naming a comic device
OK. We've got to think of a name for this. I'm thinking of a certain type of joke that happens on sitcoms. It began cropping up in the 80s, maybe first in "Family Ties." What happens is this: one character refers to some funny event in the other character's past, or their collective past, that is outside the viewer's direct knowledge. The other character then attempts to defend himself, but in the process actually confirms the funny or embarrassing thing.
Is there currently a name for this type of joke? If not, we desperately need one.
Naming things can be so good. For instance, to take another comic device, in Friends (a show that used the above kind of gag a lot, though to less cheap effect than most) there was another pattern that Catherine and I began calling Revelation Escalation, in which the characters in turn reveal more and more embarrassing things about each other to an innocent third person. They always timed it masterfully and picked good things to say, so once again it felt natural rather than cheap.
Which leads us to wonder exactly what it is about certain sitcoms (Friends, Frasier) that make them feel so natural and make the jokes so organic whereas others (all others) feel so shrill and convulsive? One had a fleeting hope that Joey would be a cut above, but no: characters again and again say things that smell like a setup a mile away. How hard can it be?
Anyway. Hm. What to call that gag? Or is there already a name for it in the biz? If nothing else, merely naming it could help it to stop. Think about what the term "political correctness" did to curb all that earnest silliness in public life in the early nineties.
Niles: Oh, come on, Frasier, you were always a ham. Even in our grade-school version of Oklahoma you took so many curtain-calls Mrs Norris had to finally pull you offstage with a hoe.
Frasier: Mrs Norris! She never understood me *or* the part of Farmer Number Three!
Is there currently a name for this type of joke? If not, we desperately need one.
Naming things can be so good. For instance, to take another comic device, in Friends (a show that used the above kind of gag a lot, though to less cheap effect than most) there was another pattern that Catherine and I began calling Revelation Escalation, in which the characters in turn reveal more and more embarrassing things about each other to an innocent third person. They always timed it masterfully and picked good things to say, so once again it felt natural rather than cheap.
Which leads us to wonder exactly what it is about certain sitcoms (Friends, Frasier) that make them feel so natural and make the jokes so organic whereas others (all others) feel so shrill and convulsive? One had a fleeting hope that Joey would be a cut above, but no: characters again and again say things that smell like a setup a mile away. How hard can it be?
Anyway. Hm. What to call that gag? Or is there already a name for it in the biz? If nothing else, merely naming it could help it to stop. Think about what the term "political correctness" did to curb all that earnest silliness in public life in the early nineties.
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