Brooks

Examples of comedies from http://www.filmsite.org/comedyfilms.html: Comedies are "make 'em laugh" films designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are light-hearted dramas, crafted to amuse, entertain, and provoke enjoyment. The comedy genre humorously exaggerates the situation, the language, action, and characters. Comedies observe the deficiencies, foibles, and frustrations of life, providing merriment and a momentary escape from day-to-day life. They usually have happy endings, although the humor may have a serious or pessimistic side. There are many sub-categories of comedies: (1) **Slapstick**

Slapstick was predominant in the earliest silent films, since they didn't need sound to be effective, and they were popular with non-English speaking audiences in metropolitan areas. The term //slapstick// was taken from the wooden sticks that clowns slapped together to promote audience applause. This is primitive and universal comedy with broad, aggressive, physical, and //visual// action, including harmless or painless cruelty and violence, horseplay, and often vulgar sight gags (e.g., a custard pie in the face, collapsing houses, a fall in the ocean, a loss of trousers or skirts, runaway crashing cars, people chases, etc). Slapstick often required exquisite timing and well-honed performance skills. It was typical of the films of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, W. C. Fields, The Three Stooges, the stunts of Harold Lloyd in [|**Safety Last (1923)**], and Mack Sennett's silent era shorts (for example, the Keystone Kops). Slapstick evolved and was reborn in the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s (see further below).

(2) **Deadpan**

This form of comedy was best exemplified by the expression-less face of stoic comic hero Buster Keaton.

(3) **Verbal comedy**

This was classically typified by the cruel verbal wit of W. C. Fields, the sexual innuendo of Mae West, or the verbal absurdity of dialogues in the Marx Brothers films, or later by the self-effacing, thoughtful humor of Woody Allen's literate comedies. (4) **Screwball**

Screwball comedies, a sub-genre of romantic comedy films, was predominant from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s. The word 'screwball' denotes lunacy, craziness, eccentricity, ridiculousness, and erratic behavior.

(5) **Black or Dark Comedy**

These are dark, sarcastic, humorous, or sardonic stories that help us examine otherwise ignored darker serious, pessimistic subjects such as war, death, or illness. Two of the greatest black comedies ever made include the following: Stanley Kubrick's Cold War classic satire from a script by co-writer Terry Southern, [|**Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)**] that spoofed the insanity of political and military institutions with Peter Sellers in a triple role (as a Nazi scientist, a British major, and the US President), and Robert Altman's **M*A*S*H (1970)**, an irreverent, anti-war black comedy set during the Korean War. Another more recent classic black comedy was the Coen Brothers' violent and quirky story [|**Fargo (1996)**] about a pregnant Midwestern police chief (Oscar-winning Frances McDormand) who solves a 'perfect crime' that went seriously wrong.

(6) **Parody** or **Spoof -** also **Satire, Lampoon** and **Farce**

These specific types of comedy (also called put-ons, send-ups, charades, lampoons, take-offs, jests, mockumentaries, etc.) are usually a humorous or anarchic take-off that ridicules, impersonates, punctures, scoffs at, and/or imitates (mimics) the style, conventions, formulas, characters (by caricature), or motifs of a serious work, film, performer, or genre

Examples of comedies from http://www.scriptologist.com/Magazine/Tips/Comedy/comedy.html:

A long-standing, continuing trend in comedy films is a storyline based on the antics of dysfunctional people. Consider the current box office hit, //[|Meet The Fockers]//, a sequel to //Meet The Parents//. And past successes like //As Good As It Gets, [|Animal House], The Addams Family,// and //The Royal Tenenbaums// share common elements.

Screenwriters who want to write comedy screenplays can benefit from understanding what makes these films truly comedic.

Here are some common elements that these films share: > > > In //Meet The Parents//, Greg Gaylord Focker (Ben Stiller) is so eager to please and make a good impression that he doesn't think about the consequences of his actions before he acts. Greg tries so hard to fit in and be accepted by his girlfriend's family that he accidentally sets a fire, gets out of control in a water volleyball game, and spray paints a cat to look like the family's lost cat.
 * The protagonist has a [|character flaw] he's not aware of. This flaw is so exaggerated that it leads to outrageous behavior, which becomes very funny.
 * Audiences can identify with the protagonist's [|character flaw] because it's a common, human flaw. That's what makes audiences laugh— they recognize this basic flaw in themselves.
 * The protagonist's [|character] [|flaw] impedes his relationships with others. Everything he does becomes self-defeating, out of control, and funny.
 * He becomes conscious of his flaw only when there's a crisis.

In //Meet The Fockers//, Greg's girlfriend is now his fiancée, and the comedy centers around his future in-laws meeting his parents. Greg's parents turn out to be as dysfunctional as Greg, and the outrageous antics continue.