LOS ANGELES — “Take my mother-in-law — please,” isn’t a joke you’re likely to hear often these days from Sunda Croonquist. The veteran comic is being sued by her mother-in-law after making her the punchline of too many jokes.
The mother-in-law is accusing Croonquist of spreading false, defamatory and racist lies with in-law jokes that have become a staple of her routine in nightclubs and on television channels such as Comedy Central.
To Croonquist, the in-law jokes seemed like a natural routine after living through one comical culture-clash moment after another: She is half-black, half-Swedish, grew up Roman Catholic and married into a Jewish family after converting.
And she’s not shy about making the in-laws the butt of her jokes.
Take the one about her mother-in-law’s reaction to news she was pregnant with her first child: “OK, now that we know you’re having a little girl I want to know what you’re naming that little tchotchke. Now we don’t want a name that’s difficult to pronounce like Shaniqua. We’re thinking a name short but delicious. Like Hadassah or Goldie.”
Or her first visit to her mother-in-law’s house: “I walk in, I say, ‘Thank you so much for having me here, Ruthie.’ She says, ‘The pleasure’s all mine, have a seat.’ Then, in a loud aside, ‘Harriet, put my pocketbook away.’”
But the laughter stopped after Croonquist, promoting upcoming gigs in New Jersey, posted information on her Web site that, according to her in-laws, allowed pretty much anyone to figure out their identities.
They sued in April in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, where they live. The action seeks unspecified damages and demands that Croonquist remove any offensive statements from her Web site, routines and recordings.
Croonquist says she would drop any language her family finds offensive, but refuses to pay any settlement. Her lawyer has filed a motion to have the suit dismissed, and a judge is scheduled to hear it Sept. 8.
In the meantime, Croonquist was at the Laugh Factory on open-mike night recently, where she got a few yucks out of her in-laws, although this time she left their first names out of the act.
Doing her sister-in-law during their first meeting (and in a New Jersey accent the lawsuit notes Croonquist has said sounds “like a cat in heat”): “Oh my Gawd, look at her, she’s got light eyes and light hair. What kind of black person is she?”
Then herself (in a black urban street voice): “I said, ‘A black person who can hear, that’s who.’”
Then (as Haley Joel Osment might sound in “The Sixth Sense,” if he spoke in a black urban accent): “I hear white people!”
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