Not every joke works, and not every plot is sensible. I don't know what Robert Benchley was trying to accomplish here as Joe Doakes, but what he ends up with is a short comedy of human interest that skips around like a broken record. Benchley is reading out loud and suddenly begins to imagine himself at some sort of hearing cracking wise, getting laughs from all but an apparent judge, and coming to seemingly stuck on his soap box. While some of his lines in his fantasy are pretty funny, he just cones off as obnoxious and smug, continuing the same thought process when he snaps out of his revery and continues to make a fool out of himself in front of his wife (Ruth Lee) and an apparent survey taker. Something was mussing in translation, making this a weak episode of Benchley's shorts which usually had a better formula of telling stories in an irreverent way.
Review of The Witness
