COMEDY GENRE OVERVIEW TYPES OF COMEDIES Slapstick Slapstick

COMEDY GENRE OVERVIEW

TYPES OF COMEDIES - Slapstick • Slapstick was predominant in the earliest silent films • Highlighted by physical comedy such as violence, horseplay, and light vulgarity. • Slapstick often required exquisite timing and well-honed performance skills. • Most commonly seen in the films of • Laurel and Hardy • Abbott and Costello • W. C. Fields • The Three Stooges

TYPES OF COMEDIES – Dark Comedy • Mixing elements of comedy and tragedy • Dark comedies often have death, war or illness as a central theme. • Dark comedies tend to use sophisticated techniques like irony and innuendo • Some dark comedies have successfully blended broad humor as well

TYPES OF COMEDIES – Romantic • Romantic comedies frequently feature couples that seem completely wrong for each other at the start of the story yet fall madly in love by the conclusion. • Romantic comedies often use mistaken identity, strong supporting character roles, and plot twists to make the plot more dynamic because the genre is very formulaic as is.

TYPES OF COMEDIES – Parody • By making fun of the stereotypes, conventions and clichés of a particular genre, parody comedies often poke fun at certain types of genres. • Examples are Airplane! (1980)-which made fun of early disaster movies, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)-which spoofed spy films and Scary Movie (2000)-which took on modern horror movies.

TYPES OF COMEDIES – Musical • Many comedies often have their own musical numbers whether or not they were musicals. • The Marx Brothers' movies included a musical number in nearly every film. • Used the “other world” feeling of musicals to portray comedy in a new light

HYBRID/SUBGENRE COMEDIES Dramedy Horror-comedy Comedy-thriller Crime/caper comedy Sports comedy Coming-of-age comedy Social-class comedy Military comedy Fish-out-of-water comedy Gross out comedy

HISTORY OF COMEDY

FACTS • Genre of comedy began in Theater • A performance that relies heavily on humor • Hybrid/Sub genres tend to be used more since comedy can be put into almost any other genre

EARLY FILMS/SILENT FILMS COMEDY • Silent films started with Physical Humor and made most silent films what they were • Silent film comedies began in the late 1800's • 1912 first American Comedies first began with Key Stone Studios • Mainly Slapstick comedies in this time period

CHARLIE CHAPLIN • Recruited by Keystone pictures • Resisted "talkies" most of his career except for 2 films • Was a if comedian for the movies from 1914 -1952 • Died in 1977

JOHN HUGHES AND COMEDY • Made huge comedy hits in the 1980's • Big hits consisted of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Home Alone, Etc.

COMEDIES GOALS • To amuse its audience • Make the audience laugh • Have a happy ending

COMEDY RULES • Don't have someone in danger • Nobody gets hurt • Only exception to someone getting hurt is Black Comedy

VIDEO EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMEDIES