"I kid, because I love"

[Vida J Morkunas]

A little meme keeps reappearing in many of the blogs that I read
(MetaFilter, Engadget, boingboing and other tech / consumer electronics type
sites)

Usually the line "I kid because I love" will appear when the writer is
joking about something, or kidding.

Where does this phrase come from? Where was it first written?

I did a search on the ADS archives, and did not get a result. A search on
Google reveals 774 instances of this sentence.

Cheers - Vida Morkunas
Vancouver BC