I posted this reply in the other thread too, but this topic is just too near and dear to my heart 🙂
Wow. Well, as an unintentional-tickling lover, that was supreme. Obviously, this is a skit, but those reactions looked pretty real to me, and what I loved about it is that they hit, in an exaggerated way, on some of my favorite aspects of accidental tickling situations:
The fact that so many techniques used in massages (and I would carry this over to doctor’s exams and pat-downs too) do seem OVERTLY like flat-out tickling for a ticklish person. Sometimes I’ll watch abdominal massage or practice abdominal exam videos and I think, “How could ANYONE stand that?” I’ve had pat-downs entering concerts, too, where I’ve just felt like, “You’re just….tickling me! You’re sliding your hands all over and feeling around in all of my most ticklish spots. This is just a tickling session.” So I felt like they really played up that aspect; making the techniques sound fancy and sophisticated and new-age when the bottom line was they were basically just tickling her.
2) The way she denied her ticklishness out of embarrassment. I feel like this is very common—people downplaying or trying to hide how much something tickles during a massage or doctor’s exam because they feel embarrassed they’re this ticklish that even something that isn’t supposed to tickle is driving them crazy. I love that she says that line, “Only children get ticklish, I’m an adult!” That kills me—and the reasons can be found in this thread. In short, I just love the idea of someone being embarrassed that they haven’t “outgrown” their extreme ticklishness and feeling like somehow they should have.
I also would just LOVE to know how the idea for this sketch came about. I’d like to think it went something like this:
Someone playfully tickled Kelly during rehearsals or even accidentally tickled her, and she said something like, “Ohmygosh I’m SOOOO ticklish, I can’t stand it, I can’t even stand foot massages, I totally freak out!”
The guys asks, maybe even trying to temper his curiosity, “Really? Like you go to get a massage and you just like laugh and squirm the whole time??”
“Pretty much. It’s actually ridiculous. It’s so embarrassing, I feel like a little child! But like, what do they expect? These ‘techinques’ they’re using are basically just thinly-veiled tickle torture techniques! Like, who could stand a ‘thumb-walking’ along the bottom of their foot???”
“I’m feeling a sketch coming on here……”
“Oh GOD….actually, that could be kind of hilarious…”
They start planning it. When she realizes it’s going to be her in the role of the massage client, she protests vehemently at first and then surrenders. She tries to convince them to fake tickle her but they say that it would be obvious to the audience. So she eventually reluctantly agrees to be tickled and then gang tickled on stage in front of an audience.
What I would give to see the rehearsals, the behind-the-scenes footage, to hear her interviewed about the experience….
Wow.