This famous New Yorker cartoon by Charles Addams is a classic in the true sense. It captures the essence of a great gag. Every moment, shading, visualization of this single piece is perfectly timed. Like the Christmas carolers standing and singing; the white spotlight shading on the carolers and the oil in the cauldron; the mischievous glee on the face of the Addams family members; the perspective of the church from top to bottom.
As the cartoonist Ivan Brunetti explains in the book 'In The Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists' (from which I got this picture):
"This gag sort of straddles the knife edge of Schadenfreude. We just get enough to see that they are carolers, and thus their implied impending pain amuses us. If all we saw was some people running around with their eyeballs melting, with no idea of the backstory, all of this simply would be pointlessly cruel and much less funny..."
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