Laughing Out Loud Page 10

  5. Zany minor characters and subplots help define the main couple. Brooks and Andrus have penned a very funny gay couple in Melvin's building, Simon Bishop (Greg Kinnear) and Frank Sachs (Cuba Gooding Jr.), whose lives become intertwined with Melvin's once he tosses Simon's dog down the garbage chute. Subsequently, after a gay bashing, Simon needs help in caring for the dog and then for himself. Not only does Melvin's gradual and at first grudging acceptance of Simon and Frank trace his growing unfolding as a caring figure, but these moments also include many of the best broadly humorous scenes in the film. All of this culminates in this great exchange late in the film:

  SIMON: I love you, Melvin.

  MELVIN: I tell you, buddy, I'd be the luckiest man alive if that's what did it for me.

  6. Sparkling dialogue. As witnessed by the above quote, much of the film is memorable for the swift and witty exchanges. Part of the fun of the dialogue is the gap Brooks and Andrus expose between what is being said and what is actually going on between Melvin and Carol. Take the following example:

  CAROL: Do you want to dance?

  MELVIN: I've been thinking about that for a while.

  CAROL: (Standing up) Well?

  MELVIN: No.

  Concise, pithy, to the point and totally in character. Melvin would not be "nice" and say, "Well, I would like to but I'm not a good dancer" or "Maybe later" or "I'd be too self-conscious as an old guy on the floor with such a looker as you!" And yet part of what works so well in this exchange is that we know Melvin cares for Carol. He just has a screwball way of expressing it.

  7. The film comments on the times. The message of the film is the old one of redemption through love, and redemption involves acceptance and the embracing of values different from your own. The Nicholson figure would be a very unfunny character if viewed outside the confines of comedy: he is a bigot and a racist, and, as Roger Ebert comments, "He hurls racist, sexist, homophobic and physical insults at everyone he meets." But it is part of the appeal of comedy that narratives can be constructed in which new communities of friends and lovers accept each other for who they are.

  Furthermore, through the lens of comedy Brooks and Andrus offer glimpses of the difficulties of life for a single bright female parent, for gays who become victims of gay bashers, and for less-than-stereotypical romantic couples. As odd a couple as Melvin and Carol turn out to be, there is beneath it all a lot more realism in As Good As It Gets than in a sappier romance built on pure stereotypes, such as Pretty Woman with its handsome rich guy (Richard Gere) and whore with a heart of gold (Julia Roberts).

  8. The embrace ending is also ironic. No wedding bells in As Good As It Gets. Instead we have Melvin and Carol standing outside a New York bakery, waiting to get some of the first rolls of the morning (does this qualify as a "half-baked" ending?). It is an embrace in that a romance has been born. And it is ironic in hindsight in that this coming together is nothing either they or we would have predicted. We can add too that it is a quiet ending. After everything from slapstick to flying insults, Brooks fades out, pulling back, watching a man and a woman talking on an early-morning city street.

  Learn from the rich legacy of television comedy in all its forms. Take inspiration from the best of what makes you laugh, add in what you have learned from the non-television comic traditions we have discussed, and then take on chapter 10 (for a close look at Seinfeld and The Simpsons) and chapter 12, which asks you to come up with your own comedy series.

  There is a lot about television per se that lends itself well to comedy. British media scholar Steve Neale has noted, for instance, that "Television itself, with its separate segments, slots, and schedules, and its different genres and types of programs, can be considered a variety form" (179). We begin with the simple observation that television, in one form or genre or another, has an almost endless need of writers of comedy, gags, jokes, episodes, and comic films. Far more writers of comedy are working in television than in feature films. What I propose in this chapter is to survey the landscape so that you have a clearer idea of which part of the comic television spectrum you wish to approach in chapter 12, when you write with television in mind.

  Garry Marshall is one of the most successful writers of television comedy ever, having worked on Laverne & Shirley, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Odd Couple, Happy Days, and Mork & Mindy. He feels that comedy is stronger than ever on American prime-time television and showing no signs of slowing down. He offers ten tips for today's sitcom writers. I include them here because I think they apply to all television comedy writing:

  i. Write from your life.

  2. Write for the Stars.

  3. Use swear words when pitching scripts.

  4. Learn to write physical and visual comedy.

  5. Demonstrate you can save the producer a dollar.

  6. Marry well, or date superbly.

  7. Find a good writing partner.

  8. Don't blow your own horn.

  9. Find out what the other writers hate to write and write about that to establish your own identity.

  io. Follow proper cast party protocol. (Marshall, 24-26)

  I leave it to you to think about items 6 and io! But the rest are most useful and sensible for all of your television writing, from network material to local cable.

  Let us turn to the two major areas of television comedy, stand-up-oriented comedy and situation comedy, and see what elements each embraces. We will then look into two variations of sitcom writing: the ensemble comedy and animated episodic comedy.

  Stand-up: Anarchistic Comedians

  "Stand-up" did not come into popular coinage until the i96os (Bushman, 23), but we should be aware that the practice in the United States of standing up and making a room full of people laugh stretches back to Mark Twain, who toured widely as a professional lecturer, and even earlier. Stand-up roots can also be seen in minstrel shows and later in vaudeville, both for team comedy-a comic talking to a straight man or woman-and for monologists. Will Rogers, for instance, combined his western persona and stage presence as a clown, and as we have outlined in chapter 4, so many comics, from Bob Hope to Milton Berle, got their start in direct vaudeville performance. Stand-up comedians have traditionally done well on television in variety shows, talk shows such as The Tonight Show, and the sitcom.

  The stand-up's main appeal is as a kind of social mirror reflecting the constant changes in our cultural values and attitudes. Think about the careers of Jackie Gleason, Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Bob Newhart, Jonathan Winters, Shelley Berman, Nipsey Russell, the Smothers Brothers, Dick Gregory, Phyllis Diller, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Carol Burnett, Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Joey Bishop, Ellen DeGeneres, or Jerry Seinfeld, to mention a few, and you can trace many of the vast shifts in American culture over the past fifty years. There were those who pushed the envelope on social change and injustice, such as Dick Gregory and Lenny Bruce in the late 195os and the 196os, and then there are those in the 199os such as Paul Reiser, Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld, who reflect a less politically involved and much more sardonic and narcissistic involvement with what critic Tom Shayles has called "the everyday trivia of modern life" (Bushman, 48).

  We can consider the stand-up comedian an anarchist to the degree that his or her task is to be disruptive, to push the envelope of acceptability in language, taste, stories and subject matter. He or she tends to make fun of sex, politics, religion, manners, gender and racial issues, everything. And yet, the rules of stand-up are clear: the person up there has diplomatic immunity to say and do just about anything. We are, once again, defining the same freedom that we have traced the carnivalesque as embodying: the complete freedom of fantasy and festivity, but shared with a group and therefore accepted as a special kind of community that joins comedian and audience.

  Back up a moment, however, to acknowledge how much of television comedy-both stand-up and sitcom-derives from radio. In the United States, radio developed a rather straightforward varie
ty-show format early on, often taken almost completely from the vaudeville circuit. Shows such as The Eveready Hour, Roxy and His Gang and The Chase and Sanborn Hour put forth a mix of "slapstick on the air" with music, routines, jokes and running commentary. But what has come to be called "situation comedy" really started on the radio, as stars realized if they had a comic persona and a set character, the jokes would be more unified and effective. The characters were consistent; it was the show's "situation" that changed. Jack Benny turned out to be an early pioneer in situation (or, more accurately, "character") comedy with his radio show, which lasted until 1955 (Neale & Krutnik, 215). This became true also of Amos 'n Andy and shows by Fred Allen and by George Burns and Gracie Allen as they moved from a daily fifteenminute format to a weekly thirty-minute show (ibid., 219). But television restored the visual element that vaudeville had so depended on, and early television was once more able to showcase anarchistic, vaudeville-like variety shows.

  Now let us return to anarchistic, spirited stand-up television comedy: in the past twenty-five years in the United States, Saturday Night Live has been a prime example of this tradition.

  Skit Comedy

  What was and is the essence of Saturday Night Live, which has turned twenty-five and suggests no signs of aging? Creator Lorne Michaels puts it best: "The show is working when we're doing exactly what you were hoping we would be doing, in a way that you hadn't thought we'd be doing it. In a way that is truly funny and original" (Cader, 8). Not delivering what you expect, therefore-that element of surprise-is definitely what we look forward to from these wildly anarchistic comedians. They are absolutely exploded mimes, and they explode regularly every Saturday evening.

  But Michaels goes farther, to suggest what a community of laughter they have created. He says that this approach "is in the best sense, broadcasting-when a lot of people are having the same experience at the same time and talking about it the next day. That will always be the core experience of the show" (ibid.). Furthermore, he emphasizes that what counts most is writing and performance.

  The role of writers? James Downey, a longtime writer and producer on the show, makes it clear that the biggest misconception about the show is that there is a lot of improvisation going on. The opposite is the case: everything is scripted. Thus the writing is key. The hardest part of the show these days? "It's hard to find fresh, sincere, non-ironic stuff that hasn't already been worked over," notes Downey (Cader, 28).

  At the heart of the show is the anarchistic freedom to try just about anything and everything. Furthermore, there is the fun of bringing on so many different kinds of guests, ranging from early guests such as George Carlin, Paul Simon and Buck Henry on down to Ralph Nader, Julian Bond, Steve Martin, 0. J. Simpson, Frank Zappa and the Rolling Stones, to mention but a few.

  But within the framework of "anything goes," certain themes, formulas and patterns have become, if not standard, certainly familiar. Characters and motifs recur over the years. Think, for instance, of their parodies of commercials ("Green & Fazio Law Offices: Dial i-Soo-HARASSS" or the two-seater Love Toilet, for instance). Samurai skits in the early years (Samurai Divorce!), Gumby, Church Lady, the Sweeney Sisters, Hans and Franz, Wayne's World, Pat, the Richmeister. Now consider the sense of total carnival that has been true for each performer on the show.

  Because the stand-up tradition of American television represents a coming together of vaudeville influences (particularly in its loose structure), commedia dell'arte (physical farce) and nightclub acts (wit and joke routines), it is worth looking back at two shows from those glory days of live comedy in the i95os: The Ernie Kovaks Show and The Steve Allen Show.

  Ernie Kovaks was Hungarian by birth and acknowledges that this ethnic background added to his wry take on the universe as he was growing up in New Jersey. He broke into live radio at a time when he was allowed to be quite anarchistic: he did his own gags, sound effects, routines in a wildly surrealistic vein. When he moved to television, he had already developed a wonderfully nutty sense of absurdist humor, using sound and verbal humor. And he took to visual humor, both as a mime and combining visuals and sound, very swiftly. He was, in fact, like all the Marx Brothers in one person. I can remember, for instance, being cracked up as a kid by his Nairobi Trio-three gorillas (Ernie being one) playing one nutty little tune over and over again-which appeared regularly on the show. Some of his shows are available on tape, and it's worth seeing them. He also had the freedom to do his own ads for Dutch Master cigars, which sponsored the show. With his beautiful wife, Edie Allen, playing both the beautiful blonde and the "straight gal" to his outrageous behavior, he would create commercials that were often funnier than many of the routines on the show. In one, for instance, two cowboys face off for a shootout, one of them smoking a Dutch Master cigar. They draw and shoot, and the Dutch Master cowboy is shot full of holes we can see throughwith smoke pouring out of each hole! And the ad simply ends with "Smoke Dutch Master Cigars!"

  Steve Allen also combined a vaudeville-like mixture of humor, music (he played piano), skits and a carnivalesque sense of playfulness and experimentation, but in an hour-long format. With a set group of cronies to help out, including Don Knotts and others, every Sunday evening was a delight. There was, for instance, the "Man in the Street" segment, where the camera went outside the studio theater for live interviews with bystanders and the show's regulars.

  In both cases, there was a more easygoing attitude about putting together live and taped skits, set characters and new comic experiments for that overall feeling we all brought to watching such shows: "What will they do next?" It's worth building new shows from that same spirit of playfulness and daring experimentation.

  Sitcom Then and Now

  How many millions of people around the world- not just the United States -have been entertained week after week, year after year, and then indefinitely in reruns by shows with names like I Love Lucy and The Phil Silvers Show in the 1950s, and Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet in the i96os. In the 1970s we laughed with reality-based shows such as All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Maude. The 198os delivered The Cosby Show, M*A*S*H, Roseanne, Cheers, Murphy Brown. And the 199os delighted one audience or another with Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Ellen, Northern Exposure, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Mad about You, Grace under Fire, Everybody Loves Raymond, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Friends, Frasier, and King of the Hill.

  Technically, "sitcom" defines half-hour episodic comedy (thus Northern Exposure and other hour-long shows would not qualify if we were being strict about terms). Perhaps the main point to make about any definition of sitcom is that at heart, the genre depicts set characters and a set location, which is traditionally the home or the workplace. As James L. Brooks said about working with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "When somebody called Mary a sitcom, we'd be furious. We weren't doing sitcom. We were doing character comedy" (Neale, 236).

  American Family Values

  Many of the shows concern families, which may be upper middle class (The Cosby Show) or working class (All in the Family, Roseanne), single parent (Grace under Fire) or black (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). The reason for such comic focusing over the years on families is well known. Television is in the home, and home means, for millions, a family and family territory. Family sitcoms thus acknowledge the importance as well as the problems of American family life, and by each episode's close must re-assert the value of the family unit as more significant than any individual disagreements.

  Recognize also the changing American values represented in family sitcoms. I Love Lucy (1951-57) was popular after World War II, as American women were trying to redefine their roles within home and workplace after years of having gained independence outside the home. The early 196os gave us fantasy white middle-class families such as the one in Ozzie and Harriet, with their guitar-strumming son, Ricky Nelson. And the 1970s brought us Norman Lear's more realistic shows such as All in the Family, which were not afraid to show a working-class family
dealing with prejudice, stereotypes and controversial issues. The 198os offered a wide spectrum of family values, ranging from Roseanne's overweight, bluecollar popularity to The Cosby Show's fantasy role models for a rising African American, affluent middle class. Finally, the 199os have given us animated families (The Simpsons and King of the Hill), brothers as family raising children when the wife of one is dead (Full House), young two-career couples trying to balance career and marriage (Mad about You), and, as we will mention, families made of chosen friends (Friends) or simply roommates and neighbors and ex-girlfriends (Seinfeld).

  In addition, observe how many sitcoms could be better described as "standup sitcoms" in that the stars began in stand-up. Thus I would emphasize the flexibility of the genre, which appears elastic enough to take on elements of anarchistic comedy within a group of set characters.

  Variation # 1: Ensemble and/or Just Single

  From M*A*S*H to Friends, episodic comedy has also promoted the notion of friends as family, with all the positive and negative implications of such a statement. Such a group of diverse characters is held together by friendship or necessity or both. As Mick Eaton writes, "The necessity for the continuity of character and situation from week to week allows for the possibility of comedy being generated by the fact that the characters are somehow stuck with each other" (37).

  We will take a close look at Seinfeld in chapter 10, but there is a very simple attraction to the ensemble comedy series: we get to see seemingly endless combinations of people who can get on each other's nerves but who also pull together against Outside Forces that threaten them in some way. That tension propels us from week to week, be it in the battlefield hospital of M*A*S*H, the bar crowd in Cheers, or the split between office and apartment life in Friends, Ellen and other shows focused on singles.