Comedy is a genre of film that uses humor as a driving force.

The aim of a comedy film is to illicit laughter from the audience through entertaining stories and characters. Although the comedy film may take on some serious material, most have a happy ending. Comedy film has the tendency to become a hybrid sub-genre because humor can be incorporated into many other genres. Comedies are more likely than other films to fall back on the success and popularity of an individual star.

Examples of Comedy Film:

Groundhog Day - A grumpy weatherman finds himself living the same day over and over again. The Princess Bride - A farm boy must save Princess Buttercup from a forced marriage to the nasty Prince Humperdinck. Happy Gilmore - A reject hockey player takes up golf in order to save his grandmothers house.

Sub-genre of Comedy Film:

Anarchic Comedy Anarchic refers to a sub-genre of comedy that uses stream-of-consciousness humor. The humor in these films tends to be nonsensical with exaggerated characters and situations. Anarchic film often uses slapstick tendencies, yet is considered to be less psychically violent. Unlike classic comedy, Anarchic films tend not to rely on narrative to explain the context of the humor. Examples: Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Blazing Saddles, Animal House.

Action-Comedy As its names suggests, this sub-genre combines action with humor. Action-Comedy relies on the characters to bring out the humor, while the action scenes tend to be less intense than in the traditional action movie. Examples: Beverly Hills Cop, Rush Hour, Hot Fuzz.

Black-Comedy

Black Comedy is a sub-genre of both Comedy and Satire. These films often explore concepts and topics that are considered taboo. Black Comedy takes topics and situations that are commonly held as serious and explores them in a comical way. Because of this approach, Black Comedies often cause the audience to laugh and feel uncomfortable simultaneously. Examples: Fargo, Harold and Maude, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Horror-Comedy Horror-Comedy combines comedy with traditional horror movie themes and characters. Because of the subject matter, Horror-Comedy films can cross over into the Black Comedy sub-genre. Horror-Comedy films aim to scare the audience, but also provide comical outlets that let the audience laugh at their fear. Examples: Beetlejuice, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead.

Dramedy Dramedy film is a genre that has a dramatic tone, yet has important elements of comedy. In Dramedys, the amount of drama and comedy are almost equally balanced. This balance provides comedic relief for the audience, while still addressing serious issues. Examples:Little Miss Sunshine, The Royal Tenenbaums, Lost in Translation.

Parody/Spoof Parody/Spoof is a sub-genre of Comedy film that bases itself in reality. These films impersonate, ridicule, or scoff at serious situations and people. These films rely heavily on satire and can be used as a means of social or political commentary. Parody/Spoof films can also take the form in a fake documentary called a Mockumentary. Examples: Life of Brian, Naked Gun, Scary Movie.

Romantic-Comedy Romantic-Comedy is a genre that attempts to catch the viewers heart with the combination of love and humor. This sub-genre is light-hearted and usually places the two protagonists in humorus situation. Romantic-Comedy film revolves around a

romantic ideal, such as true love. In the end, the ideal triumphs over the situation or obstacle, thus creating a happy ending. Examples: Roman Holiday, When Harry Met Sally, Knocked Up.

I. Slapstick
Slapstick comedy is a sub-genre of film that incorporates physical comedy into the story. Slapstick uses visual action, such as harmless violence and horseplay, to depict humor. Slapstick film often relies on comedic timing and a controlled psychical performance of a single actor or actress. Examples: Caddyshack, Safety Last!, Tommy Boy. In this chapter I will debate over some of these topics and also some other types of comedy as well. Slapstick is both a genre in its own right, belonging mostly to the years of silent cinema, and an element in other comedies that has persisted from the early years of film till now, when it seems to be as an indispensable element of the teen or "gross-out" comedy typified by such films as the American Pie trilogy (1999, 2001, 2003) and movies directed by the Farrelly Brothers, such as There's Something About Mary (1998) and Stuck on You (2003). Slapstick is a descendent of the comic routines of Italian commedia dell'arte (midfifteenth to mid-seventeenth century) touring players, who developed basic plot scenarios and broad, swiftly drawn characters. The fun for their audiences was not in watching innovative narratives or well-developed characters but in seeing how a slick troupe of professionals could manipulate the standard components of farcezany servants, pompous masters, young loverswith speed and efficiency. Each commedia player performed and perfected a single stereotyped character, bringing his own personality to bear in the particulars of his comic businessthe lazzi or, as we might call it, the shtick. Comedy in slapstick lies in the basic tension between control and its loss. Both the verbal outbursts of the wordier comics (the Marx Brothers [Chico (18871961), Harpo (1888 1964), Groucho (18901977), and Zeppo (19011979)], W. C. Fields [1880-1946]) and the physical eruptions of those who use extreme body comedy (Charlie Chaplin [18891977], Jerry Lewis [b. 1926]) are predicated on the delicate balance between resistance and inevitable surrenderindeed, the resistance serves to make the surrender even funnier. Slapstick's classic moment, the pie in the face, is funny only if the recipient is not already covered in pie but is first clean and neat; slipping on a banana skin provides humor only when the before the dignified marchis contrasted with the after the flat-out splayed pratfall on the sidewalk. Slapstick comedians learned early on that humor could be prolonged if resistance, whether to gravity or another inevitability, could also be

prolongedin other words, as long as there were a chance that the other shoe might fall. This balancing act is the slapstick comic's main job: paradoxically, when we watch him and it is usually a himperforming lack of control, at least part of our pleasure derives from his skill at controlling this lack. Jim Carrey might beat himself up mercilessly in Me, Myself, And Irene (2000), but even as he seems to abandon restraint while punching himself, we are aware of the physical control needed to perform this routine. Part of the humor in this tension is also derived from the comic hero's insistence on maintaining control when others around him have abandoned it. Chaplin's Tramp tries to maintain dignity even though poor, starving, drenched, and an outcast: the humor lies in his scrupulous adherence to social niceties (he holds his silverware nicely) even when society is in chaos (he is having to eat his own boot from starvation in The Gold Rush , 1925).

Background of slapstick
Slapstick comedy derives its name from the flat double paddle (like a flattened, oversized castanet) that, when struck against another performer, produced a satisfyingly big noise but only a small amount of actual discomfort. This battacio , or slapstick, traditionally wielded by male performers, is said to have evolved from a symbolic phallus (Chamberlain); certainly the habitual association of slapstick comedy with male comics might be seen to bear out this symbolism. While early cinema slapstick boasted performers of both genders, including famous slapstick queen Mabel Normand (1892 1930) ( Tillie's Punctured Romance , 1914), early flapper Colleen Moore (19001988) ( Ella Cinders , 1926), and heroines of the 1930s screwball comedy genre, such as Carole Lombard (19081942) ( Twentieth Century , [1934] and Nothing Sacred , [1937]), who was not afraid to take pratfalls amidst the glossy art deco sets of the genre, almost all major slapstick comedians since then have been male. Perhaps there is a reluctance on the part of female comedians to align themselves with a form of humor that relies so much on mess, violence, and pain; when female comics become involved in slapstick's routine business of physical humiliation this seems to be more as a punishment than a chosen route. For example, in Doris Day's

MACK SENNETT b. Richmond, Quebec, Canada, 17 January 1880, d. Woodland Hills, California, 5 November 1960
It seems appropriate that Mack Sennett, the father of slapstick comedy, made his first stage appearance as the rear end of a pantomime horse at the Bowery Burlesque in New York City. Responsible for inaugurating the conventions of both custard pie-throwing and the comic chase, Sennett's grasp of comedy was always physical rather than verbal. Born Michael Sinnott in Quebec, Sennett left Canada for New England in his youth. Although opera was his initial career goal, he pragmatically settled for a position in burlesque, making his horse's-end debut in 1902. Sennett enjoyed the rapid-fire dialogue and punishing physical comedy of vaudeville and absorbed from this milieu many lessons

about gag-driven narratives, which inspired his later films. In 1908, D. W. Griffith gave Sennett a job acting in, and later writing and directing, Biograph comedies. Eventually, Sennett decided to form a company of his own, and after securing the financial backing of two bookie friends, he lured away other Biograph players, including his off-again, onagain fiance and eventual star, Mabel Normand, to form Keystone Pictures in 1912. In his Keystone silent pictures, Sennett perfected slapstick, physical comedy. It is to his credit that Sennett could make his short films so successful at a time when cinema was otherwise veering toward feature-length films and more refined narrative- and characterbased comedies. The typical Sennett short featured stereotyped characters drawn in broad strokes, who engaged in knockabout routines resulting in pratfalls, custard pie fights, and pursuits. These roles were played by such actors as Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, Harry Langdon, Ben Turpin, and Gloria Swanson, all of whom began at Keystone. Those flat-footed, uniformed incompetents, the Keystone Kops, tried to catch stripe-suited convicts, the escalating pace of their madcap antics inevitably culminating in a chase that brought both law breakers and law keepers into contact with the Keystone Bathing Beauties, a troupe of swimsuited lovelies. Sennett pioneered comedy features with Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), starring Normand, but mostly he kept to shorts, which showcased his mastery of physical comedy at the expense of narrative and character. Sennett's type of comedy which was motion, not dialogue, -driven, was heavily affected by the introduction of talkies: physical comedy proved to be ill-served by the static cameras used in the early sound years. Sennett did, however, continue to make films into the mid-1930s, including the famous W. C. Fields shorts The Dentist (1932), The Pharmacist , and The Barber Shop (both 1933). 1950s and 1960s films, the comedienne is often the butt of elaborate slapstick jokes that revolve around besmirching her habitual cleanliness and purity: she is dunked in mud ( Calamity Jane , 1953), ketchup ( The Thrill Of It All , 1963), and sudsy water ( Move Over, Darling , 1963). Lucille Ball was one of the few genuine slapstick comediennes of that era, less in her films than in her television series, I Love Lucy (19511957). The very physical style of comedy engendered by commedia dell'arte influenced later theatrical styles, including pantomime and circus, and persisted in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century vaudeville, with its emphasis on swift, gag-based knockabout comedy. For American audiences in the large new industrial centers that supported vaudeville theatres, comedy could succeed only when it was able to reach and please the widest possible audience; thus physical comedy prevailed over verbal humor, which depended on the audience's shared language skills. Early cinema, too, relied on immediately appreciable setups, clearly drawn characters, and physical humor that did not rely on language (intertitles) to reach the widest demographic. Many early films further tapped into situations with which new city dwellers could readily identify. Their humor derived from the perils of modern life, including vehicles, machinery, and inanimate objects that seemed to possess wills of their own, as in Chaplin's One A.M. (1916), in which the comedian encounters a malicious wall bed.

Many of the early slapstick film performers learned their comic timing, troupe playing, swift setups, and knockabout delivery of gags in this vaudeville milieu. Mack Sennett (18801960), the Marx Brothers, and W. C. Fields began their careers "treading the boards" and carried the lessons learned in this noisy and volatile arena into their film comedy. Sennett himself moved from performing to producing and directing; he gave many slapstick comedians their start in film at his Keystone Studio, established in 1912, the first and most successful specialist film-production unit. There, Sennett employed comedians such as Normand, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd (18931971), Buster Keaton (18951966), Harry Langdon (18841944), and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (18871933). Later, after the coming of sound, W. C. Fields and Bing Crosby (19031977) were part of his stable of slapstick comedians. Sennett is credited with inventing the custard pie fight and with realizing the comic potential of the chase; the typical Sennett film ends with one, in which Kops, Bathing Beauties, stripeclad convicts, passers-by, and dogs careen across the screen, fall over, collide, and generally create mayhem.

Evolution of slapstick through time

For James Agee, slapstick was dealt its death blow as a viable comic form by the talkies. The coming of sound required, at least initially, a more static camera, which slowed the comic antics on screen to a less frenzied pace. Other film theorists, such as Steve Neale and Frank Krutnik, however, disagree, and suggest that slapstick was already a marginal subgenre by the time of what is considered its heyday, from about 1912 through 1930. As a "low" form of humor, slapstick fell out of step with dominant tastes, which were moving toward a more genteel comedy of manners in order to find favor with middleclass audiences, which filmmakers were beginning to court. By itself, sound could not kill slapstick, which relied on a combination of physical and verbal comedy; rapid-fire patter was a major part of the Marx Brothers' art, along with pratfalls and consequencefree violence. The Three Stooges, too, while not known for word twisting and puns, did employ pig Latin, verbal insults, and nicknames along with eye poking and hair pulling. Like commedia performers, the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges remind us that slapstick is ensemble comedy, each performer bringing a particular character to life, repeating and refining this persona's idiosyncratic lazzi in every performance. Slapstick comics, especially after the arrival of sound, have tended to work in pairs The Keystone Cops, with Chester Conklin, Mack Swain, and Fatty Arbuckle c. 1913. rather than as troupes of three or more: Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (18921957), Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Bud Abbott (1895-1974) and Lou Costello (19061959), and Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin exploited the comic tensions between a straight man and a gag guy, a natural winner and an all-time loser, a matine idol and a clown. Lewis, with or without Martin, is considered the preeminent performer of post-silent slapstick. His willingness to reduce himself to a state of infantile idiocyspastic limbs and primitive languageproved hugely popular in the 1960s with both American audiences and French critics.

While slapstick can be seen to have lost its dominance as a solo comic mode (except in cartoons where it continues to be honoredsee, for example, The Simpsons (beginning 1989)it can still be found as a component of many other forms of comedy, including genteel strands of humor, such as romantic comedy, and the subgenre that most resembles its earlier incarnation, the new teen 'gross-out' comedy. Whenever a romantic heroine finds herself so dizzy with love or the need for revenge that she walks into an office plant (Sandra Bullock in Two Weeks' Notice , 2000) or pours coffee over her white business suit (Meg Ryan in Kate and Leopold , 2001), the film is invoking the conventions of slapstick comedy to remind us of the basic (and loveable) idiocy of people in love. Jim Carrey has built entire film vehicles around the body torsions and physical violence of this genre, making him Jerry Lewis's purest heir. While slapstick interludes in contemporary comedies are now less likely to end with a chase, which seemed inevitable in the era of silent slapstick, they continued to be used through the 1960s to create a modern "swinging" feel that married contemporary comedy to slapstick traditionsfor example, in the finales of Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Modesty Blaise (1966), and almost the whole of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). Silent slapstick persists in modern films, including its emphasis on consequencefree violence, humiliation, and physical pain. Archetypal characters similarly endure: the good-natured but physically and/or romantically inadequate hero; the physically superior but morally inferior jock, who is the hero's rival for the good girl; the demanding, illtempered boss, who is either revealed to have a heart of gold and a sense of humor after all or who is symbolically castrated. Alongside this basic romance plot may stand another thread, either subordinate or dominant, involving fast-talking, wise-guy con men linked to the tradition of slapstick ensembles. For example, the con men conspiring to win Cameron Diaz's Mary in the Farrelly Brothers comedy are the heirs to the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and perhaps Bugs Bunny. Although slapstick iconography may have left behind the custard pie per se, similar use is now made of more taboo matter: the bodily fluids and wastes of the gross-out movie, whether the semen hair gel in There's Something About Mary or the excremental smoothie in The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999).

II Verbal comedy
We often use verbal comedy in our every day interactions with people. Its a way to get people to relax and not take an exchange too personally or seriously. It shows that you are genial. Its a way to share uplifting emotions. The jokes themselves are largely about playing with language. Even when a joke is about the absurdity of some aspect of life, like companies pandering to the health-conscious without making an effort, it might be done through an oxymoron such as all natural artificial flavouring. This means that verbal comedy does not alway translate well from one language to another. However, its not impossible. Puns exist in Japanese as well as English. So if you wanted to perform in Japan in Japanese, you would have to do some research to

create different puns for your routine. Many Japanese parents joke that their children are kawaii/kowaii: the one word means cute and the other scary. The words sound similar and, yes, children are often both cute and scary. So here are some categories and examples of verbal humour.

What You Say

It may seem obvious that WHAT you say is crucial to verbal comedy, but remember that not everyone knows HOW to tell a joke to make it funny. I will deal with that later in this post. Overstatement and Understatement These are forms of exaggeration that often work with other types of verbal humour such as simile. Types of overstatement and understatement include: Hyperboleexaggeration that is not meant to be taken literally. The baby weighed a ton. She was as light as a feather. However, sometimes the humour comes from saying something that sounds like hyperbole, then demonstrating that it is fact. The baby weighed a ton; not surprising since it was twelve foot by twelve foot at birth. We could be talking about an elephant, whale, or an outrageously large human baby. Meiosisa euphemism that understates a situation. The Pond as a reference to the Atlantic. Its just a flesh wound said when a knight in Monty Pythons Holy Grail has his arms and legs hacked off. LitotesUsing a double negative to express a positive. This is very popular in Australia. (S)hes not half bad referring to a good-looking person. Grans not unhappy with the move could mean Gran likes the new place. However, Australian humour being what it is, this could be meiosis and shes spitting mad. Poetic Language Calling this type of comedy poetic may cause people to think were getting hoity-toity. But isnt the very word hoity-toity funny? And its a rhyme. Poetic language gives a lovely texture to comedy, adding an extra layer of pleasure when you are playing with sounds and rhythms as well as meanings. Rhymingwhen words sound the same. You can have both full rhymes and half rhymes. Full: kitten/bitten. Half: ladies/bodies. Cockney slang is based on rhymes. Many people have heard apples and pears as the Cockney slang for stairs. Dr Seuss created humour by inventing absurd words to fill in a rhyme.When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottles on a poodle and the poodles eating noodles they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle. (Fox in

Socks) Ever hear of tweetle before? Lewis Carroll is famous for absurd rhyme, O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Alliteration, assonance, consonanceThese all deal with same individual sounds. Alliteration is when all the initial sounds are the same, as in Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Assonance is when you repeatedly use certain vowel sounds, I like white tires, they slice ice with wide files. Consonance is when you repeatedly use certain consonant sounds, The putrid dappled donkey galloped wide of the dandelion field. Onomatopeiawhen a word sounds like the thing it is describing. A steak sizzles. A child hiccups. I will warn people, many words are only considered onomatopeia because of cultural expectations. In English we say, meow for a cat, hoot for an owl, and woof for a dog. But in French you would say, miaule, hulule, and vaf. In China the dogs go wang wang. Simile/Metaphormaking a comparison. Similes frequently use the words like or as: her eyes were like sapphires. Metaphors will describe something by calling it something else: her eyes were sapphires. Similes and metaphors are a particular favourite for creating comedy. Rowan Atkinson was regularly using them as Black Adder: Since then, weve made as much ground as an asthmatic ant with a heavy load of shopping. The Misuse of Language We all enjoy laughing at a slip of the tongue. Sometimes it is used to show a character is flustered, foolish, or perhaps drunk. Malapropismaccidentally swapping words with similar sounds and sometimes creating a humourous new meaning. Stan Laurel, We heard the ocean is infatuated with sharks. (instead of infested) In New Scientist an office worker described a colleague as a vast suppository of information. (instead of repository) When the worker apologised for his Miss-Marple-ism New Scientist reported it as possibly the first time malapropism has been turned into a malapropism. Spoonerismstransposing letters between words. When someone meant to say Is it customary to kiss the bride? and instead says Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?, you might assume they are extremely nervous or drunk. The phrase is funny, but so is the vulnerability that it reveals. One of my favourites was a British announcer saying, All the world was thrilled by the marriage of the Duck and Doochess of Windsor. Ducks are funny. MondegreensMishearing words in a phrase and replacing them with close sounding words. The one Im guilty of is mishearing the song Kyrie Eleison as Carry a Laser. Others include: Theres a bathroom on the right for Theres a bad moon on the rise and Scuse me while I kiss this guy for Scuse me while I kiss the sky from Purple Haze.

Play on Meaning Punswhen words sound like one another but have different meanings and/or when words look like one another and have different meanings. I did a theatrical performance about puns. Really it was just a play on words. In this case the word play both looks and sounds the same in the two senses it is used, but the punchline relies on meanings of either play meaning theatrical production or play meaning a game. Tom Swifties are a pun based on the description of how something is said. We just struck oil! Tom gushed. Pass me the shellfish, said Tom crabbily. I would classify syllepsis as a form of pun, though it relies solely on the different ways a verb can be used. Michael Flanders wrote in Have Some Madeira MDear, She lowered her standards by raising her glass, her courage, her eyes and his hopes. Euphemismsa way to delicately describe something that might be considered offensive. Airbrush your undies for farting. Reviewing todays menu for burping. Double entendremost often sexual innuendo, but any straightforward statement that has a second potentially offensive meaning. Puns are frequently used for this: A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it. These only work if you are familiar with various euphemisms. So, it requires some knowledge of common spoken culture: hole for asshole or anus. In the movie Naked Gun Leslie Nielsens character famously appears to be looking up Priscilla Presleys dress and comments, Nice beaver. She then passes him a taxidermied beaver. Oxymorona pair of words, often adjective-noun, that are apparently paradoxical. Well known oxymorons are bitter sweet, living dead, and virtual reality. George Carlin is well known for making a humorous case that military intelligence, business ethics, and freedom fighters are oxymoronic. Spoonerismstransposing letters between words. When someone meant to say Is it customary to kiss the bride? and instead says Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?, you might assume they are extremely nervous or drunk. The phrase is funny, but so is the vulnerability that it reveals. One of my favourites was a British announcer saying, All the world was thrilled by the marriage of the Duck and Doochess of Windsor. Ducks are funny. MondegreensMishearing words in a phrase and replacing them with close sounding words. The one Im guilty of is mishearing the song Kyrie Eleison as Carry a Laser. Others include: Theres a bathroom on the right for Theres a bad moon on the rise and Scuse me while I kiss this guy for Scuse me while I kiss the sky from Purple Haze. Play on Meaning Punswhen words sound like one another but have different meanings and/or when words look like one another and have different meanings. I did a theatrical performance

about puns. Really it was just a play on words. In this case the word play both looks and sounds the same in the two senses it is used, but the punchline relies on meanings of either play meaning theatrical production or play meaning a game. Tom Swifties are a pun based on the description of how something is said. We just struck oil! Tom gushed. Pass me the shellfish, said Tom crabbily. I would classify syllepsis as a form of pun, though it relies solely on the different ways a verb can be used. Michael Flanders wrote in Have Some Madeira MDear, She lowered her standards by raising her glass, her courage, her eyes and his hopes. Euphemismsa way to delicately describe something that might be considered offensive. Airbrush your undies for farting. Reviewing todays menu for burping. Double entendremost often sexual innuendo, but any straightforward statement that has a second potentially offensive meaning. Puns are frequently used for this: A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it. These only work if you are familiar with various euphemisms. So, it requires some knowledge of common spoken culture: hole for asshole or anus. In the movie Naked Gun Leslie Nielsens character famously appears to be looking up Priscilla Presleys dress and comments, Nice beaver. She then passes him a taxidermied beaver. Oxymorona pair of words, often adjective-noun, that are apparently paradoxical. Well known oxymorons are bitter sweet, living dead, and virtual reality. George Carlin is well known for making a humorous case that military intelligence, business ethics, and freedom fighters are oxymoronic. Non sequitura factual statement followed by an absurd conclusion. If the sun is 23 degrees off of high noon, and we havent had daylight savings yet, I would say its time for an ice cream. Ralph Wiggum from the Simpsons: Martin Luther King had a dream. Dreams are where Elmo and Toy Story had a party and I was invited. Yay! My turn is over! ParaprosdokianHah! Say THAT one fast. This is basically a word that describes the one liner: a statement that ends with a surprise. The two part one-liner is a simple setup and payoff joke: Ive had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasnt it, Groucho Marx. Slightly more complex is the introduction, validation, violation joke: Every successful date will include three thingsromance, respect, and a ton of chocolate.

How You Say It

Timing is certainly an important part of verbal comedy. You dont want to rush into a punchline, because people need a moment to be prepared for the full impact of your surprise ending. You dont want your pacing to be too slow, or people may lose interest in what you have to say. Understanding where to put emphasis through starts, stops, and pauses is tightly linked to comic characterisation.

Prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Take a simple phrase like, Could you please smile. Someone about to take a photograph might say this in a calm even tone. COULD you please smile, might be said in a way that indicates frustration and anger. If you add a tight smile to the person saying this, a certain irony creeps in. Could YOU please smile, indicates a particular person is called upon to smile. Could you PLEASE smile, is begging. Could you please SMILE, indicates that people are doing something else, like crying or arguing. Sarcasm is when you say one thing and mean something entirely different. Often prosody is involved to make the sarastic intent clear. I am SO happy you invited me, may be how someone sarcastically expresses being unhappy about an invite. The emotion expressed in the reverse may be funny in itselfa bit of vocal absurdity. However, humour may also be derived from the fact that we understand the subtext, when others do not. If the inviter doesnt recognise the sarcasm of the invitee, that person may inflict more unwelcome invites. Mimicry is when you imitate the speech characteristics of another person. This can be done in a cheeky manner, whereby the comedian is directly sending-up the person with whom they are speaking. It may be used to emphasise the strangeness of foreign accents. A comedian can also be caricaturising public figures by exaggerating their speech habits. People enjoy the sense of recognition. They also enjoy some of the mockery. Funny voices takes mimicry to a meta level. The comedian extracts those elements of speech that we find funny no matter to whom we apply them: high voices, low, voices, fast-talking, slow-talking, mispronunciations, etc. You dont even need words. The space aliens in Sesame Street are well-loved for their nonsensical alien speech. Im pretty sure I havent exhausted this subject. I hope you find enough here to start playing around and using maybe a few twists of language you havent tried before. Verbal comedy is a place where real wit can be brought into a story, play, television show, or film.

III Visual Comedies

1) Great comedians don't just talk, but use visual humor as well. Using their body as a tool: a. There is comedy potential in every body part. b. Clothes play a big part (too small or too big). c. Character can look funny. d. (My addition) The body can interact with other props to create humor (or alone). 2) Funny Things: Three Basic Principles:

a. Objects behave in an unexpected way b. Objects go to or appear in an unexpected place. c. Objects shown the wrong size. - Combining these three principles may not make the business more funny. - Jokes depend on sudden shocks and strange transformations that under-mind the laws of our existence. 3) Slapstick and Violence (the earliest and perhaps most crude form): a. The more realistic, the funnier the gag. b. The more dignified the victim, the funnier the gag. c. Shock of violence must be separate from the reality of pain. d. Use of overstatement or understatement create this comedy. 4) Magic & Surrealism (the comedian uses the Illusionist's tricks): a. Appearing and Disappearing - gags are funnier if the character disappears. b. Transformation - must absurd as well as astonishing c. Speeding things up (or slowing down) d. Comedy rooting in fear e. Strange images 5) Imitiation & Parody (a step up, but not the highest form of comedy): a. Exaggeration creates a parody b. Representing authority creates satire. c. Using other's story's or material can create comedy, but the effect lessens with the popularity of the others' material. 6) Mime & Body Language (Moving into character and situational comedy): a. Create an interesting character. b. Can be simply in the shading of a facial expression. c. Not about doing funny things but doing normal things in a funny way: with personality. d. new attitudes make the old joke new. 1. Dim (stupid) - knows less than the audience - has a bewildered innocence. 2. Aggressive - lack of consideration for others. 3. Crude - comedy of social embarrassment or vulgarity. 4. Etc. e. Only if you identify with an attitude will you laugh. f. Charlie Chaplin is one of the most skilled at this type of comedy, but doesn't always get the laugh (while he does draw smiles and emotions).

(We have to make our jokes and characters timeless, though some will argue that Chaplin was timeless) 7) Qualities that transcend time: The character of the physical comedian. a. Like us but different - an alien on the other side of the mirror. b. Innocence - born yesterday Battles with normal objects Constantly makes mistakes Tenacity - keeps doing things when others would've given up. c. Socially Inept - either doesn't understand conventions or doesn't know how to follow them. d. Drunkenness is an alternative to childishness e. Hard to form normal relationships f. Constant hostility from all quarters g. The comedian can't die or get seriously hurt.

IV Screwball comedy
History
Screwball comedy has proven to be one of the most popular and enduring film genres. It first gained prominence in 1934 with It Happened One Night,[2] which is often cited as being the first true screwball. Although many film scholars would agree that its classic period had effectively ended by 1942,[3] elements of the genre have persisted, or have been paid homage, in contemporary film. During the Great Depression, there was a general demand for films with a strong social class critique and hopeful, escapist-oriented themes. The screwball format arose largely as a result of the major film studios' desire to avoid censorship by the increasingly enforced Hays Code. As such, they were routinely able to incorporate adult, risqu elements, such as pre-marital sex and adultery, into their plots.[4] The screwball comedy has close links with the theatrical genre of farce, and some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies. Many elements of the screwball genre can be traced back to such stage plays as Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Other genres with which screwball comedy is associated include slapstick, situation comedy, and romantic comedy.

Characteristics
While there is no authoritative list of the defining characteristics of the screwball comedy genre, films considered to be definitive of the genre usually feature farcical situations, a

combination of slapstick with fast-paced repartee and show the struggle between economic classes. They also generally feature a self-confident and often stubborn central female protagonist and a plot involving courtship and marriage or remarriage. These traits can be seen in both It Happened One Night and My Man Godfrey. The film critic Andrew Sarris has defined the screwball comedy as "a sex comedy without the sex."[5] Like farce, screwball comedies often involve mistaken identities or other circumstances in which a character or characters try to keep some important fact a secret. Sometimes screwball comedies feature male characters cross-dressing, further contributing to the misunderstandings (Bringing Up Baby, I Was a Male War Bride, Some Like It Hot). They also involve a central romantic story, usually in which the couple seem mismatched and even hostile to each other at first, but eventually overcome their differences in an amusing or entertaining way that leads to romance. Often this mismatch comes about because the man is much further down the economic scale than the woman (Bringing Up Baby, Holiday). The final romantic union is often planned by the woman from the outset, while the man doesnt know at all. In Bringing Up Baby we find a rare statement on that, when the leading woman says, once speaking to someone other than her future husband: "He's the man Im going to marry, he doesnt know it, but I am." These pictures also offered a kind of cultural escape valve: a safe battleground on which to explore serious issues like class under a comedic (and non-threatening) framework.[6] Class issues are a strong component of screwball comedies: the upper class tend to be shown as idle and pampered, and have difficulty getting around in the real world. The most famous example is It Happened One Night; some critics believe that this portrayal of the upper class was brought about by the Great Depression, and the poor moviegoing public's desire to see the rich upper class taught a lesson in humanity. By contrast, when lower-class people attempt to pass themselves off as upper-class, they are able to do so with relative ease (The Lady Eve, My Man Godfrey). Another common element is fast-talking, witty repartee (You Can't Take It With You, His Girl Friday). This stylistic device did not originate in the screwballs (although it may be argued to have reached its zenith there): it can also be found in many of the old Hollywood cycles including the gangster film, romantic comedies, and others. Screwball comedies also tend to contain ridiculous, farcical situations, such as in Bringing Up Baby, in which a couple must take care of a pet leopard during much of the film. Slapstick elements are also frequently present (such as the numerous pratfalls Henry Fonda takes in The Lady Eve). One subgenre of screwball is known as the comedy of remarriage, in which characters divorce and then remarry one another (The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story). Some scholars point to this frequent device as evidence of the shift in the American moral code as it showed freer attitudes about divorce (though the divorce always turns out to have been a mistake).

The philosopher Stanley Cavell has noted that many classic screwball comedies turn on an interlude in the state of Connecticut (Bringing Up Baby, The Lady Eve, The Awful Truth). Screwball comedy: a subcategory of romantic comedy, describing in particular a series of comedies made in Hollywood in the 1930s. term 'screwball': - in baseball, pitch whose direction is unpredictable - also slang term for 'crazy' historical context, approximately 1934-1944: - the Great Depression: audiences tended to want escapist entertainment - unrest in Europe followed by war - the second decade after women could vote - screwball comedies generally ignore economic & political issues - characters are mostly wealthy & high society - New York writers went west to write for movies, resulting in sophisticated dialogue Production Code required indirection, displacement in treating sexuality - 'battle of the sexes': physical hijinks and verbal sparring replace overt lovemaking - physical battle: much running around, falling, mild physical aggression, damage to clothing - verbal battle: fast dialog, aggressive speech, insults; use of puns, double entendres, other language with indirect sexual charge - animals (particularly pet dogs) serve as surrogate children or playmates gender issues: - the woman character is generally stronger, takes initiative - lead actress often had top billing - 'madcap heiress' type - lead male character is often of lower social status, though not poor - male character characteristically made to look foolish (though this is necessary to teach him to relax) - secondary male character: straight-laced and conventional ('Ralph Bellamy character') - female equivalent to the Ralph Bellamy character, with same characteristics: Miss Swallow 'conservative' endings: marriage or promise of marriage, but with redefined roles Screwball comedy of remarriage: - the romantic pair are divorced or separated: - sexual experience can be assumed - the plot brings them back together

- in remarriage comedies it is generally the wife who is 'reeducated' about romance, whereas in standard screwball it is more often the man who changes most Tina Olsin Lent, "Romantic Love and Friendship: The Redefinition of Gender Relations in Screwball Comedy" 1930s brought a "reconceptualization of the ideal love relationship between men and women" female taste shaped film markets Screwball comedy's major sources: 1. redefined image of woman: The 'new woman' or 'flapper' of the 1920s: - fun morality & a consumer lifestyle - participation in the workforce ('pink-collar' jobs, but only until marriage) - more egalitarian relationship with men (partners or pals) - but ultimate acceptance of traditional woman's role (goal is marriage and the ideology of domesticity) 2. redefinition of marriage as 'love companionship' Shift of the focus of marital happiness from the family to the romantic-sexual union of husband and wife - courtship consists of shared adventures and fun, friendship develops along with love - value of play - role-playing 3. new idea of cinematic comedy Equal teaming of female & male star Romantic leads are also comic leads Expressions of overt sexuality are replaced by screwball antics: - a response to the Production Code - 'battle of the sexes': verbal and physical sparring, as manifestation (and displacement) of sexual and class tensions. - writing: wit, double entendre, allusion, humor, symbol, & metaphor - rapid dialogue, argument, verbal wrangling: as counterpart to physical action and 'a new symbolic language of love' Wes D. Gehring, Screwball Comedy within American Humor: Defining a Genre: from Screwball Comedy: a Genre of Madcap Romance

Characteristics of the screwball comedy hero: 1. Leisure life, often in high society - Frequent character types: madcap heiress, idle rich, absent-minded professor, newspaper reporter, etc. 2. Childlike nature - Dog (or other pets) as corollary of childhood, or as surrogate child - Male lead may be screwy or its opposite, rigid and unspontaneous 3. Urban environment - Cities often presented as places of irrationality; the screwball process turns fear of cities into fun - Interludes & conclusions often occur in the country (a pastoral environment or Northrop Frye's "green world") 4. Apolitical outlook The screwball protagonist is too busy coping with an irrational world to consider political solutions 5. Basic frustration, especially in relationships with women Screwball heroines dominate men - motif: reversal of sex roles Male character's frustration related to his attempts to live in a rational way; whereas screwball women are more attuned to irrationality - Screwball heroines have a predatory quality, and may anticipate the non-comic 'spider women' of film noir When the male figure dominates in a screwball comedy, there is generally a second, weak male character to balance him

V Dark Comedy
History and etymology
Coinage in France by Andr Breton
The term black humor (from the French humour noir) was coined by the Surrealist theoretician Andr Breton in 1935,[7][8] to designate a sub-genre of comedy and satire[9][10]

in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism,[7][11] often relying on topics such as death.[12][13] Breton coined the term for his book Anthology of Black Humor (Anthologie de l'humour noir), in which he credited Jonathan Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor, and included excerpts from 45 other writers. Breton included both examples in which the wit arises from a victim, with which the audience empathizes, as is more typical in the tradition of gallows humor, and examples in which the comedy is used to mock the victim, whose suffering is trivialized, and leads to sympathizing with the victimizer, as is the case with Sade. Black humor is related to that of the grotesque genre.
[14]

Breton identified Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor, particularly in his pieces Directions to Servants (1731), A Modest Proposal (1729), A Meditation Upon a Broom-Stick (1710), and a few aphorisms.[8][11] The terms black comedy or dark comedy have been later derived as alternatives to Breton's term. In black humor, topics and events that are usually regarded as taboo, specifically those related to death, are treated in an unusually humorous or satirical manner while retaining their seriousness; the intent of black comedy, therefore, is often for the audience to experience both laughter and discomfort, sometimes simultaneously.
[citation needed]

Adoption in literary criticism

Bruce Jay Friedman, in his anthology entitled Black Humor, imported the concept to the United States, labeling with it very different authors and works, arguing that they shared the same literary genre. The Friedman label came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Early American writers who employed black humor were Nathanael West and Vladimir Nabokov. In 1965 a mass-market paperback, titled Black Humor, was released. Containing work by a myriad of authors, which included J.P. Donleavy, Edward Albee, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Vladimir Nabokov, Bruce Jay Friedman, himself, and Louis-Ferdinand Celine, this was one of the first American anthologies devoted to the conception of black humor as a literary genre; the publication also sparked nation wide interest in black humor. Among the writers labeled as black humorists by journalists and literary critics are Roald Dahl, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Warren Zevon, John Barth, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth. The motive for applying the label black humorist to all the writers cited above is that they have written novels, poems, stories, plays and songs in which profound or horrific events were portrayed in a comic manner. The purpose of black comedy is to make light of serious and often taboo subject matter, and some comedians use it as a tool for exploring vulgar issues, thus provoking discomfort and serious thought as well as amusement in their audience. Popular themes of the genre include murder, suicide, depression, abuse, mutilation, war, barbarism, drug abuse, terminal illness, domestic violence, sexual violence, paedophilia, insanity,

nightmare, disease, racism, homophobia, sexism, disability (both physical and mental), chauvinism, corruption, and crime. Comedians, like Lenny Bruce, that since the late 1950s have been labeled "sick comedy" by mainstream journalists, have also been labeled with "black comedy." After Lenny Bruce, others have been Sam Kinison, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Jimmy Carr, Daniel Tosh, Frankie Boyle, Chris Morris and the Monty Python team. By contrast, blue comedy focuses more on crude topics, such as nudity, sex and bodily fluids. Although the two are interrelated, black comedy is different from straightforward obscenity in that it is more subtle and does not necessarily have the explicit intention of offending people. In obscene humor, much of the humorous element comes from shock and revulsion, while black comedy might include an element of irony, or even fatalism. For example, the archetypal black-comedy self-mutilation appears in the English novel Tristram Shandy. Tristram, five years old at the time, starts to urinate out of an open window for lack of a chamber pot. The sash falls and circumcises him; his family reacts with both chaotic action and philosophic digression.

Motion pictures
Major "King" Kong riding a nuclear bomb to oblivion, from the film Dr. Strangelove Black comedy is commonly used in dramatic or satirical films, retaining its serious tone, working as a tool of many films, television shows and video games. Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove presents one of the best-known mainstream examples of black comedy.[9] The subject of the film is nuclear warfare and the possible annihilation of life on Earth. Normally, dramas about nuclear war treat the subject with gravity and seriousness, creating suspense over the efforts to avoid a nuclear war, but Dr. Strangelove instead plays the subject for laughs. For example, in the film, the fail-safe procedures designed to prevent a nuclear war are precisely the systems that ensure that it will happen. Plotwise, Group Captain Mandrake serves as the only sane character in the film, while Major Kong fills the role of the hero striving for a harmful goal.

Television
The most successful television situation comedy also to be a black comedy is M*A*S*H, which, like the film version of M*A*S*H that had inspired it, treated the Korean War as a subject of black comedy; it deliberately kept recorded laughter out of the operating room sequences, and many of the episodes described the absurdity of many combat situations, even in sequences where the characters were weathering hostile fire. Leaving war efforts aside, Black Comedy is a staple of many British Sitcoms, from A League of Gentlemen, Psychoville, Nighty Nighty, to the cult pilot of Lizzie and Sarah and mixed format shows like (Sketch and Stand-up)Tramadole Nights. Nighty Night is a sitcom written and starring Julia Davis (and aired originally on the BBC). It follows the

protagonist Jill, a psychopathic hairdresser from the West Country, in her singular pursuit of Don (played by Angus Deaton) the object of her desire. Told over two series, Jill murders, assaults and emotionally abuses her way towards her end goal. The character is generally unsympathetic and yet plays out in such a way that the audience (almost) ends up routing for her. Tramadole Nights, a Frankie Boyle enterprise (first aired on Channel 4) is perhaps one of few shows that could best Lizzie and Sarah in being the darkest comedy around. Although arguably without the tenderness of character and a more surreal approach. However black humour does not have to be 'adult', as much of the humour derived in the BAFTA winning childrens show Horrible Histories, is derived from human suffering. Involving the long running sketch called Stupid deaths where, like the Darwin awards, humour is derived from the idiocies of the victim, or the freak nature of these deaths. Most episodes include themes of death, disease, war, and famine. In many ways Black comedy is a way of approaching emotionally distressing themes without the emotional distress. It could be suggested that they provide a series of ways in which real life tragedies can be coped and handled. More recent efforts include: Misfits and Vexed