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Comedy: Comedy as a popular meaning is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was remarkably influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters.

The theatrical genre can be simply bum described as a dramatic performance which armpits two societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye famously depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old," but this dichotomy is seldom described as an entirely satisfactory explanation.

A later view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes; in this sense, the youth is understood to be constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to take recourse to ruses which engender very dramatic irony which provokes laughter.

Much comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations, but there are many recognized genres of comedy. Satire and political satire use ironic comedy to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of humor. Satire is a type of comedy.

Parody borrows the form of some popular genre, artwork, or text but uses certain ironic changes to critique that form from within (though not necessarily in a condemning way). Screwball comedy derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters. Black comedy is defined by dark humor that makes light of so called dark or evil elements in human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways.

A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms, and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.

History:

Comedy is one of the original four genres of literature as defined by the philosopher Aristotle in his work called Poetics. The other three genres are Tragedy, Epic, and Lyric. Literature in general is defined by Aristotle as a mimesis, or imitation of, life. Comedy is the third form of literature, being the most divorced from a true mimesis. Tragedy is the truest mimesis, followed by epic, comedy and lyric. The genre of comedy is defined by a certain pattern according to Aristotle's definition. All comedies begin with a low, typically with an "ugly" guy who can't do anything right. By the end of the story or play, the "ugly" guy has won the "pretty" girl, or whatever it was he was aiming for at the beginning. Comedies also have elements of the supernatural, typically magic and for the ancient Greeks the gods. Comedy includes the unrealistic in order to portray the realistic. For the Greeks, all comedies ended happily which is opposite of tragedy, which ends sadly. The oldest Greek comedy is Homer's Odyssey, the story of Odysseus and his crew's attempt to return home after the fall of Troy.

Aristophanes, a dramatist of the Ancient Greek Theater wrote 40 comedies, 11 of which survive and are still being performed. In ancient Greece, comedy seems to have originated in bawdy and ribald songs or recitations apropos of fertility festivals or gatherings, or also in making fun at other people or stereotypes. Aristotle, in his Poetics, states that comedy originated in Phallic songs and the light treatment of the otherwise base and ugly. He also adds that the origins of comedy are obscure because it was not treated seriously from its inception.

Comedy took on a different view with the advent of the Christian era. The comic genre was divided by Dante in his work The Divine Comedy, made up of the epic poems Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Dante's division of comedy into three sub genres still exist today in various forms. Inferno represents the darkest of all comedies, or what is known as dark or black comedy. In such comedy, one is forced to laugh or enjoy dark or black topics that one shouldn't enjoy or laugh at. Generally, most who read the whole Divine Comedy find Inferno to be the most enjoyable of the three. At the end of the dark comedy, one is still left with a sense of hope but one has not necessarily achieved what one has looked for. Purgatorio is made up of what most comedies today possess. Purgatorio is light hearted, at least compared to Inferno, and yet one still does not achieve fully what one looks for. As such, Purgatorio leaves the main character with a sense of hope greater than what was felt at the end of Inferno. Paradiso is the most traditional of the three in way of the Greek standard of comedy. The supernatural play a huge role in all three poems, but Paradiso ends the happiest of all three with the main character achieving his goal. Infernal, Purgatorial and Paradisal comedies are the three main genres in which one can place all other comic forms.

The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it have been carefully investigated by psychologists. They agreed the predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential, if not the essential, factor: thus Thomas Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression.

George Meredith, in his 1897 classic Essay on Comedy, said that "One excellent test of the civilization of a country ... I take to be the flourishing of the Comic idea and Comedy; and the test of true Comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter." Laughter is said to be the cure to being sick. Studies show, that people who laugh more often, get sick less.

Forms of Comedy:

Comedy may be divided into multiple genres based on the source of humor, the method of delivery, and the context in which it is delivered. The different forms often overlap, and most comedy can fit into multiple genres. Some of the subgenres of comedy are farce, comedy of manners, burlesque, and satire.

Greeks and Romans confined the word "comedy" to descriptions of stage-plays with happy endings. In the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Divina Commedia. As time progressed, the word came more and more to be associated with any sort of performance intended to cause laughter.

American Operetta:

In America, Victor Herbert (1859–1924) was one of the first to pick up the family-friendly style of light opera that Gilbert and Sullivan had made popular, although his music was also influenced by the European operetta composers. His earliest pieces, starting with Prince Ananias in 1894, were styled "comic operas," but his later works were described as "musical extravaganza", "musical comedy", "musical play", "musical farce", and even "opera comique." His two most successful pieces, out of more than half a dozen hits, were Babes in Toyland (1903) and Naughty Marietta (1910).

Others who wrote in a similar vein included Reginald de Koven (1859–1920), John Philip Sousa (1854–1932), Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml. The modern American musical incorporated elements of the British and American light operas, with works like Show Boat and Porgy and Bess that explored more serious subjects and featured a tight integration among book, movement and lyrics.

The line between light opera and other recent forms is difficult to draw. Several works are variously called operettas or musicals, such as Candide and Sweeney Todd, depending on whether they are performed in opera houses or in theaters. In addition, some recent American and British musicals make use of an operatic structure, for example, containing recurring motifs, and may even be sung through without dialogue. Those with orchestral scores are ususually styled "musicals", while those played on electronic instruments are often styled rock operas.

Improvisational Comedy:

Improvisational theatre (also known as improv or impro) is a form of theatre in which the improvisational actors/ improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously. Improvisers typically use audience suggestions to guide the performance as they create dialogue, setting, and plot extemporaneously. Improvisational theatre performances tend to be comedic, although some forms, including Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed, are not necessarily intended to be comedic.

Many improvisational actors/ improvisers also work as scripted actors, and "improv" techniques are often taught in standard acting classes. The basic skills of listening, clarity, confidence, and performing instinctively and spontaneously are considered important skills for actors to develop.

Improvisational Comedy:

Modern improvisational comedy, as it is practiced in the West, falls generally into two categories: shortform and longform.

Shortform improv consists of short scenes usually constructed from a predetermined game, structure, or idea and driven by an audience suggestion. Many shortform games were first created by Viola Spolin based on her training from Neva Boyd. The shortform improv comedy television series Whose Line Is It Anyway? has familiarized American and British viewers with shortform.

Longform improv performers create shows in which scenes are often interrelated by story, characters, or themes. Longform shows may take the form of an existing type of theatre, for example a full-length play or Broadway-style musical such as Spontaneous Broadway . Longform improvisation is especially performed in Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Perhaps the best-known, and considered the first, longform structure is the Harold, developed by ImprovOlympic cofounder Del Close, though this is a hotly debated topic among many schools of improv. Many such longform structures now exist.

Origins:

Improvised performance is as old as performance itself. From the 1500s to the 1700s, Commedia dell'arte performers improvised in the streets of Italy and in the 1890s theatrical theorists and directors such as Konstantin Stanislavski and Jacques Copeau, founders of two major streams of acting theory, both heavily utilised improvisation in acting training and rehearsal.

While some people credit Dudley Riggs as the first vaudevillian to use audience suggestions to create improvised sketches, modern theatrical improvisation is generally accepted to have taken form in the classroom with the theatre games of Viola Spolin in the 1940s and Keith Johnstone in the 1950s. These rehearsal-room activities evolved quickly to an independent artform worthy of presentation before a paying audience.

Viola Spolin can probably be considered the American Grandmother of Improv. She influenced the first generation of Improv at The Compass Players in Chicago, which led to The Second City. Her son, Paul Sills, along with David Shepherd, started The Compass Players and Second City. They were among the first organized troupes in Chicago, Illinois and from their success, the modern Chicago improvisational comedy movement was spawned.

Much of the current "rules" of comedic improv were first formalized in Chicago in the late 1950s and early 1960s, initially among The Compass Players troupe. From most accounts Elaine May was central to this intellectual effort. Mike Nichols, Ted Flicker, and Del Close were her most frequent collaborators in this regard. When Second City opened its doors on December 16th, 1959, Viola Spolin began training new improvisers through a series of classes and exercises which became the cornerstone of modern improv training. By the mid 1960s, Viola's classes were handed over to her protégé, Jo Forsberg who further developed Viola's methods into a one-year course, which eventually became Players Workshop, the first official school of improvisation in the country. During this time Jo Forsberg trained many of the performers who went on to star on Second City stage.

Many of the original cast of Saturday Night Live came from The Second City and the franchise has produced such comedy stars as Mike Myers, Chris Farley and John Belushi.

Simultaneously, Keith Johnstone's group The Theatre Machine, which originated in London, was touring Europe. This work gave birth to Theatresports, at first secretly in Keith's workshops, and eventually in public when Keith moved to Canada. Toronto has been home to a rich improv tradition.

In 1984 Dick Chudnow (Kentucky Fried Theater) founded ComedySportz in Milwaukee, WI. Expansion began with the addition of ComedySportz-Madison (WI), in 1985. The first Comedy League of America National Tournament was held in 1988, with 10 teams participating. The league is now known as World Comedy League and boasts a roster of 19 international cities.

In San Francisco, The Committee theater was active during the 1960s.

Modern political improvisation's roots include Jerzy Grotowski's work in Poland during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Peter Brook's "happenings" in England during the late 1960s, Augusto Boal's "Forum Theatre" in South America in the early 1970s, and San Francisco's The Diggers' work in the 1960s. Some of this work led to pure improvisational performance styles, while others simply added to the theatrical vocabulary and were, on the whole, avant garde experiments.

Joan Littlewood, the English actress and director who was active from the 1930s to 1970s, made extensive use of improv in developing plays for performance. However she was successfully prosecuted twice for allowing her actors to improvise in performance. Until 1968, British law required scripts to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain's Office. The department also sent inspectors to some performances to check that the approved script was complied with exactly.

Improvisational Comedy on Film and Television:

Many silent filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton used improvisation in the making of their films, developing their gags while filming and altering the plot to fit. The Marx Brothers were notorious for deviating from the script they were given, their ad libs often becoming part of the standard routine and making their way into their films.

Improv comedy techniques have also been used in film, television and stand-up comedy, notably the mockumentary films of director Christopher Guest, the recent HBO television show Curb Your Enthusiasm created by Larry David, the UK Channel 4 and ABC television series Whose Line Is It Anyway, Nick Cannon's improv comedy show Wild 'N Out, and most recently, Thank God You're Here. In Canada, the long-running series Train 48 was improvised from scripts which contained a minimal outline of each scene.

Improv as a Tool for Corporate Entertainment and Corporate Training:

Major companies such as Second City begin using their improv skill to design new interesting corporate entertainment format and powerful corporate training tool. It as been found that one the major element that generate dysfunctions in a team is the lack of trust, all the improv trust techniques that have been imagined by Viola Spolin, Paul Sills, Del Close, Keith Johnstone and Jonathan Fox are directly applicable to corporate training.

Participants to improv corporate workshops learn a new way of thinking, a new respect for others in any negotiation or transactional relationship, how to be “in the moment“, how to make positive choices that keep doors open, proactive listening as opposed to passive or even responsive listening, trusting one another to do the right thing and the benefits from watching the other guy’s back.

Psychology of Improvisational Theatre:

In the field of the Psychology of Consciousness, Eberhard Scheiffele explored the altered state of consciousness experienced by actors and improvisers in his scholarly paper: Acting: an altered state of consciousness. According to G. WIlliam Farthing in "The Psychology of Consciousness"(see comparative study), actors (in performance, drama classes, or in psychodrama) routinely enter into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Acting is seen as altering most of the 14 dimensions of changed subjective experience which characterize ASCs according to Farthing, namely: attention, perception, imagery and fantasy, inner speech, memory, higher-level thought processes, meaning or significance of experiences, time experience, emotional feeling and expression, level of arousal, self-control, suggestibility, body image, and sense of personal identity.

Improv Process:

Improvisational theatre allows an interactive relationship with the audience. Improv groups frequently solicit suggestions from the audience as a source of inspiration, a way of getting the audience involved, and as a means of proving that the performance is not scripted. That charge is sometimes aimed at the masters of the art, whose performances can seem so detailed that viewers may suspect the scenes were planned.

In order for an improvised scene to be successful, the improvisers involved must work together responsively to define the parameters and action of the scene, in a process of co-creation. With each spoken word or action in the scene, an improviser makes an offer, meaning that he or she defines some element of the reality of the scene. This might include giving another character a name, identifying a relationship, location, or using mime to define the physical environment. These activities are also known as endowment. It is the responsibility of the other improvisers to accept the offers that their fellow performers make; to not do so is known as blocking, negation, or denial, which usually prevents the scene from developing. Some performers may deliberately block (or otherwise break out of character) for comedic effect -- this is known as gagging -- but this generally prevents the scene from advancing and is frowned upon by many improvisers. Accepting an offer is usually accompanied by adding a new offer, often building on the earlier one; this is a process improvisers refer to as "Yes, And..." and is considered the cornerstone of improvisational technique. Every new piece of information added helps the improvisers to refine their characters and progress the action of the scene.

The unscripted nature of improv also implies no predetermined knowledge about the props that might be useful in a scene. Improv companies may have at their disposal some number of readily accessible props that can be called upon at a moment's notice, but many improvisers eschew props in favor of the infinite possibilities available through mime. In improv, this is more commonly known as 'space object work' or 'space work', not 'mime'. And the props and locations created by this technique, as 'space objects'. As with all improv offers, improvisers are encouraged to respect the validity and continuity of the imaginary environment defined by themselves and their fellow performers; this means, for example, taking care not to walk through the table or "miraculously" survive multiple bullet wounds from another improviser's gun.

In tune with the unscripted nature, several techniques have arisen with which help improvisers to avoid prescripted jokes to arise in their scenes. One such technique is known as "rolphing." This is the process which is sometimes referred to as "vomiting words," and consists of starting with a sound as opposed to a full word. Once the sound is projected, the improviser is forced to come up with a word related to the sound, often surprising even the speaker himself. This technique is not so often used in scene however, as it may break the reality of a scene. Instead, it is often used in preliminary work, setting up a scene, giving the improviser an unexpected and unpredictable scene.

Because improvisers may be required to play a variety of roles without preparation, they need to be able to construct characters quickly with physicality, gestures, accents, voice changes, or other techniques as demanded by the situation. The improviser may be called upon to play a character of a different age or sex. Character motivations are an important part of successful improv scenes, and improvisers must therefore attempt to act according to the objectives that they believe their character seeks.

Community:

Many theatre troupes are devoted to staging improvisational performances and growing the improv community through their training centres. One of the most widespread is the international organization Theatresports, which was founded by Keith Johnstone, an English director who wrote what many consider to be the seminal work on the relationship between status, story telling and improvisational acting, Impro. There are also many independent Improv groups around the world; a non-exhaustive but lengthy list is available here. In addition to for-profit theatre troupes, there are several college-based improv groups in the United States that are becoming popularized as a result of programs such as Whose Line is it Anyway?

In Europe the special contribution to the theatre of the abstract, the surreal, the irrational and the subconscious have been part of the stage tradition for centuries. From the 1990s onwards a growing number of European Improv groups have been set up specifically to explore the possibilities offered by the use of the abstract in improvised performance, including dance, movement, sound, music, mask work, lighting, and so on. These groups are not especially interested in comedy, either as a technique or as an effect, but rather in expanding the improv genre so as to incorporate techniques and approaches that have long been a legitimate part of European theatre.

Clowns:

Etymology and Early History:

The word Bouffon comes from a latin verb: buffare, to puff (i.e., to fill the cheeks with air). When we blow up our cheeks, and assume a physical attitude, we observe an ancient ritualistic practice of human beings: to deform themselves, to swell in order to provoke a response from their audience. Bouffon characters are direct descendants and heavily influenced by the half-man, half-animal satyr characters of ancient Greek mythology and the subversive, parodic farce performances of the theatre of ancient Rome. The useage of the word Bouffon comes from the French language and has entered English theatrical language through the work of Jacques Lecoq and his pedagogic inquiry into performance approaches of comedy, leading him to create dynamic classroom exercises that explored elements of burlesque, commedia dell'arte, farce, gallows humor, parody, satire, slapstick Comedy, etc. that collectively influenced the development of modern bouffon performance work.

Lecoq's Definition:

"The difference between the clown and the bouffon is that while the clown is alone, the bouffon is part of a gang; while we make fun of the clown, the bouffon makes fun of us. At the heart of the bouffon is mockery pushed to the point of parody. Bouffons amuse themselves by reproducing the life of man in their own way, through games and pranks. The parody isn’t directly offensive with regard to the public; there is no deliberate intention to mock—the relation is of a different order. Bouffons come from elsewhere. They are linked to the verticality of mystery and they are part of the vertical access which links earth and heaven whose values they invent. They spit at the sky and invoke the earth; in this sense they inhabit the same space as tragedy—they meet on the same plane. Bouffons are organized hierarchically and live in a perfect society, without conflict, where everyone finds their allotted; an ideal image of ours. There is the bully and the bullied; the one with the right to speak who is supported by the one who hasn’t, without any revolt or any questions asked. They are polite and help each other. Why this perfection? Because they are not like us. The imagination of the mystery makes them take on another body, which enables them to maintain a distance between us and them and to be able to walk in the street, to be alongside us whilst remaining themselves and ourselves. Every country has, deep within its culture, a spring of the bouffon-esque which wells up in the work of bouffons; South America has the magic birds of the Volador; the English have the nocturnal enchantments of Shakespeare; the Germans, the myths of the Lorelei; the Swedes have the little monsters of white nights. The bouffon show fully belongs to the ‘theatre of the image’. The range of movement is transformed and finds its point of organization in the costumes which oblige the bouffons to make only certain movements to the point of catastrophic acrobats which would be impossible with a normal body. Thus bouffons appear in colorful costumes, with enormous bellies, enormous chests balanced by enormous buttocks; balls grow around their joints, on their thread-like bodies. Legs either grow to the length of two metres or disappear beneath their bodies, in a ball, right on the ground. There are also bouffons with the beauty of the devil, elegant, and there are innocent ones who are protected. The number of bouffons is legion; their limits are incalculable. There are echoes in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Pere Ubu, the gargoyles on medieval cathedrals, the king’s fool, and forty-year old babies. Bouffons belong to the realm of madness, to that madness which you need the better to safeguard truth. One accepts in a madman what one wouldn’t accept in a so-called normal person. One forgives him when he says upsetting things but one listens to him as a king listens to his fool. The imagination brings forth countless examples in bouffon performances. Each is different from the other, but they are united in the themes with which they deal. They come to show us in a multitudinous manner, very much like a parade, our own follies. They play our society, the themes of power, of science, of religion, in ‘follies’ which are organized according to strict rules where the craziest directs the others and declares war because he’s bored. Bouffons propose and at the same time denounce the realm of tragedy. It is for this reason that at my school I give them the great poetic texts to speak. At the most suitable moment, when the tension is maximum, one of the bouffons takes the stage, and starts speaking, without parody, lines from great texts such as the Bible, Artaud, Saint-John Perse, Eliot, Pasolini, Rimbaud, Shakespeare. Bouffons allow us to understand them better than when delivered in a poetic soiree dolled up in evening-wear. The rhythm, the dance steps hammering the earth and percussion instruments beating out the metre in rituals that prepare for the event.” – c. 1987 from "Le Théâtre du Geste", translated here by David Bradby.

Clowns:

Clowns are comical performers, stereotypically characterized by their grotesque appearance: colored wigs, stylistic makeup, outlandish costumes, unusually large footwear, red-nose, etc., who entertain spectators by acting in a hilarious fashion. The types of their acts varies greatly. Although many find clowns to be scary, their intended purpose is to entertain people, especially young children.

Peter Berger writes that "It seems plausible that folly and fools, like religion and magic, meet some deeply rooted needs in human society." For this reason, clowning is often considered an important part of training as a physical performance discipline, partly because tricky subject matter can be dealt with, but also because it requires a high level of risk and play in the performer. This has included the training offered by Jacques Lecoq. An example can be found in the Native American clown societies.

In slang, "being a clown", such as messing things up or blowing an opportunity is generally considered to be a negative thing.

History of Western Clowns:

Clowning was developed from a broad tradition and it is difficult to say that it has developed as a singular tradition or a few different ones. Examples of historical clown types have been the pantomimus in ancient Greece, the Lazzi of Commedia dell'Arte, Bouffons, Court Jesters, the French Mime tradition. On top of this there are many non-European clowning traditions (including clown-like figures in Japanese Kabuki theatre) to consider which may or may not have influenced what we now think of when we think of a clown.

Principal Clown Types:

Whiteface:

It is important to note that a whiteface character does not always wear the classic whiteface makeup.[citation needed] Additionally, a character can wear traditional whiteface makeup and be an auguste.

Classic appearance. Traditionally, the whiteface clown uses "clown white" makeup to cover his or her entire face and neck with none of the underlying flesh color showing. In the European whiteface makeup, the ears are painted red. Features, in red and black, are delicate. He or she is traditionally costumed far more extravagantly than the other two clown types, sometimes wearing the ruffled collar and pointed hat which typify the stereotypical "clown suit".

Character. The whiteface character-type is often serious, all-knowing (even if not particularly smart), bossy and cocky. He is the ultimate authority figure. He serves the role of "straight-man" and sets up situations that can be turned funny.

Some circus examples include Pipo Sossman, François Fratellini (the Fratellini family), Felix Adler, Paul Jung, Harry Dann, Chuck Burnes, Albert White, Ernie Burch, Bobby Kaye, Jack and Jackie LeClaire, Joe and Chester Sherman, Keith Crary, Charlie Bell, Tim Tegge, Kenny Dodd, Frankie Saluto, Tammy Parish, David Konyot (Circus Barum and The Toni Alexis trio), Jay Stewart and Prince Paul Albert.

Auguste:

Appearance The auguste face base makeup color is a variation of pink, red, or tan rather than white. Features are exaggerated in size and are typically red and black in color. The mouth is thickly outlined with white (called the muzzle) as are the eyes. The auguste is dressed (appropriate to character) in either well-fitted garb or in a costume that does not fit - either oversize or too small is appropriate. Bold colors, large prints or patterns, and suspenders often characterize Auguste costumes.

Character The auguste character-type is often an anarchist, a joker, or a fool. He is clever and has much lower status than the whiteface. Classically the whiteface character instructs the auguste character to perform his bidding. The auguste has a hard time performing the task given which leads to funny situations. Sometimes the auguste plays the role of an anarchist and purposefully has trouble following the whiteface's directions. Sometimes the auguste is confused or is foolish and is screwing up less deliberately.

The contra-auguste The contra-auguste plays the role of the mediator between the whiteface character and the auguste character. He has a lower status than the whiteface but a higher status than the auguste. He aspires to be more like the whiteface and often mimics everything the whiteface does to try to gain approval. If there is a contra-auguste character, he often is instructed by the whiteface to correct the auguste when he is doing something wrong.

Character Clown:

The character clown adopts an eccentric character of some type, such as a butcher, a baker, a policeman, a housewife or hobo. Prime examples of this type of clown are the circus tramps Otto Griebling and Emmett Kelly. Red Skelton, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin would all fit the definition of a character clown.

The character clown makeup is a comic slant on the standard human face. Their makeup starts with a flesh tone base and may make use of anything from glasses, mustaches and beards to freckles, warts, big ears or strange haircuts.

American Character Clown Types:

The most prevalent character clown in the American circus is the hobo, tramp or bum clown. There are subtle differences in the American character clown types. According to American circus expert Hovey Burgess, they are (in order of class):

The Hobo Migratory and finds work where he travels.

The Tramp Migratory and does not work where he travels.

The Bum Non-migratory and non-working.

Emmett Kelly was the preeminent clown of this type. Others include Barry Lubin, Tom Dougherty, Bill Irwin, David Shiner, Geoff Hoyle, John Gilkey, Peter Shub, Poodles Hanneford, Bluch Landolf, Larry Pisoni, John Lepiarz, Bobo Barnett, Happy Kellams, Fumagalli, Charlie Cairoli, Bebe, Jojo Lewis, Abe Goldstein, Rhum, David Larible, Scott Linker, Kenny Raskin, Oleg Popov, Rik Gern, and Bello Nock.

Native American Clowning:

Many Native Tribes have a history of clowning. The Canadian Clowning method developed by Richard Pochinko and furthered by his former apprentice, Sue Morrison, combines European and Native American clowning techniques.

In this tradition, masks are made of clay while the creator's eyes are closed. A mask is made for each direction of the medicine wheel. During this process, the clown creates a personal mythology which explores his or her personal Experiences and Innocenses.

Rodeo Clown:

A rodeo clown is a cowboy, or animal wrangler, dressed in wild costumes — almost always oversized and consisting of loose fitting layers of clothing to protect them from, and to distract, rodeo bulls, broncos, etc. The looseness of the layers allows a rodeo clown to shed portions of their attire in the event of its being snagged—as on an enraged bull's horn.

Clowning Terminology:

Egg Register:

When a clown joins Clowns International in England, which claims to be the oldest clown society in the world, he can register his individual make-up. An eggshell is decorated as a miniature version of the clown's head and added to the "Egg Gallery" which then acts as sort of clown copyright.

Skills:

In the circus, a clown might perform another circus role:

Walk a tightrope, a highwire, a slack rope or a piece of rope on the ground, though in the last case, the predictably unpredictable clown might be just as likely to wrestle around on the ground with it, as if it were a boa constrictor.

Ride a horse, a zebra, a donkey, an elephant or even an ostrich.

Substitute himself in the role of "lion tamer".

Act as "emcee", from M.C. or Master of Ceremonies, the preferred term for a clown taking on the role of "Ringmaster".

"Sit in" with the orchestra, perhaps in a "pin spot" in the center ring, or from a seat in the audience.

Anything any other circus performer might do. It is not uncommon for an acrobat, a horse-back rider or a lion tamer to secretly stand in for the clown, the "switch" taking place in a brief moment offstage.

Frameworks:

Frameworks are the general outline of an act that clowns use to help them build out an act. Frameworks can be loose, including only a general beginning and ending to the act, leaving it up to the clown's creativity to fill in the rest, or at the other extreme a fully developed script that allows very little room for creativity.

Shows are the overall production that a clown is a part of, it may or may not include elements other than clowning, such as in a circus show. In a circus context, clown shows are typically made up of some combination of Entrées, Side dishes, Clown Stops, Track Gags, Gags and bits.

Joey, the Auguste and the Ringmaster:

In clown duos, Clowns often rely on the Joey & Auguste framework, or Manipulator/Victim. The Joey & Auguste Framework is often used widely in such comic works as Looney Tunes. Simply put, the two clowns who, for whatever reason, are competing for survival, desperately rely on each other; without each other, they live a meaningless and, perhaps, even more perilous adventure. For example, when Sylvester finally catches Tweety Bird (or thinks he does), he becomes so ridden with guilt that he nearly commits suicide.

The Ringmaster relationship is the addition of an ur-manipulator, or ur-victim to this chemistry. This often takes the form of a mutual enemy or nemesis. An example of this situation might be as follows:

A husband comes home late, he's drunk, and has a collar covered in lipstick. His wife wants to know where he's been and a manipulator-victim relationship occurs. Suddenly their child enters the scene and the dynamic changes in an attempt to avoid traumatizing him/her. The child wants to know why there's a strange man in their bedroom, and the manipulator-victim dymnamic shifts during the next argument. Then it turns out that the child has constructed this elaborate ruse in order to steal cookies and watch late-night TV without notice, giving him ur-manipulator status.

This is an example of a ringmaster situation. Clowns in the ringmaster position are often character clowns, where Joey and Auguste duos are typically made up of a Whiteface Clown and an Auguste.

Gags, Bits and Business:

"Business" is the individual motions the clown uses, often used to express the clown's character. A "gag" is a very short piece of clown comedy which when repeated within a bit or routine may become a "running gag". Gags may be loosely defined as "the jokes clowns play on each other". Bits are the clown's sketches or routines made up of one or more gags either worked out and timed before going on stage or impromptu bits composed of familiar improvisational material. A gag may have a beginning, a middle and an end to them, or they may not. Gags can also refer to the prop stunts/tricks or the stunts that clowns use, such as a squirting flower.

Menu:

Entrées are feature clowning acts lasting 5–10 minutes. They are typically made up of various gags and bits, and usually use a clowning framework. Entrées almost always end with a blow-off. (The blow-off is the comedic ending of a show segment, bit, gag, stunt or routine.)

Side dishes are shorter feature acts. Side dishes are essentially shorter versions of the Entrée, typically lasting 1 – 3 minutes. Side dishes are typically made up of various gags and bits, and usually use a clowning framework. Side dishes almost always end with a blow-off.

Interludes:

Clown Stops or interludes are the brief appearance of clowns while the props and rigging are changed. These are typically made up of a few gags or several bits. Clown Stops almost always end with a blow-off. Clown stops will always have a beginning, a middle and an end to them. These are also called reprises or run-ins by many and in today's circus they are an art form in themselves, originally they were bits of "business" usually parodying the act that had preceded it. If for instance there had been a wire walker the reprise would involve two chairs with a piece of rope between and the clown trying to imitate the artiste by trying to walk between them with the resulting falls and cascades bringing laughter from the audience. Today they are far more complex and in many modern shows the clowning is a thread that links the whole show together.

Prop Stunts:

Among the more well-known clown stunts are: squirting flower; the "too-many-clowns-coming-out-of-a-tiny-car" stunt; doing just about anything with a rubber chicken, tripping over ones own feet (or an air pocket or imaginary blemish in the floor), or riding any number of ridiculous vehicles or "clown bikes". Individual prop stunts are generally considered to be individual bits.

Amateur Clowning:

There are lots of amateurs practicing clowning skills and appearance. Improvisation and imitations of famous clowns are common for amateur clowns. A piece of artistic sense can sometimes be found even in children animators. It is not too expensive for an amateur clown to lease a costume, and even home makeup (except for the white color) will create an attractive effect for the spectators.

Private costume parties usually have at least one amateur clown present at the event and, even with a few cheap clown tricks, there are always plenty of joyful receptions for the character.

Fear of Clowns:

Many people find clowns disturbing rather than amusing. It is common for children to be afraid of disguised, exaggerated, or costumed figures — even Santa Claus. Ute myths feature a cannibalistic clown monster called the Siats.

Clown costumes tend to exaggerate the facial features and some body parts, such as hands and feet and noses. This can be read as monstrous or deformed as easily as it can be read as comical.

Some have suggested, however, that a fear of clowns may stem from early childhood experience, when infants begin to process and make sense of facial features. The significant aberrations in a clown's face may frighten a child so much that they carry this phobia throughout their adult life.

It can also be said one's response to a clown might depend on where it is seen. At a circus or a party, a clown is normal and may easily be funny. The same clown knocking on one's front door at sunset or sitting in a diner (see picture) is more likely to generate fear or distress than laughter or amusement. This effect is summed up in a quote often attributed to actor Lon Chaney, Sr.: "There is nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight." In the Space To Care study aimed at improving hospital design for children, researchers from the University of Sheffield polled 250 children regarding their opinions on clowns; all 250 children in the study, whose ages ranged between four and sixteen, reported that they found clowns frightening and disliked clowns as part of hospital decor.

The British arts and music festival Bestival cancelled its planned clown theme in 2006 after many adult ticketholders contacted the organizers expressing a fear of clowns.

Stand-Up Comedy:

Stand-up comedy is a mode of comic performance in which the performer addresses the audience directly, usually speaking in their own person rather than as a dramatic character.

Comedian:

A comedian (comedienne is used sometimes if female) or comic is a person who seeks to entertain members of an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy. A comedian who addresses an audience directly is called a stand-up comic.

A comedian can be distinguished from a clown because clowns most often use slapstick, wear costumes and makeup, and engage in buffoonery, whereas comedians most often focus on a more verbal style of humor, telling jokes.

A popular saying, variously quoted but generally attributed to Ed Wynn, is, "A comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny," which draws a distinction between how much of the comedy can be attributed to verbal content and how much to acting and persona.

Since the late 1980s, a new wave of comedy, called alternative comedy, grew in popularity with its more offbeat and experimental style. This normally involves more experiential, or observational reporting, e.g. Andy Kaufman, Alexei Sayle and Malcolm Hardee. Alternative comedy is now arguably the mainstream.

As far as content is concerned, comedians such as Tommy Tiernan, Des Bishop and Joan Rivers draw on their background to poke fun at themselves, while others such as Jon Stewart, Bill Hicks and George Carlin have very strong political and cultural undertones. Contemporary comedians include Conan O' Brien and Jay Leno.

Many comics achieve a cult following while touring famous comedy hubs such as the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, the Edinburgh Fringe, and Melbourne Comedy Festival in Australia. Often a comic's career advances significantly when they win a notable comedy award, such as the if.comedy award (formerly the Perrier comedy award). Comics sometimes foray into other areas of entertainment, such as film and television, when they have become much better known. eg. Dara O'Briain

Comedy Club:

A comedy club is a venue, typically a nightclub, bar, or restaurant where people watch or listen to performances, including stand-up comedians, improvisational comedians, impersonators, magicians, ventriloquists and other comedy acts. The term "comedy club" usually refers to venues that feature standup comedy, as distinguished from improv theaters that host improv or sketch comedy and variety clubs that may also host musical acts.

List of Comedy Clubs:

Bananas Comedy Club

Caroline's

Catch a Rising Star

Cobb's Comedy Club

Coconuts Comedy Club

Comix Comedy Nightclub

Comedy Cellar

EastVille Comedy Club

The Funny Bone

Gotham Comedy Club

Governors Comedy Club

Jongleurs

Ha! Comedy Club N.Y.C.

The Comedy Store

The Comedy Club Asia

The Comedy Zone

The Comic Strip Live

The Improv

The Laugh Factory

Laughing Cows Comedy Night

The Punchline

Rascals Comedy Club

The TakeOut Comedy Club Hong Kong

The Laff Stop

Side Splitters Comedy Club

The Stress Factory

Helium Comedy Club

Yuk Yuk's

List of improv theaters:

ComedySportz

I.O.

The Groundlings

The Second City

Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre

The Comedy Zone (improv)

Stand-Up Comedy:

Stand-up comedy is a style of comedy where a comedian performs for a live audience, usually speaking directly to them. It is usually performed by a single comedian with the aid of a microphone, either hand-held or mounted on a stand. The performer is known as a stand-up comic, stand-up comedian or simply a stand-up.

Format:

Stand-up performances are usually short, where the comedian recites a fast-paced succession of humorous stories, short jokes (called "bits"), and one-liners, which comprise what is typically called a monologue, routine or act. Some stand-up comedians use props, music or magic tricks to enhance their acts. Stand-up comedy is often performed in comedy clubs, bars, colleges and theaters, but there is no real restriction on where the craft can be performed. Many smaller venues hold "open mic" events, where anyone can take the stage and perform for the audience, offering a way for amateur performers to hone their craft and possibly break into professionalism. In North America, many comedy clubs feature the now-iconic brick wall as the backdrop for stand-up performances.

Stand-up comedy is difficult to master partly because the feedback of the audience is instant and crucial for the comedian's act. Many stand-up routines are similar to one-man shows, with the main difference being the expectations of the audience, who in most cases expect a steady stream of laughs. This in turn affects the aims of the performer, who is under great pressure to deliver those laughs. If the performer cannot coax laughs out of the audience, the bored crowd may harrass the comedian, a practice known as heckling. One hallmark of a master stand-up comedian is the ability not only to face down and silence a heckler, but to win over and entertain the rest of the crowd with a witty retort. An adept stand-up comedian will nimbly play off the mood and tastes of any particular audience, and adjust his or her routine accordingly. Stand-up is an art form that is openly devoted to getting immediate laughs from an audience above all else, unlike theatrical comedy which creates comedy within the structure of a play with amusing characters and situations. The skills attributed to stand-up are diverse, as the stand-up comic often acts as writer, editor, performer, promoter, producer and technician for the act.

Many stand-up comedians work for years to develop 45 minutes of material, and usually perform their bits repeatedly, slowly perfecting them over time. Actor-comedian Will Ferrell has called stand-up comedy "hard, lonely and vicious."

Despite the name, stand-up comedians do not always stand up. Some will sit on a stool; Martin Mull has sometimes used an easy chair. The term "sit-down comic" is usually pejorative in nature.

US History:

Stand-up comedy has its roots in various traditions of popular entertainment of the late 19th century including vaudeville, English Music Hall, Minstrel shows, humorist monologues (by personalities such as Mark Twain), and circus clown antics. Comedians of this era often donned an ethnic persona (African, Scottish, German, Jewish, etc) and built a routine based on popular stereotypes. Jokes were generally broad and material was widely shared.

The fathers of modern American stand-up comedy, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Fred Allen, Milton Berle, and Frank Fay all came from vaudeville. They spoke directly to the audience as themselves, in front of the curtain, known as performing "in one." Frank Fay gained acclaim as a "master of ceremonies" at New York's Palace Theater and is credited with creating the style of 20th century stand-up.

Nightclubs and resorts became the new breeding ground for stand-ups. Acts like Alan King, Danny Thomas, Don Rickles, and Jack E. Leonard flourished in these new arenas.

In the 1950s and into the 1960s, led by Mort Sahl, stand-ups began developing their acts in small folk clubs (like San Francisco's hungry i or New York's Bitter End). These comedians added an element of social satire and expanded both the language and boundaries of stand-up venturing into politics, race relations, and sexual humor. Lenny Bruce became known as a "sick" comic when he used language that sometimes led to his arrest. Other notable comics from this era include Woody Allen, Shelley Berman, and Bob Newhart. Some African-American comedians such as Redd Foxx, George Kirby, Bill Cosby, and Dick Gregory began to cross over to white audiences during this time.

Phyllis Diller ventured out as the first solo female stand-up comic, opening the door for other funny women such as Joan Rivers, Lily Tomlin, Elaine Boosler and Roseanne Barr.

Stand-up in the 1970s saw several entertainers becoming major stars based on stand-up comedy performances. Richard Pryor and George Carlin followed Lenny Bruce's acerbic style to become icons. Stand-up expanded from clubs, resorts, and coffee houses into major concerts in sports arenas and amphitheaters. Steve Martin and Bill Cosby had levels of success with gentler comic routines. The older style of stand-up comedy (no social satire) was kept alive by Rodney Dangerfield and Buddy Hackett, who enjoyed revived careers late in life. Television programs such as Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show launched the careers of other stand-up comedians.

By the 1980s, the rising popularity of stand-up led to a boom in stand-up comedy venues for locally-based and touring comics, many of which were converted from disco clubs after the backlash in popularity. It seemed that every major and minor city in the United States had at least one "comedy club" that each week featured an MC, middle act, and a headliner. Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld, Sam Kinison, and Billy Crystal tested their comic skills with live stand-up comedy appearances.

By the 1990s, the glut of stand-up comedy clubs led to an inevitable decline, as the market became somewhat flooded with comedians of varying talent levels. Established stand-up comedians still commanded top ticket prices but less famous acts often struggled to find audiences. This was a difficult time for many comics in the US. The 1990s also saw the rise of alternative comedy in Los Angeles at venues including the Un-Cabaret and the Diamond Club featured performers like Beth Lapides, Bob Odenkirk, Janeane Garofalo, Patton Oswalt, David Cross and Paul F. Tompkins who 'de-constructed' formal comedy and embraced the personal rants and visceral storytelling tradition of Lenny Bruce. One of the most influential comics of this period was Bill Hicks, who earned most of his popularity posthumously, after interest in stand-up comedy rebounded.

As the cable network Comedy Central grew tremendously in popularity into the mid-90s, stand-up comics once again had an opportunity to gain mainstream exposure. Shows like Premium Blend and The A-List focused on young, upcoming comics, while Lounge Lizards and later Comedy Central Presents offered original half-hour specials.

Many observers believe that Chris Rock's stand-up career and popular HBO special Bring the Pain,(1996) was instrumental to stand-up comedy's revival during the late 1990s.

By the 2000s, comedy had enjoyed a resurgence, not only because of Rock's popularity, but because of newer media outlets such as the internet, television channels like Comedy Central and various comedy schools, troupes, and improv groups nurturing new talent through workshops and classes. In the new century stand-up continues to flourish with new stars such as Artie Lange, Jim Norton, Dante (comedian), Louis C.K., Mike Birbiglia, Sarah Silverman, Jim Gaffigan and Mitch Hedberg. Adding to this was the 2000 comedy documentary The Original Kings of Comedy starring Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, D.L. Hughley, and Bernie Mac.

In 2005, Bill Dana, a graduate of Emerson College in Boston Massachusetts and stand-up comedian, approached his Alma Mater about establishing an archive of comedy to help preserve the lush history of the ground-breaking comics of the last century. Hundreds of interviews were conducted and a vast database of comedic information is now on record at Emerson College.

United Kingdom History:

The United Kingdom has a long heritage of stand-up comedians.

British stand-up comedy began in the music halls of the 18th and 19th centuries. Notable performers who rose through the music hall circuit were Morecambe and Wise, Arthur Askey and Max Miller, who was considered to be the quintessential music-hall comedian. The heavy censorship regime of the Lord Chamberlain's Office required all comedians to submit their acts for censorship. The act would be returned with unacceptable sections underlined in blue pencil (possibly giving rise to the term "blue" for a comedian whose act is considered bawdy or smutty). The comedian was then obliged not to deviate from the act in its edited form.

At the end of World War II, many members of the Armed Forces who had developed a taste for comedy (stand-up or otherwise) in wartime concert parties, and moved into professional entertainment. Eric Sykes, Peter Sellers and the other Goons, and Tommy Cooper all began their careers this way. The rise of the postwar comedians coincided with the rise of television and radio, and the traditional music hall circuit suffered greatly as a result. Whereas a music hall performer could work for years using just one act, television exposure created a constant demand for new material, although this may have also been responsible for the cessation of theatrical censorship in 1968.

By the 1970s, music hall entertainment was virtually dead. Alternative circuits had evolved, such as Working Mens' Clubs. Some of the more successful comedians on the Working Men's Club circuit - including Bernard Manning, Bobby Thompson, Frank Carson and Stan Boardman - eventually made their way to television via such shows as The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club. The "alternative" comedy scene also began to evolve. Some of the earliest successes came from folk clubs, where performers such as Billy Connolly, Mike Harding and Jasper Carrott started as relatively straight musical acts whose between-song banter developed into complete comedy routines. The 1960s had also seen the satire boom, including the creation of The Establishment (club), which, amongst other things, gave British audiences their first taste of extreme American stand-up comedy from Lenny Bruce.

In 1979, the first American-style stand-up comedy club, the Comedy Store, London was opened in London by Peter Rosengard, where many alternative comedy stars of the 1980s, such as Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, Alexei Sayle, Lee Evans, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson began their careers. The stand-up comedy circuit rapidly expanded from London across the UK. The present British stand-up comedy circuit arose from the 'alternative' comedy revolution of the 1980s, with political and observational humour being the prominent styles to flourish. In 1983 young drama teacher Maria Kempinska created Jongleurs Comedy Clubs, now the largest Stand Up Comedy chain in Europe.

Stand-Up Comedy Around the World:

Hong Kong:

Stand-up comedy in China is an emerging art form. Hong Kong is the only city in China to offer a fulltime comedy club, The TakeOut Comedy Club Hong Kong, which features both local comics as well as leading international comedians such as Tom Cotter. The Punchline Comedy Club also hosts international comedians once per month.

Singapore:

Singapore has a growing stand-up comedy scene with three active venues. TakeOut Comedy hosts a weekly open mic to help develop local comics. Each of Howl at the Moon and The Comedy Club Asia at DXO offers shows one weekend per month primarily featuring leading international comics such as Paul Ogata. Kumar, a drag queen who has performed in Singapore for more than 17 years, is Singapore's leading stand-up comedian.

Comedy Festivals:

Stand-up comedy is the focus of four major international festivals: the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, Scotland; Just for Laughs in Montreal, Canada; HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, CO, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in Melbourne, Australia, and a number of other festivals, most prominently The Comedy Festival in Las Vegas, the Vancouver Comedy Festival, the Boston Comedy and Film Festival, the New York Underground Film Festival and the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival in Kilkenny, Ireland. Radio hosts Opie and Anthony also produce a comedy tour called Opie and Anthony's Traveling Virus Comedy Tour, featuring their own co-host, Jim Norton as well as several other stand-up comedians regularly featured on their radio show. There is also a festival in Hong Kong called the HK International Comedy Festival. The festival format has proven quite successful at attracting attention to the art of stand-up, and is often used as a scouting and proving ground by industry professionals seeking new comedic talent.

Other Media:

Many of the earliest vaudeville-era stand-ups gained their greater recognition on radio. They often opened their programs with topical monologues, characterized by ad-libs and discussions about anything from the latest films to a missed birthday. Each program tended to be divided into the opening monologue, musical number, followed by a skit or story routine. Their guests were varied and included other comedians, including Burns and Allen. A "feud" between Fred Allen and Jack Benny was used as comic material for nearly a decade.

HBO (which, for the first time, presented comedians uncensored), beginning with Robert Klein in 1975, was instrumental in reaching larger audiences.

Continuing that tradition, most modern stand-up comedians use television or motion pictures to reach a level of success and recognition unattainable in the comedy club circuit alone.V

Since the mid-2000s, online video-sharing sites such as YouTube have also provided a venue for stand-up comedy, and many comedians' performances can be viewed online.

Impressionist (Entertainment):

An impressionist is a performer whose act consists of giving the "impression" of being someone else by imitating the other person's voice and mannerisms.

The word usually refers to a professional comedian who specializes in such performances, has developed a wide repertoire of impressions, and regularly seeks to add to them, often to keep pace with current events. Someone who imitates one particular person without claiming a wide range, such as a lookalike, is instead called an impersonator. In very broad contexts, "impersonator" may be substituted for "impressionist" where the distinction between the two is less important than avoiding confusion with the use of "impressionist" in painting and music.

Usually, the most "impressive" aspect of the performance is the vocal fidelity to the target — usually a politician or famous entertainer. Props may also be employed, such as glasses or hats, but these are now considered somewhat old-fashioned and cumbersome: the voice is expected to carry the act.

Because animated cartoons often lampoon famous people (sometimes obliquely), a facility for impressions is one of the marks of a successful voice actor. Many cartoon characters are intended to be recognized by the audience as evoking a specific celebrity, even when not explicitly named. With such indirect references, the entertainment value does not lie so much in the technical achievement of exactly reproducing the voice so much as in merely making it recognizable; the joke lies in the reference to a celebrity, not in its rendition.

Impressionist performances are a classic Casino entertainment genre.

In any case, there is a difference between being able to do "impressions" and being an "impressionist," which usually refers to a stage performer.

Impressionists in Britain:

During the 1970s British television was awash with impressions of Frank Spencer, a character from a hugely popular British sitcom called Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. This may have been because Frank had such distinctive mannerisms and dress sense which gave performers a number of visual shortcuts to cover for failings in their abilities. At any rate it seemed that, for about a decade, no British impressionist's act was complete without a dose of Frank.

From the mid 1960s to the early 1980s Mike Yarwood dominated the impressionist scene, with his own TV shows regularly attracting more than 10 million viewers.

Impressionists were very popular on the televised talent shows of the 1970s; Lenny Henry is a notable example of an act that developed from these roots.

In the 1990s there was a certain absence of impressionists on television, with the demise of Spitting Image and Rory Bremner mainly concentrating on political figures (notably John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and also members of the Royal Family). Then in 1999 came Alistair McGowan's Big Impression with Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona, and in 2002 came Dead Ringers. Both these shows featured impressions of celebrities and television personalities, and also sporting figures on the former and politicians on the latter.

In the winter of 2007 Greg London, American born to an English mother brought up in Maidenhead, Berkshire returned to London after many decades living outside of England, and starred in his own show at The Venue at Leicester Square, West End London. The ICONS in London, a satire and original music play co-written by London, playwrite Paul Miller and theater Director David Taylor allowed Greg London to perform a multitude of singing, comedic and speaking impressions.

For up-and-coming British impressionists see Jess Robinson.

Impressionists in North America:

From the 1970s, Rich Little (Canadian expatriate working in America) has been the pre-eminent impressionist, mimicking politicians and celebrities.

Performers in the Saturday Night Live cast have regularly performed impressions of politicians and celebrities.

Frank Caliendo has recently come to fame for his impressions.

Greg London is a singing impressionist who is widely recognized for being vocally accurate.



Legends In Concert produces musical impressionist shows known as tribute artist productions in Las Vegas, Nevada; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Branson, Missouri; and Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Alternative Comedy:

Alternative comedy is a term that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1980s for a style of comedy which would eventually go on to become mainstream in the 1990s and continuing into the 21st century. The term often applies to comedy that makes a conscious and sometimes generational break with the mainstream comedic style of an era, and typically avoids relying on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines.

United States:

Los Angeles:

One American alternative comedy scene was Los Angeles. In 1990 performance artist-turned comedian Beth Lapides started bringing comedy to "alternative" venues like The Women's Building and Highways Performance Space. In contrast to the material onstage at the Comedy Store and the Improv, Lapides and her fellow-travellers were interested in comedy that was not homophobic, xenophobic or misogynistic, and dubbed their show "Un-Cabaret".

Un-Cabaret took up residence in 1993 at LunaPark, an eclectic music club in West Hollywood, with Sunday night shows for the next seven years featuring performers who had been active in the straight clubs like Taylor Negron, Dana Gould, Andy Kindler, Judy Toll, Laura Kightlinger, Margaret Cho, David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, plus others like Julia Sweeney, Kathy Griffin, Scott Thompson, et al. who came from The Groundlings and other sketch traditions. Un-Cabaret's brand of alternative comedy was based in storytelling and stream-of-consciousness rants, and added a structural innovation: a second microphone in the back of the room that Lapides used to talk to other performers while they were onstage. This ensured an informal, conversational and spontaneous performance situation in keeping with Un-Cabaret's insistence that performers never "do their act".

The alternative comedy scene flourished, with many other shows pursuing more surreal sketch & musical forms. It was at this time that Bob & David started workshopping "Mr. Show" in a live club context. Kathy Griffin produced a show called "Hot Cup of Talk" at the Groundlings Theater and there were numerous other shows that came and went. Comedy Central finally produced a one-hour Un-Cabaret special.

When LunaPark closed, Un-Cabaret moved to the HBO Workspace, Knitting Factory, and then M-Bar, with increasing focus on getting funny people to tell unusually honest stories about their real life. TV writers like Michael Patrick King, Judd Apatow, Larry Charles and Winnie Holzman started performing with Un-Cabaret as a creative alternative to their network day-jobs. This led to other Un-Cabaret produced shows like "Say the Word" (writers reading their own true funny stories) and "The Other Network", a collection of un-aired TV pilots introduced by their creators.

Un-Cabaret continues to present live shows and conduct workshops to help comedians and writers explore this style of funny personal narrative.

The Other Network subsequently became an alternative route to get your foot in the door to Hollywood, with The Other Network Comedy Contest offering winners receiving script notes from top TV showrunners, and The Other Network Writers' Room, in which Beth Lapides interviews writers including Michael Patrick King, Larry Charles and Alan Zweibel about how aspiring writers can write for TV.

Many of the comedians from the 1990s LA alternative scene (David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Patton Oswalt) were outspoken in their leftist political beliefs, and insistent on a reality-based and personal point-of-view, a remarkable contrast to the current downtown New York scene that prefers absurdism and irony to making statements.

New York City (East Village):

In downtown New York, comedy flourishes outside of the stand-up club circuit. Theatres that are more known for improv or sketch comedy, like the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB), Magnet Theater and the Peoples Improv Theater (PIT), as well as cabarets that do not exclusively offer any kind of comedy, like Rififi, have weekly comedy shows. The UCB Theater has Crash Test every Monday, hosted by Aziz. The PIT has Hot Tub every Friday, hosted by Kurt Braunohler and Kristen Schaal. Rififi has Giant Tuesday Night of Amazing Inventions And Also There Is A Game and Invite Them Up.

The comedians at these shows offer character-based humour or surreal humour as opposed to observations of everyday life or more polemical themes.

A growing number of comics (Demetri Martin, Slovin and Allen} opt to play music, give Powerpoint presentations or act out sketches as well. It's rare to see these performers in a traditional New York comedy club much like it's rare to see a traditional "club comic" in an underground room. A few alternative comics (David Cross, Todd Barry, Patton Oswalt) have enough crossover appeal to play in more mainstream venues.

Comedy group Stella (Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black and David Wain) and the sketch group Upright Citizens Brigade were heavily influential on the current New York alternative comedy scene. Stella -- a trio whose absurdist humour has been compared to the Marx Brothers -- began doing their shows (in which they would perform along with other comics and sketch groups like Eugene Mirman and the Upright Citizens Brigade) at the NY club Fez in 1997. In 1999, the original Upright Citizens' Brigade Theatre opened in Chelsea. Four years later, in 2003, several performers at the UCB spun off their own theater, and formed the PIT.

Seattle:

The Seattle comedy scene is a mystery to some. Very talented performers have stepped out of Seattle, including Mitch Hedberg. For years, there were just two main comedy options in the city: The Comedy Underground, and Giggles Comedy club. In 2005 a group of comedians known as the People's Republic of Komedy (PROK) started an alternative show called Laffhole in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. This spawned other "alt" shows around town, and eventually the group started getting press. (Something unheard of in the Seattle comedy scene for some time.) Laffhole started in the small basement theater of the Capitol Hill Arts Center, and has since moved to Chop Suey, a popular Seattle nightclub. In the summer of 2007, PROK booked their own comedy stage at the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival. Other performers at the festival included Eugene Mirman, Michael Ian Black, Todd Barry, Doug Benson, and more. In 2008, PROK performed at the Sasquatch Music Festival and will once again manage the Regional Comedy stage at Bumbershoot. Laffhole takes place every other Wednesday at 10:00pm, and has become the flagship of the Seattle alt comedy scene.

Prominent acts include Dartanion London and John Sanders.

Chicago:

The Chicago scene has flourished in the past few years. With a lack of mainstream clubs in the city, comics on the North side have drawn more influence from its improv and sketch traditions, such as The Second City, I.O., and Annoyance Theatre The Improv Open Mic at the iO is a great place to see some comedy that is very unschooled. Top alt/independent rooms in the North Side scene include the Lincoln Lodge, Chicago Underground Comedy and the Lakeshore Theater, which are considered the top Alt-rooms in the Midwest. The cities many open mics differ from the open mics in LA or NYC in that they are well attended and still attract great comedians. The fact that there is less industry in Chicago than in LA or New York probably has something to do with this. The Open Mic's at Schuba's Sunday, Globe Pub Monday, Jake Melnick's Tuesday, The Edge, Bucktown Pub, and McDunna's on Wednesday, The Tonic Room and O'Hagan's on Thursday, would serve as the aspiring Chicago stand-ups template for a productive week as of August 8th 2009(Call ahead to see if the mics are still happening.) Recent Chicago stand-ups to get exposure include Hannibal Buress, Dan Telfer, Mike Sheehan, Junior Stopka, Drew Michael, Prescott Tolk, James Fritz, T.J. Miller, Renee Gauthier, Danny Kallas, and Pete Holmes. Blerds The Bastion The Lincoln Lodge Chicago Underground Comedy The Comedians You Should Know Show

Stand-up Comedy Events and Awards:

British Comedy Awards

Canadian Comedy Awards

Cat Laughs Comedy Festival

The Comedy Festival, in Aspen, formerly the HBO Comedy Arts Festival

Comedy Walk, monthly comedy festival in Los Angeles

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Edinburgh Comedy Festival

Halifax Comedy Festival

Just for laughs festival

Leicester Comedy Festival

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

New Zealand International Comedy Festival

New York Underground Comedy Festival

HK International Comedy Festival

Vancouver Comedy Festival

Jokes:

One-Liner Joke:

A one-liner is a joke that is delivered in a single line. Many comedians and actors have adopted this comedic method in their act. Some, including Rodney Dangerfield, Bruce Campbell, Steven Wright, Emo Philips, Henny Youngman, Mitch Hedberg, Dan Mintz, Zach Galifianakis, Demetri Martin, Jimmy Carr and Milton Jones have used one-liners to make up a significant portion of their repertoire.

Dumb Blonde:

The dumb blonde is a popular-culture derogatory stereotype applied to blonde-haired women. The archetypical "dumb blonde", while viewed as attractive and popular, has been portrayed as lacking in both common street-sense and academic intelligence, often to a comedic level. The dumb blonde stereotype is used in blonde jokes.

This stereotype (and the associated cognitive bias) may have some negative consequences and it can also damage a blonde person's career prospects.

The film Legally Blonde starring Reese Witherspoon featured the stereotype as a centerpiece of its plot, although the protagonist turns out to be intelligent enough to graduate from Harvard Law School.

Country music legend Dolly Parton, aware of this occasional characterization of her, addressed it in her 1967 hit Dumb Blonde (though Parton's lyrics challenged the stereotype, stating "...just because I'm blonde, don't think I'm dumb 'cause this dumb blond ain't nobody's fool..."). Also, saying she was not offended by "all the dumb-blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb. I'm also not blond."

Blonde Jokes:

There is a category of blonde jokes that employ the dumb-blonde stereotype for their effect.

Blonde jokes have been criticized as sexist by several authors, as most blondes in these jokes are female, although male variations also exist. Research indicates that because of this, men find blonde jokes significantly more amusing than women say they do.

Shaggy Dog Story:

In its original sense, a shaggy dog story is an extremely long-winded tale featuring extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents, usually resulting in a pointless or absurd punchline. These stories are a special case of yarns, coming from the long tradition of campfire yarns.

Shaggy dog stories play upon the audience's preconceptions of the art of joke telling. The audience listens to the story with certain expectations, which are either simply not met or met in some entirely unexpected manner.

The Archetypical Shaggy Dog Story:

The commonly believed archetype of the shaggy dog story is a story that concerns a shaggy dog. The story builds up, repeatedly emphasizing how amazing the dog is. At the climax of the story, someone in the story reacts with, "That dog's not so shaggy." The expectations of the audience that have been built up by the presentation of the story, that the story will end with a punchline, are thus disappointed. Ted Cohen gives the following example of this story:

“ A boy owned a dog that was uncommonly shaggy. Many people remarked upon its considerable shagginess. When the boy learned that there are contests for shaggy dogs, he entered his dog. The dog won first prize for shagginess in both the local and the regional competitions. The boy entered the dog in ever-larger contests, until finally he entered it in the world championship for shaggy dogs. When the judges had inspected all of the competing dogs, they remarked about the boy's dog: "He's not so shaggy." ”

However, authorities disagree as to whether this particular story is the archetype after which the category is named. Eric Partridge, for example, provides a very different story, as do William and Mary Morris in The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins.

According to Partridge and the Morrises, the archetypical shaggy dog story involves an advertisement placed in The Times announcing a search for a shaggy dog. In the Partridge story, an aristocratic family living in Park Lane is searching for a lost dog, and an American answers the advertisement with a shaggy dog that he has found and personally brought across the Atlantic, only to be received by the butler at the end of the story who takes one look at the dog and shuts the door in his face saying "But not so shaggy as that, sir!" In the Morris story, the advertiser is organizing a competition to find the shaggiest dog in the world, and after a lengthy exposition of the search for such a dog a winner is presented to the aristocratic instigator of the competition, who says "I don't think he's so shaggy."

Variations:

Lengthy:

A lengthy shaggy dog story derives its humor from the fact that the joke-teller held the attention of the listeners for a long time (such jokes can take five minutes or more to tell) for no reason at all, as the story ends with a meaningless anticlimax.

An example of this type of joke is "The Purple Doughnut", or "The Purple Passion". In this joke, with much detail and narration, a young boy overhears a group of older kids talking about a "purple doughnut/passion". When the boy asks the kids what a "purple doughnut" is, they beat him up. The rest of the story is the boy meeting other people (teacher, school principal, parents) throughout the day as they ask what happened to him causing him to repeat his entire story each time ending with the question: "What's a purple doughnut?" Each time, the person takes great offense to the question and punish the boy (the teacher sends him to the principal; the principal expels him, etc.) Later, he runs across the street and gets hit by the bus. The audience is then told that the moral of the story is that you should look both ways before you cross the street.

Pun:

Shaggy dog story has come to also mean a joke where a pun is finally achieved after a long (and ideally tedious) exposition. This is also called a feghoot. The humor in the punch line may be due to the sudden, unexpected recognition of a familiar saying, since the story has nothing to do with the usual context in which the phrase is normally found, yet the listener is surprised to discover it makes sense in both situations. Therefore, if the audience is not already familiar with the phrase used in the punch line, or is not aware of the multiple meanings of the words in the phrase, the surprise ending of the joke cannot be recovered by explaining the joke to the audience.

An example of this type is The Rarie, in which a cute pet grows so large (described in many stages) that its owner cannot keep it. He loads the Rarie onto a lorry and drives to a cliff, and is about to tip the animal over the brink when it looks out and says, "Hey, that's a long way to tip a Rarie"...

War story:

Another variation is the 'War Story' joke, in which the narrator presents his audience with insurmountable odds, and as the antagonistic forces close in, ends the story. When the audience clamors to know what happened next, the narrator simply responds, "I died."

Horror:

Another variation is "The Encounter with the Horrible Monster," a shaggy dog story that is told as if it were a horror story. The story is a tale of a horrible monster or villain that pursues a character implacably. After a lengthy exposition describing the pursuit, during which the audience's expectations of a horrendous climax are built up, the monster eventually corners his victim, at which point he touches him saying, "Tag! You're it!".

Scatological:

A more ribald or scatological version is The Aristocrats.

Pop Culture:

Isaac Asimov, whose specialties included both science fiction and humor and who was a self-described "punster", wrote a short story called "Shah Guido G.," referring to the story's Atlantean ruler. The story ends on an anticlimax, and when a reader protested that it was "nothing but a shaggy dog story," Asimov pointed out that the title "Shah Guido G." could also be read as "Shahgui [i.e. shaggy] Dog," indicating this had been his intention.

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman:

"An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman" is a form of joke in Ireland and the United Kingdom. The nationalities involved may vary, though they are most usually restricted to those within the UK and Ireland, and the number of people involved is usually three or four. This style of joke is also told with the countries switched (e.g., an Australian, an American, and an Irishman). The jokes are also popular in the Republic of Ireland, where the characters are called Paddy Irishman or a Kerryman, The Englishman, And The Scotsman. The punchline is usually based around the Irishman's stupidity, the Scotsman's meanness, or the Englishman's snobbishness. Sometimes, when the joke requires four people, a Welshman is brought into the joke.

Such jokes are also told in other countries, for example in The Netherlands where the joke is usually presented as "A Dutchman, a German and a Belgian..." or in Turkey as "An Englishman, a Frenchman, a German and a Turk". In Spain, jokes about "An Englishman, a Frenchman and a Spaniard" are quite popular; the two foreigners are always portraited as cocky, stupid and naïve while the fictitious Spaniard is smart, practical and, ultimately, victorious. In Italy there are jokes about "An Italian, a German and a Frenchman (or an Englishman)". A common Finnish version has "A Finn, a Swede and a Norwegian", where the Swede is usually made fun of. Such jokes in Canada usually substitute the supposedly stupid Irishman with Newfie (pejorative term for someone who is from Newfoundland).

The jokes are sometimes retold as being about a redhead, a brunette and a blonde, or a priest, a minister and a rabbi.

Literature:

Comic Novel:

A comic novel is a work of fiction in which the writer seeks to amuse the reader, sometimes with subtlety and as part of a carefully woven narrative; sometimes, above all other considerations.

One of the most notable British comic novelists is P. G. Wodehouse, whose work follows on from that of Jerome K. Jerome and George & Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody. Nor can Saki's work be ignored, although his career was cut short by World War I. A. G. Macdonell and G. K. Chesterton also produced flights of whimsy that delighted their reading audiences in their day. Other, more contemporary UK authors of this kind include Tom Sharpe, Kingsley Amis, Terry Pratchett, Richard Gordon, Ian Ross, Douglas Adams, Evelyn Waugh, Eric Sykes, Leslie Thomas, Stephen Fry, Mike Harding, Joseph Connolly, and Ben Elton.

Notable American comic novelists include Hunter S. Thompson, John Kennedy Toole, Robert Clark Young, James Wilcox, Carl Hiaasen, Joseph Heller, Peter De Vries, Flannery O'Connor, and Terry Southern.

Light Poetry:

Light poetry, or light verse, is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Poems considered "light" are usually brief, and can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature wordplay, including puns, adventurous rhyme and heavy alliteration. Typically, light verse in English is formal verse, although a few free verse poets, such as Billy Collins, have excelled at light verse outside the formal verse tradition.

While light poetry is sometimes condemned as doggerel, or thought of as poetry composed casually, humor often makes a serious point in a subtle or subversive way. Many of the most renowned "serious" poets, such as Horace, Swift, Pope and Auden, have also excelled at light verse.

Film:

Comedy Film:

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. Also, films in this style typically have a happy ending (the black comedy being an exception). One of the oldest genres in film, some of the very first silent movies were comedies. Comedy, unlike other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comic transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity. While many comic films are lighthearted stories with no intent other than to amuse, others contain political or social commentary (such as Wag the Dog and Man of the Year).

Types:

A comedy of manners film satirises the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters. The plot of the comedy is often concerned with an illicit love affair or some other scandal. However, the plot is generally less important than its witty dialogue. This form of comedy has a long ancestry, dating back at least as far as Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare.

In a "fish out of water"-style comedy, the main character (or characters) finds himself in an unusual environment, which drives most of the humor. Situations can be swapping gender roles, as in Tootsie (1982); an age changing role, as in Big (1988); a freedom-loving individual fitting into a structured environment, as in Police Academy (1984); a rural backwoodsman in the big city, as in Crocodile Dundee, and so forth.

A parody or spoof film is a comedy that satirizes other film genres or classic films. Such films employ sarcasm, stereotyping, mockery of scenes from other films, and the obviousness of meaning in a character's actions. Examples of this form include Blazing Saddles (1974), Airplane! (1980), and Young Frankenstein (1974).

The anarchic comedy film uses nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness humor which often lampoons a form of authority. Films of this nature stem from a theatrical history of anarchic comedy on the stage. Well-known films of this sub-genre include Duck Soup (1933) and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978).

The black comedy film deals with normally taboo subjects, including, death, murder, suicide and war, in a satirical manner. Examples include Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Ladykillers (1955), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), The Loved One (1965), MASH (1970), Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983), The War of the Roses (1989), Heathers (1989), Keeping Mum (2005), and Burn After Reading (2008).

Gross-out films are a relatively recent development, and rely heavily on vulgar, sexual or "toilet" humour. Examples include Porky's (1982), Dumb and Dumber (1994), There's Something About Mary (1998), and American Pie (1999).

The romantic comedy sub-genre typically involves the development of a relationship between a man and a woman. The stereotyped plot line follows the "boy-gets-girl", "boy-loses-girl", "boy gets girl back again" sequence. Naturally there are innumerable variants to this plot, and much of the generally light-hearted comedy lies in the social interactions and sexual tensions between the pair. Examples of this style of film include It's a Wonderful World (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Sabrina (1954), When Harry Met Sally... (1989), Pretty Woman (1990), and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).

It was not uncommon for the early romantic comedy film to also be a screwball comedy film. This form of comedy film was particularly popular during the 1930s and 1940s. There is no consensus definition of this film style, and it is often loosely applied to slapstick or romantic comedy films. Typically it can include a romantic element, an interplay between people of different economic strata, quick and witty repartee, some form of role reversal, and a happy ending. Some examples of the screwball comedy are: It Happened One Night (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), and more recently What's Up, Doc? (1972).

Hybrid Genres:

Action comedy films blend comic antics and action where the film stars combine wit and one-liners with a thrilling plot and daring stunts. The genre became a specific draw in North America in the eighties when comedians such as Eddie Murphy started taking more action oriented roles such as in 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop. These type of films are often buddy films, with mismatched partners such as in Midnight Run, Rush Hour, Bad Boys, and Hot Fuzz.

Slapstick martial arts films became a mainstay of Hong Kong action cinema through the work Jackie Chan among others. It may also focus on superheroes such as The Incredibles & Hancock. Comedy horror is a type of horror film in which the usual dark themes are treated with a humorous approach. These films are either use goofy horror clichés such as in The Old Dark House, Young Frankenstein, Little Shop of Horrors, Haunted Mansion and Scary Movie where campy styles are favoured. Some are much more subtle and don't parody horror, such as Shaun of the Dead. Another style of comedy horror can also rely on over the top violence and gore such as in Dead Alive (1992), Evil Dead (1981), and Club Dread. Fantasy comedy films are types of films that uses magic, supernatural and or mythological figures for comic purposes. Most fantasy comedy includes an element of parody, or satire, turning many of the fantasy conventions on their head such as the hero becoming a cowardly fool, the princess being a klutz. Examples of these films include Being John Malkovich, Princess Bride, Night at the Museum, Groundhog Day, Click and Shrek.

Sci-fi comedy films, like most hybrid genre of comedy use the elements of science fiction films to over the top extremes and exaggerated science fiction stereotypical characters. Popular examples of these types of films include Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Evolution, Innerspace, Galaxy Quest, Mars Attacks!, and Men in Black.

Military comedy films, involve comic situations in a military setting. Examples of military comedy are The Secret War of Harry Frigg, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, Stripes, Up the Academy, MASH, Private Benjamin, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, Tropic Thunder, The Private War of Major Benson, and the boisterous Flagg and Quirt movies.

History:

1895–1930:

Comic films began to appear in significant numbers during the era of silent films, roughly 1895 to 1930. The visual humor of these silent films relied on slapstick and burlesque. A very early comedy short was Watering the Gardener (1895) by the Lumière brothers. In American film, the most prominent comic actors of the silent era were Charlie Chaplin (although born in England, his success was principally in the U.S.), Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. In his native France and throughout the world, Max Linder was a major comic feature and might qualify as the first true film star.

A popular trend during the 1920s and afterward was comedy in the form of animated cartoons. Several popular characters of the period received the cartoon treatment. Among these were Felix the Cat, Krazy Kat, and Betty Boop.

1930–1950s

Toward the end of the 1920s, the introduction of sound into movies made possible dramatic new film styles and the use of verbal humor. During the 1930s the silent film comedy was replaced by dialogue from film comedians such as the W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers. The comedian Charlie Chaplin was one of the last silent film hold-outs, and his films during the 1930s were devoid of dialogue, although they did employ sound effects.

Screwball comedies, such as produced by Frank Capra, exhibited a pleasing, idealised climate that portrayed reassuring social values and a certain optimism about everyday life. Movies still included slapstick humor and other physical comedy, but these were now frequently supplemental to the verbal interaction. Another common comic production from the 1930s was the short subject. Hal Roach Studio specialized in this form. While Columbia was prolific, producing 190 Three Stooges releases, alone. These non-feature productions only went into decline in the 1950s when they were migrated to the television.

In the United Kingdom, film adaptations of stage farces were popular in the early 1930s, while the music hall tradition strongly influenced film comedy into the 1940s with Will Hay and George Formby among the top comedy stars of the time. In England in the late 1940s, Ealing Studios achieved popular success as well as critical acclaim with a series of films known collectively as the "Ealing comedies", from 1946 to 1956. They usually included a degree of social comment, and featured ensemble casts which often included Alec Guinness or Stanley Holloway. Among the most famous examples were Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955).

With the entry of the United States into World War II, Hollywood became focused on themes related to the conflict. Comedies portrayed military themes such as service, civil defense, boot-camp and shore-leave. The war-time restrictions on travel made this a boom time for Hollywood, and nearly a quarter of the money spent on attending movies.

The post-war period was an age of reflection on the war, and the emergence of a competing medium, the television. In 1948 TV began to acquire commercial momentum and by the following year there were nearly a hundred television transmitters in American cities.

By the 1950s the television industry had become a serious competition for the movie industry. Despite the technological limitations of the TV medium at the time, more and more people chose to stay home to watch the television. The Hollywood studios at first viewed the TV as a threat, and later as a commercial market. Several comic forms that had previously been a staple of movie theaters transitioned to the TV. Both the short subject and the cartoon now appeared on the TV rather than in the theater, and the "B" movie also found its outlet on the television.

As TV became filled with family-oriented comedies, the 1950s saw a trend toward more adult social situations. Only the Walt Disney studios continued to steadily release family comedies. The release of comedy films also went into a decline during this decade. In 1947 almost one in five films had been comic in nature, but by 1954 this was down to ten percent.

The 1950s saw the decline of past comedy stars and a certain paucity of new talent in Hollywood. Among the few popular new stars during this period were Judy Holliday and the comedy team phenom of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Lewis followed the legacy of such comedians as Keaton and Harold Lloyd, but his work was not well-received by critics in the United States (in contrast to France where he proved highly popular.)

The British film industry produced a number of highly successful film series, however, including the Doctor series, the St. Trinian's films and the increasingly bawdy Carry on films. John and Roy Boulting also wrote and directed a series of successful satires, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right, Jack (1959). As in the United States, in the next decade much of this talent would move into television.

A number of French comedians were also able to find an English speaking audience in the '50s, including Fernandel and Jacques Tati.

1960s–1980s:

The next decade saw an increasing number of broad, star-packed comedies including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and The Great Race (1965). By the middle of the decade, some of the 1950s generation of American comedians, such as Jerry Lewis, went into decline, while Peter Sellers found success with international audiences in his first American film The Pink Panther. The bumbling Inspector Clouseau was a character Sellers would continue to return to over the next decade.

Toward the end of the 1950s, darker humor and more serious themes had begun to emerge, including satire and social commentary. Dr. Strangelove (1964) was a satirical comedy about Cold War paranoia, while The Apartment (1960), Alfie (1966) and The Graduate (1967) featured sexual themes in a way that would have been impossible only a few years previously.

In 1970 the black comedies Catch 22 and M*A*S*H reflected the anti-war sentiment then prevalent, as well as treating the sensitive topic of suicide. M*A*S*H would be toned down and brought to television in the following decade as a long-running series.

Among the leading lights in comedy films of the next decade were Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. Both wrote, directed and appeared in their movies. Brooks' style was generally slapstick and zany in nature, often parodying film styles and genres, including Universal horror films (Young Frankenstein), westerns (Blazing Saddles) and Hitchcock films (High Anxiety). Following his success on Broadway and on film with The Odd Couple playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon would also be prominent in the 1970s, with films like The Sunshine Boys and California Suite. Other notable film comedians who appeared later in the decade were Richard Pryor, Steve Martin and Burt Reynolds.

Most British comedy films of the early 70s were spin-offs of television series, including Dad's Army and On the Buses. The greatest successes, however, came with the films of the Monty Python team, including And Now For Something Completely Different (1971), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python's Life of Brian in 1979.

In 1980 the gag-based comedy Airplane!, a spoof of the previous decade's disaster film series was released and paved the way for more of the same including Top Secret! (1984) and the Naked Gun films. Popular comedy stars in the '80s included Dudley Moore, Tom Hanks, Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. Many had come to prominence on the American TV series Saturday Night Live, including Bill Murray, Steve Martin and Chevy Chase. Eddie Murphy made a success of comedy-action films including 48 Hrs. (1982) and the Beverly Hills Cop series (1984–1993).

Also popular were the films of John Hughes such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He would later become best-known for the Home Alone series of the early 1990s. The latter film helped a revival in comedies aimed at a family audience, along with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and its sequels.

1990s–2000s:

One of the major developments of the 1990s was the re-emergence of the romantic comedy film, encouraged by the success of When Harry Met Sally... in 1989. Other examples included Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Clueless (1995) and You've Got Mail (1998) from the United States, and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Sliding Doors (1998) and Notting Hill (1999) from the United Kingdom. Spoofs remained popular as well, especially with the Scary Movie series and Not Another Teen Movie.

Probably more representative of British humour were the working class comedies Brassed Off (1996) and The Full Monty (1997). Other British comedies examined the role of the Asian community in British life, including Bhaji on the Beach (1993), East Is East (1999), Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Anita and Me (2003).

Also there were "stoner" comedies, which usually involve two guys on an adventure with random things happening to them along the way. Big movies of this sub-genre would be Dude, Where's My Car, Big Nothing, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and Pineapple Express. These movies usually have drug-related jokes and crude content.

Another development was the increasing use of "gross-out humor" usually aimed at a younger audience, in films like There's Something About Mary, American Pie and its sequels, and Freddy Got Fingered. In mid 2000s the trend of "gross-out" movies is continuing, with adult-oriented comedies picking up the box office. But serious black comedies (also known as dramatic comedies or dramedies) were performing also well, such as The Weather Man, Broken Flowers and Shopgirl. In late 2006, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan blended vulgar humor with cultural satire.

Types:
Anarchic comedy film
Gross-out film
Parody film
Romantic comedy film
Screwball comedy film
Slapstick film
Television and Radio:
Television Comedy:
Situation Comedy:

A situation comedy, usually referred to as a sitcom, is a genre of comedy programs which originated in radio. Today, sitcoms are found almost exclusively on television as one of its dominant narrative forms. Sitcoms usually consist of recurring characters in a common environment such as a home or workplace and can include laugh tracks or studio audiences.

Characteristics:

As opposed to stand up comedy a situation comedy has a storyline and ongoing characters in, essentially, a comedic drama.

The situation is usually that of a family, workplace, or a group of friends. The term situation comedy or sitcom was adopted to distinguish them from other comedy formats such as sketch comedy, or stand-up comedy. Often these other formats were presented within a variety format mixed with musical performances, as in vaudeville. The emerging mass medium of radio allowed audiences to return to programs over and over, which allowed programs to return to the same characters and situations each episode and expect audiences to be familiar with them. While the humor in sitcoms varies, it is usually character-driven, which may result in running gags during the series.

Often in a situation comedy television series the status quo is maintained from episode to episode; while within an episode there may be a distruption to the usual situation and the character interactions, this will usually be settled by the episode's end and the situation returned to how it was prior to the disruption. There are exceptions to this. Some shows feature story arcs across many episodes where the characters and situations change and evolve.

History:

Comedies from past civilizations, such as those of Aristophanes in ancient Greece, Terence and Plautus in ancient Rome, Sudraka in ancient India, and numerous examples including Shakespeare, Moliere, the Commedia dell'Arte and the Punch and Judy shows from post-Renaissance Europe, are the ancestors of the modern sitcom. Some of the characters, pratfalls, routines and situations as preserved in eyewitness accounts and in the texts of the plays themselves, are remarkably similar to those in earlier modern sitcoms such as I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners.

Sitcoms on US Radio: The situation comedy format was born on January 12, 1926 with the initial broadcast of Sam 'n' Henry on WGN in Chicago. The 15-minute daily program was revamped in 1928, moved to another station, renamed Amos 'n' Andy, and became one of the most successful sitcoms from this period. It was also one of the earliest examples of radio syndication. Like many radio programs of the time, the two programs continued the American entertainment traditions of vaudeville and the minstrel show.

The Jack Benny Program was another important and formative sitcom (which also functioned as a variety show, depending on the week's script and guest stars involved). The radio version began in 1932 and lasted until 1955. A televised version of the show ran from 1950 to 1965. In total, the show was broadcast for a third of a century.

Blondie was a situation comedy adapted from the Blondie comic strip by Chic Young. The radio program had a long run on several networks from 1939 to 1950.

Fibber McGee and Molly was one of the most successful sitcoms of all time, airing on radio from 1935 to 1959. The show starred vaudevillians James "Jim" and Marian Driscoll Jordan and also had its roots in Chicago.

In 1947, Beulah became the first radio sitcom featuring an African-American actor in the lead role.

Sitcoms on US Television:

1940s - 1950s:

In the late 1940s, the sitcom was among the first formats adapted for the new medium of television. Most sitcoms were a half-hour in length and aired weekly. Many of the earliest sitcoms were direct adaptations of existing radio shows, such as or The Jack Benny Program, or vehicles for existing radio stars such as Burns and Allen (The Burns and Allen Show) and film stars such as Abbott and Costello (The Abbott and Costello Show). Early sitcoms were broadcast live and recorded on kinescopes or not recorded at all.

Mary Kay and Johnny was followed by The Goldbergs which first aired on January 17, 1949. The television adaptation of Beulah in 1950 became the first TV sitcom with an African American in the lead. Both The Goldbergs and Beulah were early examples of sitcoms without a laugh-track or studio audience.

An early innovator in the history of sitcoms is Desi Arnaz who is credited with the first successful use of the multiple-camera setup, where three cameras shoot the action on stage simultaneously and the best shots from each of the cameras are later edited together. I Love Lucy, the extremely popular show that Arnaz and his wife Lucille Ball created and starred in together, was also among the first to record all episodes on film, and he is thus also credited with foreseeing the viability of the rerun. (earlier sitcoms done on film, though without the multiple-camera setup, included The Life of Riley with Jackie Gleason, and Stu Erwin's The Trouble with Father)

Eventually, sitcoms began to divide themselves into domestic comedies and workplace comedies. The earliest domestic comedies include The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, The Honeymooners, and Make Room for Daddy. The earliest workplace comedies include Our Miss Brooks and Mr. Peepers, both set in high schools, and The Phil Silvers Show, was set on a US Army post.

The animated sitcom was born during this period with Hanna-Barbera's The Flintstones and The Jetsons. The latter show was the first example of the science fiction sitcom subgenre.

1960s:

By the mid-1960s, sitcom creators began adding more fantastical elements to live action sitcoms. Monsters and ghouls were featured as regular characters in The Munsters and The Addams Family created from a series of cartoon comics. Genies and witches featured in I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched, respectively. Sherwood Schwartz created the somewhat implausible Gilligan's Island. Also popular were the spy and superhero parodies Get Smart and Batman. Sitcom production of the era returned to the practice of the single camera filming style, which was more practical given the visual effects used in these shows. Overall, the late 1960s was a period of greater production values for sitcoms. This allowed for the careful creation of special effects and sharp editing, features which were not possible with the same finesse in a multi-camera production. Many of these programs were not filmed before live audiences, yet featured a laugh track.

Another trend beginning in the 1960s was the expansion of the domestic comedy beyond the nuclear family or married couple. The Andy Griffith Show and My Three Sons featured widowers and their children while shows like The Partridge Family concerned a widow and her children. One notable sitcom from this period is Sherwood Schwartz's The Brady Bunch, which centered on a blended family, perhaps the best-known domestic comedy in US television history.

The musical sitcom become an important and popular sub-genre of sitcoms in the mid 1960s through early 1970s with The Monkees, which played off the success of The Beatles, and with The Partridge Family.

1970s:

Also in the early 1970s, sitcoms began to address controversial issues in a serious way, and largely returned to the three-camera shoot before live audiences. Many programs began to be recorded on videotape, as opposed to film, during this time as well. About half of all television sitcoms on broadcast television airing between the mid-1970s and the late 1990s were shot on video. In the US Norman Lear is largely credited with the social issues development through his sitcoms All in the Family, based on Johnny Speight's Till Death Us Do Part in the United Kingdom, and its spin-offs Maude, The Jeffersons, and Good Times, all in the US. Also in Britain was Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's Steptoe and Son, which also had a US remake in Sanford and Son.

Women's liberation was the backdrop in a series of female-led sitcoms produced by Grant Tinker: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and its spin-offs Rhoda and Phyllis.

The topic of war was addressed in the sitcom M*A*S*H. The producers of M*A*S*H did not want a laugh track on the show, arguing that the show did not need one, but CBS disagreed. CBS compromised by permitting the producers of the show to omit recorded laughter from scenes that took place in the operating room, if they wished. When it was shown in the UK and Germany, episodes were broadcast without the laugh track. Ross Bagdasarian also refused to use a laugh track in his production of The Alvin Show, as did Jay Ward on Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Also during this time, Bob Newhart adapted his deadpan club act for television in sitcom format, which was at once a throwback to the early vaudevillian origins of sitcoms and a harbinger of the 1980s - 1990s stand-up comedian sitcom trend.

In the mid-1970s, Garry Marshall had several huge hits in the US with his trio of sitcoms Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and Mork and Mindy. Nostalgia for the 50s was a major theme in both Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley.

Sex and titillation became a theme in the late 1970s with the UK sitcom Man About the House and its US remake Three's Company. Two soap opera parodies, Soap and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, are also notable shows from this period which pushed the envelope of what was acceptable in television sitcoms.

1980s:

The 1980s saw the creation of a hybrid single camera half-hour drama / sitcom called a "dramedy". Examples include United States and The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. These were largely unsuccessful, but hour-long comedy dramas would become popular in the 1990s.

Also in the 1980s, stand-up comic Bill Cosby starred in the sitcom The Cosby Show, which was the earliest of the current trend of successful sitcoms built around a stand-up comic's stage persona. Comedienne Roseanne Barr continued the trend in the late 1980s with her eponymous sitcom, as did Garry Shandling (It's Garry Shandling's Show and Larry Sanders). More recently, Jerry Seinfeld (Seinfeld) and Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) have also made the transition from the brick wall to the small screen with self-starring sitcoms.

By the mid-1980s, the growth of cable television, additional broadcast networks, and the success of first-run syndication meant that television audiences were fracturing. Programming could now be targeted at specific audiences rather than at a general audience, and this included sitcoms too. Children were one of these audiences, and among the sitcoms made specifically for children were Saved by the Bell and Clarissa Explains It All.

1990s:

The early 1990s saw the rebirth of the animated sitcom, a trend which continues to this day. Most notable is The Simpsons, the longest-running sitcom in US history. Other successful sitcoms in this subgenre include South Park, Futurama, Beavis and Butt-head" and King of the Hill.

This era also saw a significant return to film origination. The main reason for this was that it was seen as "future proofing" productions against any new developments such as HDTV. Programs shot on standard definition videotape in general do not convert well to HDTV, while images on 35 mm film can easily be re-scanned to any future format. As well as this, recent developments in film camera and post-processing technologies had eroded the advantages of using videotape. However conceiveably, it is possible that sitcoms could be shot on videotape and be broadcast in HD, due to the creation of High Definition-capable video camera systems that record on videotape or digital video, rather than simply upconverting standard definition videotape to HD. Only a few television series actually use digital video, but very few of these are sitcoms.

In the mid-1990s several sitcoms have reintroduced the ongoing story line. Friends, the most popular U.S. sitcom of the 1990s-2000s had an overall story arc similar to that of soap operas, in the tradition of earlier sitcoms such as The Beverly Hillbillies and One Day At A Time. Friends also used other soap opera elements, such as regularly employing the device of an end-of-season cliffhanger and gradually developing the relationships of the characters over the course of the series. Frasier, Roseanne, Moesha, Seinfeld and The Nanny are also noted for their long-term story arcs.

2000 and After:

The early 2000s saw a rebirth of the single camera shooting style for half-hour sitcoms, with shows such as Malcolm in the Middle, 8 simple rules, Everybody hates chris, my wife and kids, The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, and Scrubs. Unlike earlier single camera shows, these sitcoms do not use laugh tracks. The British sitcom Green Wing, often featured scenes that were shot using a single steadicam, and which were later sped up or slowed down for comic effect.

Disney Channel started to gain international success with their "original" sitcoms aimed at teenagers, featuring a younger cast. These programs include That's So Raven, The Suite Life series, Wizards of Waverly Place and Hannah Montana, among others. Although traditionally played like a typical sitcom with a main story and a side story, the latter often focuses on gags. Also, the shows rely a lot on deadpan humor, despite the outrageous situations.

Though Disney Channel is not the only channel that is known for this, Nickelodeon has been airing teen sitcoms also, even before Disney Channel. In the 1990s, Nick was known for its sitcoms such as Kenan & Kel, Clarissa Explains it All, and The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Today, Nick still airs teen sitcoms such as True Jackson, V.P., Drake & Josh, and iCarly. Most of these shows also air on the TeenNick channel, which aims for an audience entirely made of teenagers.

Specific Countries of Origin:

Most North American sitcoms are generally half-hour programs in which the story is written to run a total of 22 minutes in length, leaving 8 minutes for commercials.

Sitcoms made outside the US may run somewhat longer or shorter than 22 minutes. US commercial broadcasters have traditionally been very reluctant to run shows that run too short or too long. Thus, very few UK or British Commonwealth sitcoms run on US commercial television.

US sitcoms (like other American television series) typically have long season runs of 20 or more episodes due to the way they are produced. Canadian sitcoms typically only have season runs of 14 on average. British sitcoms have much shorter seasons in comparison where there are usually 6 episodes.

American sitcoms are often written by large teams of US resident script writers during round-table sessions, but some US sitcoms often do have episodes written by a guest writer. Most British sitcoms are written by one or two people, with four writers sometimes being the norm for some series in the recent past. These divergent writing styles result in vastly different kinds of sitcoms being written.

Australia:

Australia has not had a significant number of long running sitcoms. Most successful sitcoms on Australian TV are American or to a lesser extent, British. Many of the shows described under the U.S. and British sections of this article are or have been extremely popular in Australia. British sitcoms, many from the BBC, are a staple on the government broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and traditionally many have also been shown by the Seven Network. American sitcoms dominate the comedy line-up of the three commercial networks.

While there has been a significant number of Australian sitcoms throughout the history of Australian television, they have most commonly run for just a single season - usually 13 half-hour episodes. Many successful Australian sitcoms have been somewhat similar in style to UK comedies, and several closely followed the premise of earlier UK programs. An early successful situation comedy was My Name's McGooley, What's Yours? (1967) about a working-class Sydney family. Other popular sitcoms of this general period included The Group, and Our Man in Canberra.

In the first half of the 1970s it was the popular soap operas Number 96 and The Box that provided the main forum for Australian-grown sitcom style comedy. These shows combined melodrama and sex with large amounts of comedy. In 1976 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced a sex-comedy television sitcom Alvin Purple, based on the hit feature film of the same name. Like the films that preceded it, the series of Alvin Purple featured Graeme Blundell in the title role.

By the late 1970s Australian versions of popular UK comedies were produced using key personnel from the original series working in Australia. These productions retained the title and key cast members of the original programs and operated within the same story world of the original even down to explaining how the characters came to leave their original UK locale and be temporarily resident of Australia. These comedies, Are You Being Served, Doctor in the House (as Doctor Down Under) and Father, Dear Father (as 'Father, Dear Father in Australia), transplanted key original cast members to Australia to situations markedly similar to those of the original series. During this same general period, one of the UK producers of these shows also launched The Tea Ladies in Australia. Also during the late 1970s Crawford Productions, best known for their successful police drama series, also created situation comedy series. These include The Bluestone Boys (1976) on Network Ten, and Bobby Dazzler (1977) on the Seven Network.

The late-1970s sketch comedy series The Naked Vicar Show spawned successful a sitcom spin off, Kingswood Country, in 1980. This series was immensely popular, running four years. Its situation was somewhat similar to the British comedy Till Death Us Do Part and its American cousin All in the Family and another Australian programme, The Last of the Australians.V

In the early 1980s there were few Australian sitcoms, with soap operas being the more common genre produced in Australia. During this period however the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced Mother and Son, which emerged as an enduring audience favourite. In the late 1980s and early 1990s several new Australian sitcoms achieved significant success including Frontline, Hey Dad...!, Acropolis Now, All Together Now which all had relatively long runs. The Adventures of Lano and Woodley ran for two seasons, in 1997 and 1999, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Other programs such as Hampton Court and My Two Wives were only moderate successes, lasting just one season. This period also saw many short-lived failures such as Late for School and Bingles. In 2002 the successful sitcom Kath and Kim began its successful run.

Canada:

Canadian sitcoms have often fared poorly with both critics and audiences. One notorious example is The Trouble with Tracy, regarded by many Canadians as one of the worst TV shows ever made. Other Canadian sitcoms have included Snow Job, Check it Out!, Mosquito Lake and Not My Department, all of which were mocked[by whom?] as being particularly unfunny. There have rarely been more than one or two Canadian sitcoms airing new episodes at any given time, although this has changed in recent years with the growth of original programming on cable television.

Successful sitcoms have been produced in Canada, however, including King of Kensington, Trailer Park Boys, Twitch City, Hangin' In, Odd Job Jack, Little Mosque on the Prairie and Corner Gas, the latter of which is the most popular Canadian sitcom of all time. Generally, however, Canadian television networks have had much more success with sketch comedy and dramedy series than with conventional sitcoms.

In the francophone province of Quebec, notable sitcoms have included Histoires de filles, Moi et l'autre 4 et demi, and Rumeurs. In Quebec sitcoms, the language spoken is always Quebec French.

New Zealand:

New Zealand began producing television programs later than many other developed countries. Due to New Zealand's small population, the two main New Zealand networks will rarely fund more than one or two sitcoms each year. This low output means there is less chance of a successful sitcom being produced to offset the failures.

Early sitcoms included Joe & Koro and Buck House. Later there was The Billy T James Show subsequently rerun in early 2004 as part of the first year's offering on Maori Television. The team of David McPhail and Jon Gadsby produced and/or starred in quite a number of sitcoms such as Letter to Blanchy with help from writer A K Grant.

The most popular and successful New Zealand produced sitcom to date has been Roger Hall's Gliding On, based on his hit stage play Glide Time. Another Hall play, Conjugal Rites was also made into a sitcom but by Granada in Britain.

In 1994, Melody Rules was produced and screened. Critically and commercially unsuccessful, it has become part of the lexicon within the television industry to describe an unsuccessful sitcom, for example, that show will be the next "Melody Rules". Another sitcom to have its roots in a stage play was Serial Killers (2003), about the scriptwriters of a medical soap opera. Since Melody Rules aired, no American-style sitcoms have been produced in New Zealand.

Most recently the duo Flight of the Conchords have created and starred in a sitcom of an eponymous name. It is the case, however, with some New Zealand content, to put it in a box marked stictly New Zealand. The show stars three Kiwis (including Rhys Darby), is written primarily by the two leads, Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie (along with contributions from Kiwis Duncan Sarkies and Taika Waititi), but it is shot entirely in New York City, was co-created by an Englishman, James Bobin, and is funded by HBO, an American premium cable channel. Despite this, it is, to date the most popular sitcom internationally, ever produced featuring Kiwi comedians.

A sitcom which utilizes the one-camera approach is the Jaquie Brown Diaries. The show is an advanced concept for New Zealand domestic television production for the fact that it stars Jaquie Brown, as herself, as a C-list celebrity in Auckland. The show revolves around Jaquie's life as a light relief reporter on a current events show (a job she used to actually have on TV3's current affairs show Campbell Live) and her desire to be a socially relevant pop cultural media figure in New Zealand. Brown, who had not acted seriously prior to this production, excelled in the role and displayed a panache for naturalistic comedic acting. The first season ran for 6 episodes, and the second is due to start airing on TV3 on Friday 23rd October 2009

Many British and American sitcoms are and have been popular in New Zealand, including many previously mentioned in this article.

The primary difficulty for New Zealand comedy production stems from two problems 1) a prevailing attitude of cultural cringe which still exists in New Zealand wherein domestic products are viewed as automatically being third-rate and 2) the market demand for profitability due to the fact that New Zealand has no strictly commerical-free channels. Both government-owned channels TVOne and TV2 are broadcast with commericals and cannot survive on government subsidies alone, therefore Kiwi comedies which are viewed as commerically unreliable are often relegated to poor timeslots and not promoted by their networks. James Griffin, creator of TV3's Outrageous Fortune, has noted that often Kiwi comedies get neglected to death such as his show Diplomatic Immunity did.

United Kingdom Sitcoms:

The United Kingdom has produced a wealth of sitcoms, many of which have been exported to other nations or adapted for other countries. There is often also a tendency towards black humour. A frequent theme in British sitcoms is that of people trapped in an unpleasant situation or, more often, in dysfunctional relationships.

Political sitcom The Thick of It is currently going an American adaptation, also under the same name. However, most British sitcoms usually fare better in their original forms. Re-makes of Red Dwarf, Men Behaving Badly, Coupling, and One Foot in the Grave (Cosby) fell victim to adaptations that largely removed the essence of the comedy and did not stand the test of time.

Possibly the best example of this was Fawlty Towers, in which there were three attempts to Americanize the show. The first attempt was a proposed series titled Chateau Snavely in 1978 but a pilot was never produced. The second attempt at Americanising Fawlty Towers was Amanda's, where the character of Basil became a woman played by Beatrice Arthur. This eliminated the roles of the hen-pecked lead and the dragon-like wife. Amanda's was picked up by ABC in 1983 but never attracted an audience and was cancelled soon after. The final attempt to remake Fawlty Towers was Payne, in which John Larroquette played the title role. It was seen on CBS in 1999, but like Amanda's it was soon dropped by the network.

The UK is home to the world's longest running sitcom, Last of the Summer Wine. The show's pilot was broadcast in early 1973 with the first series starting that autumn. The series continues to this day with the show's 30th series broadcast in 2009.

China:

China, mainly Beijing's television studios, has produced a strong number of comedies with high episode counts. The first multi-camera sitcom was I Love My Family, in 1993. While inspired by American sitcoms, I Love My Family used actors with theatre experience to display comedic and dramatic talents. Home with Kids is another Chinese sitcom heavily based on Growing Pains, which dealt with real-life family issues and had ran for over 350 episodes. It was known for featuring child actors, who have prominent roles throughout the series.

For the teen audience, China has produced the Friends-inspired iPartment. Like Friends, the Shanghai-based iPartment follows a group of neighbors in their escapades. The series uses fast-paced editing and surreal pop culture references for comic effect. iPartment has 20 hour-long episodes and is filmed on-location and closed sets. Despite this, the series contains a laugh track, which is an uncommon practice used for single-camera programs.

Hong Kong has a strong number of sitcoms that differ from Mainland China's programs. An average sitcom does not use a studio audience nor a laugh track to fill-in more dialogue for the characters. Also, many programs used large sets and locations to film more dynamically.

Comedy-Drama:

Comedy-drama, also called dramedy or seriocomedy, is a style of television, theatre and film in which there is an equal or nearly equal balance of humor and serious content.

History:

Theatre:

Traditional western theatre, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was divided into comedy and tragedy. A tragedy typically ended with the death or destruction of a fictional or historical hero, whereas a comedy focused on the lives of middle to lower class characters and ended with their success. The term "drama" was used to describe all the action of a play. Beginning in the 19th century, authors such as Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen blurred the line between comedy and drama.

Early Television:

The advent of radio drama, cinema, and particularly television created greater pressure in marketing to clearly define a product as either comedy or drama. While in live theatre the difference became less and less significant, in mass media, comedy and drama were clearly divided. Comedies, especially, were expected to maintain a consistently light tone and not challenge the viewer by introducing more serious content.

By the early 1960s, television companies commonly presented half-hour long "comedy" series, or one hour long "dramas." Half-hour series were mostly restricted to situation comedy or family comedy, and were usually aired with either a live or artificial laugh track. One hour dramas included genre series such as police and detective series, westerns, science fiction, and, later, serialized prime time soap operas. Programs today still overwhelmingly conform to these half-hour and one hour guidelines.

While sitcoms would occasionally balance their humor with more dramatic and humanistic moments, these remained the exception to the rule as the 1960s progressed. Beginning around 1969 in the US, however, there was a brief spate of half-hour shows that purposely alternated between comedy and drama and aired without a laugh track. At the time, these were known as "comedy-dramas." These early experiments also influenced general TV comedy, and later series (especially family themed sitcoms) often included brief dramatic interludes and more serious subject matter.

Recent History:

Comedy-dramas have had some strong success in recent years. Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty and Californication are examples of this. However, some shows like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip have failed to make it past the first season.

Aspects of Comedy-Dramas:

There is often an absence of a pre-recorded laugh track.

Storylines tend to be more serialized, with events taking place in earlier episodes being referred back to or having an effect in later episodes. As opposed to more traditional sitcoms which focus on telling one stand alone story every week.

Continuity of character and storylines are more relevant than in traditional sitcoms.

Can be either half-hour or hour long episodes. However shows which use a 30 minute format tend to be more comedic with dramatic elements that keep storylines going forward, while shows which use a 60 minute format tend to be more dramatically based with humor used throughout the show as either comic relief or to punctuate certain scenes.

Characters back story tends to have a greater overall affect on stories. Often something a character has done in the past will catch up with him or her. As opposed to more traditional sitcoms where a character's backstory is unlikely to be referenced by than the story of the week.

Radio Comedy:

Radio comedy, or comedic radio programming, is a radio broadcast that may involve sitcom elements, sketches, and many other forms of comedy found on other media. It may also include more surreal or fantastic elements, as these can be conveyed on a small budget with just a few sound effects or some simple dialogue. Because of this, it is often less restrictive and can allow for more imaginative and inventive comedy.

Background and History:

Although traditional comedy was once a significant part of American broadcast radio programming, it is now mainly found in the archives of Old Time Radio enthusiasts and in Internet streaming of comedy recordings. The majority of mainstream radio comedy now consists of personality-driven shows hosted by talk-radio hosts such as Howard Stern or comedic duos such as Armstrong & Getty and Bob & Tom. Exceptions to this are WSRN's "Audience of Two", Garrison Keillor's work on Minnesota Public Radio: "A Prairie Home Companion" and "Comedy College", and NPR's Car Talk, a comedy show thinly disguised as car advice, and Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!.

In Britain and Canada, however, the BBC and CBC respectively have continued making new radio comedy and drama. British radio comedy also has a home on Australia's Radio National and in Ireland there are always a few comedy shows in the week's programming on RTÉ.

Many of the BBC's most successful television comedies began life as radio shows. These include Hancock's Half Hour, Goodness Gracious Me!, Knowing Me, Knowing You, The League Of Gentlemen, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Room 101, Have I Got News For You, (based on Radio 4's The News Quiz), Dead Ringers and most recently Little Britain and Absolute Power. The science fiction comedy Red Dwarf was developed from ideas in a radio show called Son Of Cliché. Another science fiction comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was created for radio, but also went on to great success in book, television and film formats. This has unfairly led to some people viewing radio as just a stepping stone to television, ignoring the many advantages of the medium.

Examples of American radio comedy can be heard on streaming internet radio stations. Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard on public radio stations in the United States and a different version of the shows can be heard on BBC7 and RTÉ under the name "Garrison Keillor's Radio Show". Old shows can be listened to online at the websites of "A Prairie Home Companion" or RTÉ. British radio comedy can be heard on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 2 and BBC7. Minnesota Public Radio maintains a website where it is possible to listen to episodes of "Comedy College". A British commercial station "Oneword" broadcasted American vintage radio comedy as part of their 24 hour-a-day programming of books, comedy and drama and this was streamed on the internet until the station closed in 2008.

Interest in radio comedy and radio drama is currently enjoying a resurgence. Epguides.com ( http://www.epguides.com ) which provides encyclopedic information on television shows has recently begun to build a similar list of radio shows at: http://www.epguides.com/menu/radio.shtml.

In America, new groups have formed to try to bring about a renewed interest in the art-form. At the fore-front of this new wave of audio-only comedic groups is Peeper Radio Theatre. Veteran NPR Producer Joe Bevilacqua is creating new radio comedy for The Comedy-O-Rama Hour, which airs on XM Satellite Radio's Sonic Theater Channel 163, five times per week. In the UK, recent standup and revue comedy performances are also now receiving airing on radio.

The First Couple of Comedy:

This is a common nickname for comedienne Lucille Ball and her one-time husband Desi Arnaz. This nickname is based on the eight year success of their show I Love Lucy. Their co-stars Vivian Vance and William Frawley are known as the most famous second bananas in comedy and television.

British Humour:

British humour is a somewhat general term applied to certain comedic motifs that are often prevalent in comedic acts originating in the United Kingdom and its current or former colonies. Comedy acts and television programmes typical of British humour include Monty Python, Benny Hill, and Keeping Up Appearances to name a few that have become quite popular outside of the United Kingdom. At times, however, such humour can seem puzzling to non-British speakers of English (for example, references to British slang terms or people who are not internationally known), while certain Commonwealth nations (such as Australia, Canada and South Africa) tend to find it more familiar. Many UK comedy TV shows typical of British humour have been internationally popular, and have been a strong avenue for the export and representation of British culture to an international audience.

Jewish Humour:

Jewish humour is the long tradition of humour in Judaism dating back to the Torah and the Midrash, but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal, self-deprecating and often anecdotal humour originating in Eastern Europe and which took root in the United States over the last hundred years. Beginning with vaudeville, and continuing through radio, stand-up comedy, film, and television, a disproportionately high percentage of American and Russian comedians have been Jewish.

The History of Jewish Humour:

Jewish humour is rooted in several traditions. The first is the intellectual and legal methods of the Talmud, which uses elaborate legal arguments and situations often seen as so absurd as to be humorous in order to tease out the meaning of religious law.

Hillel Halkin in his essay about Jewish humour traces some roots of the Jewish self-deprecating humour to the medieval influence of Arabic traditions on the Hebrew literature by quoting a witticism from Yehuda Alharizi's Tahkemoni.

A more recent one is an egalitarian tradition among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly, rather than attacked overtly—as Saul Bellow once put it, "oppressed people tend to be witty." Jesters known as badchens used to poke fun at prominent members of the community during weddings, creating a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. Rabbi Moshe Waldoks, a scholar of Jewish humour, argued:

You have a lot of shtoch, or jab, humour, which is usually meant to deflate pomposity or ego, and to deflate people who consider themselves high and mighty. But Jewish humour was also a device for self-criticism within the community, and I think that's where it really was the most powerful. The humourist, like the prophet, would basically take people to task for their failings. The humour of Eastern Europe especially was centered on defending the poor against the exploitation of the upper classes or other authority figures, so rabbis were made fun of, authority figures were made fun of and rich people were made fun of. It really served as a social catharsis. After Jews began to emigrate to America in large numbers, they, like other minority groups, found it difficult to gain mainstream acceptance and obtain upward mobility. (As Lenny Bruce lampooned, "He was charming... They said, 'C'mon! Let's go watch the Jew be charming!'") The newly-developing entertainment industry, combined with the Jewish humour tradition, provided a potential route for Jews to succeed. One of the first successful radio "sitcoms," The Goldbergs, featured a Jewish family. As radio and television matured, many of its most famous comedians, including Jack Benny, Sid Caesar, George Burns, Henny Youngman and Milton Berle, were Jewish. The Jewish comedy tradition continues today, with Jewish humour much entwined with that of mainstream humour, as comedies like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm indicate.

Sigmund Freud in his Wit and the Unconscious, among other things, analyses the nature of the Jewish jokes.

Joke:

A joke is a short story or ironic depiction of a situation communicated with the intent of being humorous. These jokes will normally have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A joke can also be a single phrase or statement that employs sarcasm. The word joke can also be used as a slang term for a person or thing which is not taken seriously by others in general. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl).

Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat".

Types of Jokes:

Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category.

Subjects:

Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems.

Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other.

Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders.

Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive.

For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples.

Racially offensive humour is often considered unacceptable, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered acceptable.

Religious Jokes Fall into Several Categories:

Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes)

Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc.

Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..."

Letters and addresses to God.

Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke.

Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognize its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?"

Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman.

Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group.

Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.

Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant.

Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series.

Styles:

The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts.

Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling.

A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy."

Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognizable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.)



Laughter is an audible expression or appearance of happiness, or an inward feeling of joy (laughing on the inside). According to satirist Ambrose Bierce, it is an "interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises." It may ensue (as a physiological reaction) from jokes, tickling, and other stimuli. Inhaling nitrous oxide can also induce laughter; other drugs, such as cannabis, can also induce episodes of strong laughter. Strong laughter can sometimes bring an onset of tears or even moderate muscular pain.

Laughter is found among various animals, as well as in humans. Among the human species, it is a part of human behaviour regulated by the brain, helping humans clarify their intentions in social interaction and providing an emotional context to conversations. Laughter is used as a signal for being part of a group — it signals acceptance and positive interactions with others. Laughter is sometimes seemingly contagious, and the laughter of one person can itself provoke laughter from others as a positive feedback. This may account in part for the popularity of laugh tracks in situation comedy television shows.

Scientifically speaking, laughter is caused by the epiglottis constricting the larynx, causing respiratory upset. The study of humor and laughter, and its psychological and physiological effects on the human body is called gelotology.

Nature of Laughter:

Recently researchers have shown infants as early as 17 days old have vocal laughing sounds or laughter. Early Human Development 2006. This conflicts with earlier studies indicating that infants usually start to laugh at about four months of age. Robert R. Provine, Ph.D. has spent decades studying laughter. In his interview for WebMD, he indicated "Laughter is a mechanism everyone has; laughter is part of universal human vocabulary. There are thousands of languages, hundreds of thousands of dialects, but everyone speaks laughter in pretty much the same way.” Everyone can laugh. Babies have the ability to laugh before they ever speak. Children who are born blind and deaf still retain the ability to laugh.

Provine argues that “Laughter is primitive, an unconscious vocalization.” And if it seems you laugh more than others, Provine argues that it probably is genetic. In a study of the “Giggle Twins,” two exceptionally happy twins were separated at birth and not reunited until 43 years later. Provine reports that “until they met each other, neither of these exceptionally happy ladies had known anyone who laughed as much as she did.” They reported this even though they both had been brought together by their adoptive parents, whom they indicated were “undemonstrative and dour.” Provine indicates that the twins “inherited some aspects of their laugh sound and pattern, readiness to laugh, and perhaps even taste in humor.” WebMD 2002.

Norman Cousins, who suffered from arthritis, developed a recovery program incorporating megadoses of Vitamin C, along with a positive attitude, love, faith, hope, and laughter induced by Marx Brothers films. "I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep," he reported. "When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval." He wrote about these experiences in several books

Research has noted the similarity in forms of laughter among various primates (humans, gorillas, orang-utans...), suggesting that laughter derives from a common origin among primate species, and has subsequently evolved in each species.

Laughter and the Brain:

Modern neurophysiology states that laughter is linked with the activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which produces endorphins after a rewarding activity.

Research has shown that parts of the limbic system are involved in laughter. The limbic system is a primitive part of the brain that is involved in emotions and helps us with basic functions necessary for survival. Two structures in the limbic system are involved in producing laughter: the amygdala and the hippocampus.

The December 7, 1984 Journal of the American Medical Association describes the neurological causes of laughter as follows

"Although there is no known 'laugh center' in the brain, its neural mechanism has been the subject of much, albeit inconclusive, speculation. It is evident that its expression depends on neural paths arising in close association with the telencephalic and diencephalic centers concerned with respiration. Wilson considered the mechanism to be in the region of the mesial thalamus, hypothalamus, and subthalamus. Kelly and co-workers, in turn, postulated that the tegmentum near the periaqueductal grey contains the integrating mechanism for emotional expression. Thus, supranuclear pathways, including those from the limbic system that Papez hypothesised to mediate emotional expressions such as laughter, probably come into synaptic relation in the reticular core of the brain stem. So while purely emotional responses such as laughter are mediated by subcortical structures, especially the hypothalamus, and are stereotyped, the cerebral cortex can modulate or suppress them."

Laughter and Health:

According to Cindie Leonard, solid scientific research demonstrates that laughter offers the following benefits:

Lowering blood pressure

Strengthening cardiovascular functions

Reducing stress hormones

Improving circulation

Increasing muscle flexion

Oxygenating the body by boosting the respiratory system

Boosting immune function by raising levels of infection-fighting T-cells, disease-fighting proteins called Gammainterferon and B-cells, which produce disease-destroying antibodies

Triggering the release of endorphins, the body's natural painkillers

Producing a general sense of well-being”.

Similar findings have been confirmed by several researchers. For example, an important study in 2006 by the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore showed a positive link between laughter and a healthy function of blood vessels. According to this research, laughter might cause the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels, the endothelium, to dilate or expand in order to increase blood flow.

Causes:

Common causes for laughter are sensations of joy and humor, however other situations may cause laughter as well.

A general theory that explains laughter is called the relief theory. Sigmund Freud summarized it in his theory that laughter releases tension and "psychic energy". This theory is one of the justifications of the beliefs that laughter is beneficial for one's health. This theory explains why laughter can be as a coping mechanism for when one is upset, angry or sad.

Philosopher John Morreall theorizes that human laughter may have its biological origins as a kind of shared expression of relief at the passing of danger. Friedrich Nietzsche, by contrast, suggested laughter to be a reaction to the sense of existential loneliness and mortality that only humans feel.

For example, this is how this theory works in the case of humor: a joke creates an inconsistency, the sentence appears to be not relevant, and we automatically try to understand what the sentence says, supposes, doesn't say, and implies; if we are successful in solving this 'cognitive riddle', and we find out what is hidden within the sentence, and what is the underlying thought, and we bring foreground what was in the background, and we realize that the surprise wasn't dangerous, we eventually laugh with relief. Otherwise, if the inconsistency is not resolved, there is no laugh, as Mack Sennett pointed out: "when the audience is confused, it doesn't laugh" (this is the one of the basic laws of a comedian, called "exactness"). It is important to note that the inconsistency may be resolved, and there may still be no laugh. Due to the fact that laughter is a social mechanism, we may not feel like we are in danger, however, the physical act of laughing may not take place. In addition, the extent of the inconsistency (timing, rhythm, etc) has to do with the amount of danger we feel, and thus how intense or long we laugh. This explanation is also confirmed by modern neurophysiology (see section Laughter and the Brain).

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