Black Cat Bone

Putting 'clever' into comedy is like putting 'craftsmanship' into music. Suffocating.

It can be a pain sometimes. Like when the point of the joke is to actually impress people rather than make them laugh.

ooooooohhhhh yeah wrote:Putting 'clever' into comedy is like putting 'craftsmanship' into music. Suffocating.

It's public school boy humour and if it wasn't John Cleese doing the irate latin master routine it wouldn't stand up at all.

Perhaps I heard it too many times on the LP to find it really funny now.

Goat Boy wrote:It can be a pain sometimes. Like when the point of the joke is to actually impress people rather than make them laugh.

Yeah.

There's a great tradition going back to Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, but I much prefer to see people smacking each other over the head. And the interesting thing is, the stupidest stuff is often made by the sharpest minds.

ooooooohhhhh yeah wrote:Putting 'clever' into comedy is like putting 'craftsmanship' into music. Suffocating.

That's really some kind of utter bollocks, isn't it?

Comedy has to be dumb, is that it?

Diamond Dog wrote:

ooooooohhhhh yeah wrote:Putting 'clever' into comedy is like putting 'craftsmanship' into music. Suffocating.

That's really some kind of utter bollocks, isn't it?

Comedy has to be dumb, is that it?

I think comedy has to appeal to something basic, but there are lots of ways to be ridiculous.

Not dumb necessarily, but I think it needs to be instinctive. Comedy that has been overly 'worked on' rarely tends to be funny, that's the main reason most sitcoms fail I think.

ooooooohhhhh yeah wrote:but I much prefer to see people smacking each other over the head. And the interesting thing is, the stupidest stuff is often made by the sharpest minds.

Like the repeated slaps of Chapman's head by Cleese's character, you mean?

The Fish-Slapping Dance, you mean?

Or Basil smacking Manuel?

The Modernist wrote:Not dumb necessarily, but I think it needs to be instinctive. Comedy that has been overly 'worked on' rarely tends to be funny, that's the main reason most sitcoms fail I think.

This is plain poppycock. There are no rules to this sort of thing.

I mean, if it's instinctive comedy that we're talking about, then that sketch in Only Fools in Horses where Del falls through the gap in the bar would be heralded by all as the best thing ever. It's not, it's funny for about 5 seconds and that's it.

The Romans go home sketch is very public school in the way Cleese acts as the classic Latin teacher, but the central premise of the joke is universal.

Fact

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/named ... 01856.html

#2

Toby wrote:

The Modernist wrote:Not dumb necessarily, but I think it needs to be instinctive. Comedy that has been overly 'worked on' rarely tends to be funny, that's the main reason most sitcoms fail I think.

This is plain poppycock. There are no rules to this sort of thing.

No, I think G's right.

Of course there are exceptions, but as laughter is such a basic impulse, surely it makes sense that the best way to elicit it is through something spontaneous.

Or more accurately something that appears spontaneous because of the writing/performing.

neville from norwich wrote:Or more accurately something that appears spontaneous because of the writing/performing.

The AJA approach.

Shush, G is watching.

neville from norwich wrote:Or more accurately something that appears spontaneous because of the writing/performing.

Aye

ooooooohhhhh yeah wrote:Of course there are exceptions, but as laughter is such a basic impulse, surely it makes sense that the best way to elicit it is through something spontaneous.

Much of the best TV/film comedy of the last 50 years has been through the creation of social archetypes that we observe in mostly realistic scenarios. Slapstick comedy has its moments, but it belongs to a different age I feel. I mean, I still love Hulot and Chaplin and sometimes they do seem like utter giants compared to others, but that's because they were in the cinema and as such attracted in the main, a universal audience. Everyone loved Chaplin.

But pure, scripted slapstick today just appears dated to me. We've evolved to a situation where genuine error appears funnier (that US show where people do stupid stuff for laughs but I can't remember what it's called) or countless youtube compilations where people or cats do stupid, unscripted stuff. That's not comedy in the strict sense but it makes me laugh, because yes, as you say, it's spontaneous.

The Modernist wrote:Not dumb necessarily, but I think it needs to be instinctive. Comedy that has been overly 'worked on' rarely tends to be funny, that's the main reason most sitcoms fail I think.

Comedians will take months or years to get a joke perfect or make it sound "natural.'

There's a new show out called Jerry before Seinfeld where he does all his original jokes and bits in front of a crowd - the ones he wrote before Seinfeld.

He has kept every joke he's ever written, 10,000 or so he says, which is laid out on a street in the show's opening and ending. Joan Rivers did the same thing. She had a huge file cabinet full of her "instinctive" humor, always honing it.

sloopjohnc wrote:

The Modernist wrote:Not dumb necessarily, but I think it needs to be instinctive. Comedy that has been overly 'worked on' rarely tends to be funny, that's the main reason most sitcoms fail I think.

Comedians will take months or years to get a joke perfect or make it sound "natural.'
.

Sometimes changing the odd word can really make a difference in the delivery, but a lot humour is about unpredictability and spontaneity and overworking it kills all that.