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No Smoking
In The Duck Hunter (1922), Billy Bevan's efforts to enforce a "no smoking" policy in his barber shop lead to a surreal battle of wills with Jack Cooper. The routine was later reprised by the Three...
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Doll Abuse
In Superman III (1983), a young mother enters a park pushing a baby carriage. She lifts a toddler out of the carriage and sets him down on a see-saw. Suddenly, a stolen money bag drops from a...
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YouTube Presents Hungry Lions, Exploding Cars and a Child-rescuing Chimp
It amazes me that I can go on YouTube every few months and find rare silent film comedies. My latest YouTube search turned up five interesting films.1.) The Lyin' Tamer (1926)The "lion comedy" is well...
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Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink
A stock situation in silent film comedy was a luckless man becoming flustered by an uncooperative inanimate object. A good example is provided by the 1921 Sennett comedy By Heck, in which Billy Bevan...
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Brain Dead Meets Evil Dead
Director Sam Raimi, an unabashed fan of the Three Stooges, taught himself filmmaking by remaking Three Stooges comedies shot-for-shot. It should not be surprising then that Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy...
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Funny Optical Illusions
The Commedia dell'arte's "Lazzo of the Hands Behind the Back" routine had probably been around for 400 years before the advent of motion pictures. It was a reliable routine that an experienced stage...
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TCM Brings the Gags
TCM has made an commendable effort to bring silent film comedy shorts to television. The channel aired 87 newly restored Mack Sennett comedies last September and followed this up in May with a 12-hour...
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Louie: Comedy Without Laughs
Louie C.K.'s Louie has received high praise from critics for its bold originality. It is not a mass-produced formula sitcom. It is, unlike the typical sitcom, personal and experimental. A.V. Club...
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Experimental Television: Test Tube Meets Boob Tube
I expressed some disfavor towards experimental television in yesterday's article on Louie. I failed to clarify my position on the subject as I could not find a space in the article where I could...
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Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest: The Three Faces of Gomer
To many, the formula for great comedy is simple - have a stupid character do something stupid.But stupidity is not the key to funny. A comedy character must engage the viewer before he can make them...
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More Baby Doll Abuse
I no sooner wrote my recent article on baby doll abuse scenes in films and television programs then I came across two additional examples of this perverse trend.Wonderfalls ("Muffin Buffalo,"...
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The 700 Dirty Words
Most minced oaths became well-established in our culture through common usage - tarnation, dang, shoot, gee, egad, lands sake, jeepers creepers, jehosaphat, flipping heck, cripes, doggone. But many...
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Battling Butlers
A forgotten silent film comedian now stands at the center of a highly publicized legal battle between Warner Brothers and the Weinstein Company. The comedian's name is Davey Don. Who is Davey Don,...
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Sing, Clown, Sing!
It is not possible for a comedy routine to survive for hundreds of years without being highly adaptive, and a routine has passed the stringent test for adaptability if it has been performed effectively...
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Theatre Etiquette
As many theatergoers, I have suffered the indignity of having snacks rained down upon his head by the reprobates who hang out in the balcony. Stories of disorderly theater patrons can be traced from...
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Avanti, Ridolini! (aka Larry Semon, Italian Style)
A television syndicator, La Miniatura Film, sold a package of Larry Semon comedies to Italian television in the 1950s. It is not unusual for a syndicator to make changes to entertainment product as...
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The Dangers of Tropes
The efforts of Hollywood writers to condense the various aspects of a marriage into a compelling three-act structure has, for decades, brought forth a frustratingly distorted and misleading...
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What's Black and Blue and Yellow All Over?
No one would expect the tired, bloated cast of Grown Ups 2 to risk bruises, sprains and broken bones to produce any spectacular physical comedy.But we are fortunate to have the computer-animated...
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The Mirror Prank
The Schwartz Brothers performed the famous mirror routine during an international tour in 1912 and, in their wake, film adaptations of the routine were produced by at least three companies - Solax,...
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