“Laughing to the bank” — a pointless excursion

My earliest recollection of the original expression is in a quote attributed to Liberace when he was first making his mark. A born-too-soon proto-Elton John flamboyant, he somehow emerged in the upright 1950s, a period in which he inevitably endured a lot of metaphorical flamethrowing. Asked whether he was upset by some mocking commentary, he replied. ”Yes; I cried all the way to the bank.” Rimshot. Of course, the point of the phrase is the turnaround on the word “bank,” supplying the unexpectedly thumbed nose. So the “Yes, I cried” is sarcasm, but we don’t find out until the sentence’s end–which tells us the joke is on the speaker’s critics, and perhaps on us also. The subtext: Maybe YOU think I was bothered, but in fact,  I simply reminded myself–and now remind you–that what I’m criticized for is precisely what’s making me very successful. The whole point is the surprise in going from ”cried” to ”bank.” If the speaker were not apparently admitting upset at the start, there’d be nothing to reverse, and thus no point to the remark.

Yet people keep using the phrase with wording that includes some version of “I laughed all the way to the bank.” Since there’s no reversal here, the remark in that form typically has, in effect, no meaning whatsoever. It amounts to saying, “Yes, I was fine; and then I was fine.” You’d think that such a vacancy would be glaringly obvious (since the missing turnaround is not exactly a subtle kind of sarcasm).  But, uh–apparently, it’s not.