An essay is presented on the role of humor in works made at various historical junctures. It highlights F.T. Marinetti's "Mafarka," written in 1909, the year that marks the initiation of futurism with the release of its first manifesto in the Parisian "Le Figaro." It discusses the merge of the living and the mechanical that accounts for Futurist humor might be viewed as a form of self-parody.