{"id":918,"date":"2011-07-22T16:20:01","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T16:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=918"},"modified":"2011-07-22T16:23:19","modified_gmt":"2011-07-22T16:23:19","slug":"the-why-of-funny-5-saw-it-coming-and-balloon-go-bang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/07\/22\/the-why-of-funny-5-saw-it-coming-and-balloon-go-bang\/","title":{"rendered":"The Why of Funny #5: Saw-It-Coming and Balloon-Go-Bang"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the trailer for the Simpsons<\/i> movie, Homer is seen working on the roof of his home, with Bart in attendance. He carefully positions the next nail and holds it in place with one hand, his thumb sitting right on top of the nail head. He pulls the hammer back with his other hand, preparing to pound the nail home. He draws back the hammer once, twice, and then \u2013 this time with extra vigour \u2013 buries the claw of the hammer into his eye. A second later, that section of the roof collapses and he plunges two storeys. Our delight at the extent to which we were right and wrong about Homer\u2019s fate makes us laugh: we thought we knew what was coming, but the detail was better than we had anticipated.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That comedy has to be surprising is no revelation. We all know that a joke is funniest the first time you hear it, and so pretty much every example we\u2019ve seen so far has had some element of Balloon-Go-Bang<\/strong> in it. If you begin the Spike Milligan joke<\/a> with: \u201cHere\u2019s a story about how a guy kills his best friend,\u201d you ruin the effect of the punchline. However, it\u2019s also true that surprise by itself is not enough to be funny. A surprise can also be shocking or just confusing, like a sentence that ends with a word that doesn\u2019t seem to make grammatical floorwax.<\/p>\n

What is also interesting is the extent to which some comedy depends on the audience knowing exactly what is coming next, why sometimes you have to set up an expectation in order to subvert it,\u00a0and why sometimes an audience can see even that<\/span> coming.<\/p>\n

Cause-and-effect drives every kind of story from a simple sketch to a great epic. Removing cause-and-effect makes a story seem episodic, surreal or rambling. In the Simpsons<\/em> example above, the set\u00a0up makes a promise<\/span> to the audience: Homer is going to hurt himself. The existence of Homer in the\u00a0scene already suggests this, since we know what Homer\u2019s character is, but by putting him in a high\u00a0place and giving him a hammer, the promise is made more explicit. The audience will feel cheated if\u00a0the promise is not fulfilled, unless they get something better than they had anticipated<\/span>.<\/p>\n

When Homer puts his thumb over the head of the nail, again we have that same feeling of \u201cwe know\u00a0what\u2019s going to happen\u201d. This time, however the promise is more specific. Homer will bang his\u00a0thumb. And now, we\u2019re a bit disappointed. We\u2019re being palmed off with a clich\u00e9 we\u2019ve seen before.\u00a0Surely The Simpsons<\/em> can do better than this? But as Homer lines up his first pound of the hammer,\u00a0we can\u2019t see any alternative until, suddenly, the hammer smacks into his face, delivering the general\u00a0promise perfectly, while still surprising us. While we are still recovering from this, the roof gives way\u00a0and Homer is even more severely hurt, to our continuing delight.<\/p>\n

Balancing these two forces of anticipation and surprise is the art of comic timing. And part of this is\u00a0sustaining an absence<\/span> of comedy within a comedy form, because of the release that the audience\u00a0will experience when something funny finally happens. Both the Dave Allen \u201cFrankenstein\u201d sketch\u00a0and the Smith and Jones<\/em> sketch already quoted make great use of this effect. And here\u2019s a famous\u00a0example from Peter Cook, attempting to explain to a one-legged man why he will be unsuitable for\u00a0the role of Tarzan.<\/p>\n

COOK: Now, Mr Spiggott, you, a one-legged man, are applying for the role of Tarzan.
\nMOORE: Yes, right.
\nCOOK: A role traditionally associated with a two-legged artiste.
\nMOORE: Yes, correct, yes, yes.
\nCOOK: And yet you, a unidexter… are applying for the role.
\nMOORE: Yes, right, yes.
\nCOOK: A role for which two legs would seem to be the minimum requirement. Well, Mr\u00a0Spiggott, need I point out to you with overmuch emphasis where your\u00a0deficiency lies as regards landing the role?
\nMOORE: Yes, I think you ought to.
\nCOOK: Perhaps I ought, yes. Need I say, without too much stress, that it is in the leg\u00a0division that you are deficient.
\nMOORE: The leg division?
\nCOOK: The leg division, Mr Spiggott. You are deficient in the leg division to the tune of\u00a0one. Your right leg I like. It\u2019s a lovely leg for the role. As soon as I saw it come in,\u00a0I said, \u201cHello! What a lovely leg for the role!\u201d
\nMOORE: Ah!
\nCOOK: I\u2019ve got nothing against your right leg.
\nMOORE: Ah.
\nCOOK: The trouble is\u2026 neither have you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The whole sketch an elaborate repetition of essentially the same exchange (neither party is affected\u00a0by the encounter, and the status relationship is completely static). Once the surprise of the initial\u00a0juxtaposition has worn off, all the emphasis is put on the insights generated by Peter Cook\u2019s way\u00a0with words, which luckily does not desert him here. Each time Cook speaks we know<\/span> he is going to\u00a0find another way of putting the same information, and towards the end of the sketch, he delays, by\u00a0means of nearly half-a-dozen straight lines, his final glorious pun. A very similar engine drives both\u00a0The Parrott Sketch and The Cheese Shop sketch as well as, no doubt, very many others.<\/p>\n

It is this combination of anticipation and surprise which is at the heart of the Rule of Three. A\u00a0perfectly dreadful joke from an old BBC sketch show called Three of a Kind<\/em> will nonetheless\u00a0exemplify the form (I may have misremembered the details).<\/p>\n

ULLMAN: I\u2019ve just accidentally drunk some petrol. I washed the taste out of my\u00a0mouth with lemonade.
\nHENRY: I\u2019ve just accidentally drunk some petrol. I washed the taste out of my\u00a0mouth with fruit juice.
\nCOPPERFIELD: I\u2019ve just had a cup of coffee in the BBC Canteen. Anyone got any petrol?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a lousy joke, because its moment of insight is trivial and the satire is weak, but structurally it is\u00a0perfectly formed. The first two iterations establish the expectation. The third iteration is the earliest\u00a0moment where one can violate the expectation (and so the most efficient). This one, two, three\u00a0structure appears in numerous guises, and not just in comedy.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the humour lies in the mere fact of repetition. Laurel and Hardy spend 20 minutes trying\u00a0to get a piano up a flight of stairs in their Oscar-winning short The Music Box<\/em>. The sight of it sliding\u00a0back down the seventh time is arguably funnier than the first time. Or, take Steve Coogan\u2019s\u00a0monotone swimming pool security guard from The Day Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n

COOGAN: This pool’s been open nearly forty years and, in all that time, I only slipped\u00a0up once, to my mind. I was engaged in a particularly tricky word puzzle and\u00a0forty people had broken in and were in the pool, playing around, ducking,\u00a0bombing and doing all manner of prohibited activities, and eventually\u00a0someone was killed.
\nINTERVIEWER: But given that your sole responsibility is to maintain the security of the pool,\u00a0isn’t that an indictment against yourself?
\nCOOGAN: Well, I would say this \u2013 I’ve been working here for eighteen years, and in\u00a01975 no one died. In 1976, no one died. In 1977, no one died. In 1978, no\u00a0one died. In 1979, no-one died. In 1980… some one died. In 1981, no one\u00a0died. In 1982 there was the incident with the pigeon. In 1983, no one died.\u00a0In 1984, no one died. In 1985, no one died. In 1986… I mean, I could go on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The mere fact of repetition here is funny. Slapstick often strikes us a funny because we see a person<\/span>\u00a0become a mechanism<\/span>, or an object<\/span> (Del Boy\u2019s famous fall through the bar is justly famous because\u00a0David Jason\u2019s body is entirely rigid, pivoting exactly at the feet). Repetition (and also rhyming)\u00a0creates a similar effect, verbally.<\/p>\n

A character trait is a deeper and more effective way of delivering the same combination of surprise\u00a0and anticipation. If set up, it feels like Saw-It-Coming<\/strong>. If it comes as a surprise, then it feels more like\u00a0an Oh-I-See<\/a><\/strong> reincorporation. When Larry David can\u2019t get rid of a cocktail stick at a party, we are just\u00a0waiting and waiting for it to injure someone or otherwise embarrass Larry (it ends up scratching Ben\u00a0Stiller\u2019s cornea). Conversely, during a tense battle of wits in an episode of Friends<\/em>, anal-retentive\u00a0Monica hides in Joey\u2019s bathroom while Chandler attempts to seduce Phoebe (on Monica\u2019s orders).\u00a0Briefly returning to the bathroom for a pep talk, Chandler looks around him. \u201cDid you clean in here?\u201d\u00a0he asks in disbelief.<\/p>\n

Given a character with a famous catch-phrase, an audience is often waiting in delicious anticipation\u00a0to finally hear the words they know are coming. And once a character and a catchphrase has been\u00a0established, artful comedians will delay, and delay, and delay the moment when they finally come\u00a0out with it, perhaps leading the audience to conclude that it will never be said, or that the character\u00a0has changed fundamentally, only to reveal it again at the last moment. The Fast Show<\/em>, Little Britain<\/em>\u00a0and Catherine Tate<\/em> all use this very successfully.<\/p>\n

Building up, sustaining and then releasing tension is a fundamental aspect of storytelling of all kinds.\u00a0Particularly obvious is the way it is often combined with dramatic irony to sustain suspense, and the\u00a0same mechanism is at work in constructing farces, where tension is created through a secret being\u00a0sustained (sometimes unwittingly). Eventually the secret must come out and the tension can be\u00a0released.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the best combination of these two elements is the first one discussed, where the general\u00a0promise is kept in a way more satisfying or original than the specific promise. Del Boy and Rodney\u00a0taking down the chandelier in \u201cA Touch of Glass\u201d is another famous example of this. Having\u00a0hubristically volunteered their services as expert chandelier-cleaners, Del finds himself and Rodney\u00a0up a pair of stepladders, stretching out a blanket underneath 200lbs of cut glass. In the floor above,\u00a0Grandad has undone the fastenings and is ready to release the final bolt. \u201cRight\u2026 brace yourself,\u201d\u00a0Del tells Rodney as Grandad knocks the bolt through the ceiling. We cut back to a long shot of Del\u00a0and Rodney only to see a second chandelier in the distance plunge to the ground and shatter.\u00a0The specific promise (that they will struggle to support the chandelier in the blanket) is swept aside\u00a0in glorious furtherance of the general promise (that they aren\u2019t competent to take down a\u00a0chandelier).<\/p>\n

Notice as well that here the tension is released and the stakes are raised<\/span> as opposed to the bathetic\u00a0examples discussed under Mangos-In-Syrup<\/a><\/strong> where the tension was released and the stakes were\u00a0lowered. The former is of much more use for sit-coms or comedy movies, whereas the latter can be\u00a0used more safely with sketch comedy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the trailer for the Simpsons movie, Homer is seen working on the roof of his home, with Bart in attendance. He carefully positions the next nail and holds it in place with one hand, his thumb sitting right on top of the nail head. He pulls the hammer back with his other hand, preparing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[229,226,220,168,224,228,221,195,219,225,215,223,227,191,180,222],"class_list":["post-918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-catherine-tate","tag-curb-your-enthusiasm","tag-dudley-moore","tag-friends","tag-laurel-and-hardy","tag-little-britain","tag-monty-pythons-flying-circus","tag-only-fools-and-horses","tag-peter-cook","tag-slapstick","tag-spike-milligan","tag-the-day-today","tag-the-fast-show","tag-the-simpsons","tag-the-why-of-funny","tag-three-of-a-kind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-eO","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":931,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions\/931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}