Answer # 2: It. was. a. joke.
Oh well, sometimes they stick to the wall, sometimes they don't. :-)
Answer to question 1: In American pop-culture, the comic device of crickets chirping is used to show when a person performing on stage before an audience is "bombing"/"flopping"/ failing miserably. It means that there is no laughter, no response, the audience is dead, the allusion is that the person is in an empty parking lot, usually at night. If memory serves me, (which it usually spills soup in my lap, and shall get no tip...) this device is/was used in cartoons.
Google-fu to the rescue!
Daffy Duck's trained pigeon act and complicated tap dance number is answered by nothing but crickets chirping in the audience, while Bugs' simple song-and-dance numbers brings wild applause.[link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daffy_Duck"|(See paragraph entitled Jones' Daffy)]
Anyway, after that whole "spoof" thread debacle and the "whoosh", I kinda figgered turnabout was fair play.
<shrug>
Takes all the fun out of it.
Still....
neener, neener, neeeeeeeener! :-)