Objective Humor

[alexxkay]

Speaking of "Noises Off", there's a running bit where Christopher Reeve's character complains about the implausibility of the plot of the play-within-the-play. It reminded me of this (rare these days) nice bit of writing/observation from Dave Sim. He's discussing the nature of humor, in the context of doing a Three Stooges parody:

Curly, as much as possible, acted with his arms at or near chest height or higher and his upper arms always at a forty-five degree angle from his shoulders. Which I imagine was something Curly had figured out on the Vaudeville "circuit" (like Groucho's walk: when someone asked him about it, Groucho reportedly said, "One time I started walking funny, sort of crouched over, with my knees bent. It got a laugh, so I left it in"). I think Curly noticed that when his arms were up high he got bigger laughs, so he did everything with his arms up high from then on. And it is, it's funny. His arms are doing all the regular "arm" things, but they're doing them up high. I marked an elevation on a sketch of [the Curly parody character] and I realized that just marking the elevation was funny. Putting a line there made an ordinary [Curly] drawing into a funny [Curly] drawing. Why? No idea. I suspect it might have to do with looking child-like. Small, heavyset children swing their arms much higher than usual to maintain balance. But I really have no idea why, and I never even thought to ask it until I was writing this. In comedy, you don't ask stupid questions, like why. If it looks funny to have a line there, you just figure out something to put on him at that height. Just as in Vaudeville where you didn't analyze why it got a laugh, you just paid attention to what got a laugh and you did it a lot after that.

Probably the best example of what I'm talking about here is one of the Stooges' shorts which was called "Gents Without Cents" (No. 81, 1944).

[snip intro of description]

...most people know this one because of the "Niagara Falls sketch" which is the comedy within the comedy, a Vaudeville routine the Stooges do as part of the above-mentioned "song and dance review". If you're a guy, you probably know it from the "Sloooowly I turned, step-by-step, inch-by-inch..." line, right?

It's hilarious.

I must've watched it a hundred times and I still laughed. "Ger, come and watch this." And he laughed. Ger is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a slap shtick or Stooges kind of guy. The band members in the background who are probably watching at least the fourth or fifth take are laughing. Why is it hilarious? I have no idea. As a written piece of material it makes absolutely no sense. There is no logic, not even any internal logic, to the "Niagara Falls sketch". I'm convinced it isn't even a Stooges routine since only Curly is remotely "in character". I think it's just a classic Vaudeville bit that got honed and chopped and tweaked and fiddled with, everything that was funny was left in and everything that wasn't funny was left out and the results are right there. It's a guaranteed "laugh-getter". It is, quite possibly, the only living example we have of the type of "writing" where the ultimate content was determined completely and exclusively by what got the biggest laughs from a Vaudeville audience. I can picture the original writer saying to whoever the original trio was, "But... but... if you leave out the eighteen lines in the middle, it doesn't make sense." And the original trio saying, "Watch." And they went out and did it and got bigger laughs. Nu? So? So, leave out the eighteen lines.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Noises Off: hilarious play. And the movie is excellently executed.

Sims' observations: I long for a day where creators actually have the bravery to edit their creations based on audience reaction, rather than on editor's suggestions or marketer's best guess as to "what will sell". We're in an age of disposable entertainment, and it shows; while Three Stooges or Marx Brothers or Chaplin are still funny, watching a "comedy" from the 80s or (heaven forbid) the 70s is a painful, out-of-body experience (go watch Porky's and try to figure out why it was a hit).

That being said, as a creator (in this case author), I know how hard it is to "eat your children" and cut parts that don't work. Vaudeville (in its proper, trisyllabic origins) was about being funny or starving, and doing daily shows to an audience with large but not complete turn-over and immediate; excellent impetus and opportunity to hone one's material.

The only comparable market today seems to be stand-up comedy. Nowadays audiences are further away, harder to hear*, less vocal, and less frequent, and it makes it hard to improve the quality of work. And if you do get an audience, too often they're "nice" -- "Oh, your story was nice." "That play was nice." "You did a great job acting." "The scenery was nice." Feh. Tell me what you think and maybe I can fix it.

(shameless self-promotion)

Disposable comedy

[metageek.livejournal.com]

watching a "comedy" from the 80s or (heaven forbid) the 70s is a painful, out-of-body experience

Yeah...I thought about this, and the major exceptions in my collection are:

• The Muppet Show, which explicitly draws on vaudeville (they even perform some vaudeville songs).
  


• Monty Python and Black Adder, both of which are from outside of Hollywood.
  


• A bunch of Steve Martin movies--and Steve Martin got his start doing standup, which means he could hear when people laughed.
  


• The Princess Bride, which is pretty much sui generis in a lot of ways. :-)
  

I think the common thread is that most of these were people who started out willing to toss conventional wisdom in the trash and focus on laughter. In fact, that might stand as the main difference between the Muppet Show and Muppets Tonight (a successor show from about 1995); the latter was done by an established company, with less risk-taking. They did pretty well (I still remember Gonzo leaping six frightened chickens on an ICBM), but they couldn't touch the original.

Evolutionary analogy

[metageek.livejournal.com]

the type of "writing" where the ultimate content was determined completely and exclusively by what got the biggest laughs from a Vaudeville audience [...] So, leave out the eighteen lines.

Reminds me of the products of biological evolution: although we can understand them, sometimes, in retrospect, the details are like nothing that any human would have designed. Vaudeville must have been similar: making sense was irrelevant, but laughter was crucial, because acts that didn't get laughs didn't survive. Movies don't have that same dynamic, because they don't get repeated live. You can imitate something that people told you they liked in your last movie, but you can't go back and tweak that movie to improve it.

[antoniseb.livejournal.com]

This is a great topic. I'm away from my references so I can't add much at this time, but I want to supply some feedback that I like this topic. Thanks.