre East), some of the biggest hits -- "The Phantom of the Opera," "Miss Saigon," "The Secret Garden," "Will Rogers Follies," "Grand Hotel" -- are broadly parodied by the show's creator, Gerald Alessandrini, a professional actor and singer.No one is spared his sharp satirical pen."

Andy Baio isn't trying to pick a fight with Bill Cosby. Rather, he says, his recent legal tangle with the comedian is a matter of principle. Several months ago, Baio, the operator of Waxy.org, came across a set of animated videos online called House of Cosbys. The goofy and sometimes vulgar parodies revolve around the adventures that ensue from a house full of Bill Cosby clones. (Think South Park-style humor here.) The freely distributed cartoons from animator Justin Roiland were an instant hit with thousands of people.

Cry-Baby, which officially opened at New York's Marquis Theatre on Thursday night, may have emerged from the same twisted pop-culture DNA as that earlier megahit, Hairspray, but critics aren't exactly embracing it as a second flowering of John Waters-inspired genius. Some have labeled it truly awful, while at least one critic raved. Most seem to find it OK, if not extraordinary. Few are predicting a hit anywhere near the level of Hairspray, which won eight Tonys in 2003 and was turned into a 2007 movie that grossed nearly $120 million in the U.S. alone.

IT'S ALL IN the quote, dear readers. Here are some sayings from folks and media sources that leave us with much to ponder. "At the pleasure of." That phrase comes to us from former state Sen. Larry Young, now a talk-show host on Radio One's WOLB (1010 AM). When city Comptroller Joan Pratt fired Tony Ambridge, the more-than-capable real estate officer for Baltimore, there was Young, championing Pratt's decision and crowing that people like Ambridge serve "at the pleasure of" those like Pratt.

In the long run, surviving can be its own sweet reward.And Barbara Walters knows a little something about surviving.She survived the mistreatment of persistent sexism in the working world of the "Today" show at NBC, where testosterone ruled the airwaves during the 1960s and early 1970s.She survived the mean-spirited backbiting of jealous male colleagues after becoming a million-dollar anchorwoman for ABC News in 1976.And she survived blistering pop culture parody -- being roasted to sarcastic perfection by Gilda Radner on "Saturday Night Live."

AS A child, Owen Brown resident Sue Trainor imagined herself as a singer and guitar player. "But it was a fantasy," she said. Art seemed too much like a leisure-time activity. On Feb. 6, Trainor received her third Washington Area Music Association (WAMMIE) Award at the Washington Hilton. Her 1999 CD "Under Tables, Out Back Doors" was named Best Album for Children. A full-time musician for the past two years, Trainor first turned her daydreams into part-time work in high school, playing guitar and singing at a restaurant in Washington.

Aaron Peckham is, by his own definition, an "enginerd." But this is one software engineer who loves earthly argot as much as cyber-coding. Peckham, 24, compiles the cultish compendium of old-school and fresh-from-the-street slang known as Urbandictionary .com. Last month, the best of the site was published in the real world - or meatspace, as the cyber-dudes call it. Although the 300,000 Web entries are pared to 2,000 for Urban Dictionary: Fularious Street Slang Defined (Andrews McMeel, $12.95)

A fitness expert says the best way to stay healthy is to get your minimum daily requirement of yuks. And most of us suffer from a humor deficiency."When people hear laughter, it's not something they take seriously," says Dr. Brian L. Seaward, 35, a professor of fitness and health at American University. But they should.Studies show that up to 70 percent of all disease and illness is stress-related, he told a relaxed lunchtime audience at Johns Hopkins University yesterday. And the best antidote to stress, he said, is a steady diet of one-liners, cartoons and comedies.

A fitness expert says the best way to stay healthy is to get your minimum daily requirement of yuks. And most of us suffer from a humor deficiency."When people hear laughter, it's not something they take seriously," said Dr. Brian L. Seaward, 35, a professor of fitness and health at American University. But they should.Studies show that up to 70 percent of all disease and illness is stress-related, he told a relaxed lunchtime audience at the Johns Hopkins University yesterday. And the best antidote to stress, he said, is a steady diet of one-liners, cartoons and comedies.

I CONSIDERED Big Little Joey Peske to be a gift from God. It seemed like he fell from the sky one autumn night in 1989 -- a comic comet who, for the next several years, made me and countless other Baltimoreans laugh. This was back when I moonlighted as host of a weeknight talk show on WBAL Radio. The first time Peske called the show and we spoke on the air, he played me like a cheap ukulele. "Danny," he said, in a voice that crossed Tom Waits with George Burns, "you made a big mistake on the answer to tonight's Baltimore trivia quiz."