Would the chief play in the catskills? On the matter of Roberts and humor.(THE SUPREME COURT II)(John Roberts)

'HE has," said a television pundit, describing the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, "youth on his side."

Youth? I thought to myself. The guy is 50 years old. In Hollywood, where I work, being 50 almost qualifies a person for a handicapped parking spot. Out here, 50 means wisdom, grey eminence, and Omega-3 caplets. A 50-year-old man in Hollywood may have many things on his side--money, bright shirts, an expensive car--but youth is never one of them.

Washington, apparently, thinks differently. Of course, the Supreme Court, as I understand it, is some kind of lifetime gig--a permanent booking in the world's slowest-moving, least sexy legal drama--so in that sense, at least, 50 is pretty young. One look at his compact, fit frame and his hearty complexion and it's entirely possible to imagine a 90-year-old John Roberts still wielding the gavel. In other words, if he lays off the trans-fats, drinks green tea, and takes up yoga, John Roberts will end up having spent the vast bulk of his career--and in many ways, his entire life--at the very tippy-top of the professional ladder. Sort of like Ron Howard.

"He has," said another television pundit, describing the next CJ of the SCOTUS, "a terrific sense of humor. He's actually very funny."

Right, I thought to myself. Funny. Funny like Washington, D.C., funny? Funny as in Mark Russell funny? As in not funny at all? That kind of funny? Because every lawyer I know who is not right now wasting valuable billable hours torturing out a legal thriller is sweating over a sit-com pilot, and not one of them is very funny.

"It's a funny area," we say in the writers' room, during a script rewrite, when someone pitches a not-quite-funny joke. "Something like that," one of us will say, "but, you know, funny."

When working in the Reagan administration, Roberts spun out a memo commenting on the legality of an anti-drug comic book, paid for by the Keebler cookie company, to be sent to schools using government funds. "Asking us if we object to these subsidiary mailing issues," he cracked wise, "is like bringing a hippopotamus into the house and asking if we object to the small bird perched on its shoulder."