The wizard turned on the lights one morning and realized just how powerful his spells really were.
He realized that he would think about a song and hear it on the radio within minutes. He realized that if he thought someone's name, that person would call him or show up on his doorstep. Whatever he thought about, appeared. He didn't need any of his wands or spellbooks. He already had magic wands and spellbooks in his mouth. He had a tongue, and that was all he needed.
He noticed that other people were casting spells that he didn't agree with. He noticed that when one person alone cast a spell, it wasn't as powerful as when many people cast the spell. He had been asleep for centuries, and could feel the spell awakening. It had been cast over and over, again and again, taught from parents to children. It had cracked open his shell. He'd been there for just the right casting.
He noticed that the really powerful wizards were the ones who had armies of other wizards casting spells alongside them.
He further noticed that even more powerful wizards were the ones who created spells that were pleasing and seductive to cast. These wizards called themselves musicians.
He further noticed that the most powerful wizards buried spells deep in people's minds, so that the people didn't have any awareness of what they were casting.
One day, he was working and noticed a co-worker singing a really stupid song. Soon, everyone else was singing it. It stuck in his head. This gave him an idea.
What if he came up with a really powerful spell and wrote a really stupid song about it that anyone could sing really badly? Then, what if he had a really great musician sing a professionally cut song about it? It would first start with people singing about it badly. Then, after it became popular, someone would record it and claim credit for it. People would argue over who thought it up. It wouldn't matter. Someone else would seem to make the money, and the wizard wasn't doing this for money. He was doing this as a test. He wanted to find out if it would work.
So, he decided to start figuring out what he wanted everyone on Earth to believe. He wanted to start with something simple, easy to detect, and of low consequence. He didn't want things getting out of hand if it went badly. He decided that he wanted to create a world where people cracked jokes at funerals. What harm was there, he reasoned, if the people were already dead? He worried that people would die just for the jokes, but there were always risks involved.
So, he started by creating a few tunes.
"Uncle Ned's good and dead, Cousin Petey shot-him-in-the head!" Not bad, but it didn't evoke humor around the circumstances of the death.
"Jimmy Dean's just a link of sausage. Layin' in that pile of eggs..." He pictured this song being sung as a crooning melody with classical music in the background.
He worked on this some more.
