John, his ailing back and why it's 'funny'.

As you might have noticed, the reason John let go of the great big turkey is not because the spindly little wire attached to the tag gave way. You will have noticed that he gave out a muffled cry of pain because he'd tried lifting more than his bad back can carry. This is because John suffers from something a lot of people who spend their time standing up all day long suffer: lower back pain. In this, his suffering is played for laughs because Mrs "Try carrying a child for nine months" can't quite wrap her head around the fact that while her discomfort goes away after she starts complaining about not being able to ever get her figure back, John's issues with pinched nerves and pulled muscles never really go away. We get to see this about ten years from now when once again, John pulls a muscle and spends about a month bedridden and treated like a source of 'innocent' fun.

The reason that John's problems are treated as a great big joke is owing to the tendency people have to find it more amusing when a man either makes a fool or himself or gets creamed than when it happens to someone who can't take it. The problem is that this reinforces the pattern when in a better world, no one should laugh at anyone getting mangled.