I was on open last night working solo buildings for a while with Doctor Goopy, my main toon. He's an old dog now, probably need Vet vitamins. Anyway, I reminded myself of something I forgot to post earlier... Sometimes it helpful to pass up the big drop hit points for the lower gag level credits. Confused? Here's what I mean...
A lvl 9 cog takes 110 hit points to kill. Let's say you're on the forth floor (2.5 multiplier for all qualifying gas used) of a building, plenty of laff left, and that's the last cog. I have the lvl 6 piano maxed (non-organic) for 170 damage. OK, cog killed in one hit yielding total gag credit is 6 x 2.5 = 15 gag credits.
The same cog hit with a 1 lvl 5 safe, 1 lvl 4 weight (total 105 damage) clean up with a piano if you have it left or a safe if not yields sufficient to kill the cog. Gag credit works out to be (5+4+5) x 2.5 = 35 credits with safe cleanup or (5+4+6) x 2.5 = 38 credits with the piano as cleanup. Assuming one has the laff points available to take the hits, the tradeoff is faster gag building at the price of getting toonup. Arguably, it's a preference whether to self-grief this way or speed through and cover more buildings by taking less laff loss. For me, I prefer repeatedly pounding the fool outa them cogs. It's just downright clean slapstick FUN! And the above strategy will work for any of the "killing" gags, excepting perhaps trap which is best worked solo by only the crazy few with enough sense of humor to overcome their extreme tendency toward sadness... OK, sign me up for that, too LOL .

Wow more info more info Woo Hoo. Thanks You guys are really great!!!!!!!!!!!