Amusingly

"you will find it a great deal more amusing than if I wanted you to write either pamphlets or speeches. The fact is, that I am too good an actor to succeed as an author. I do assure you, that when en scene, I am often surprised at my own readiness of resource, but I need stimulus. I cannot sit down by myself, and fill four sides of paper, which said time might be so much more amusingly employed; no, life is not long enough to write letters!"

The comedy Bird in the Hand (1927) plays neatly and amusingly, if tritely and datedly, with the stubborn class-consciousness and inverted pride of a country landlord whose daughter falls in love with the local squire's son.

Baltar, played hammily as a selfish, cowardly survivor, is to “Battlestar Galactica” what Erica Kane is to “All My Children” — an amusingly villainous central character who brings a little campy comic relief to all that earnest, jaw-clenched melodrama.

(A foolproof method of producing an amusingly annoyed response from the distinguished experts? Just mention the word “ghosts.”) Whether they’re in on the joke or not doesn’t matter all that much.