A Conversation for Ask h2g2

Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 1

The Groob

Just thinking that slapstick could perhaps been seen as the laziest sort of humour, but can be laugh out loud funny sometimes. Got any examples?

There's a good one from Auf Wiedersehen Pet. I didn't see the whole programme - only a clip - but the guys were sitting by the swimming pool and there was some kind of police raid (FBI?) where the police said "Get down!" Barry was on the diving board and, in his attempts to get on the floor, he fell off the diving board!

Another funny one from a Tintin book (The Land of Black Gold) I always liked and still raises a smile - the Thompson twins were working undercover in a garage and eavesdropping on someone while filling up a car tyre with air. They got so engrossed in the eavesdropping that they forgot they were filling up the tyre and it exploded! They got sacked smiley - biggrin


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 2

swl

Erick Sykes, "The Plank".

http://youtu.be/JyU6SonN6mc


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 3

Pink Paisley

Delboy blags a job cleaning a chandelier.

Del, Rodney and Grandad cock it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFuYIi5-igc

PP.


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 4

Pink Paisley

And of course, 'Don't think'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6DtyhzABF0

PP.


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 5

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

Any Three Stooges film is going to have a lot of slapstick in it. Pie fights are great slapstick. I remember some pie fights in Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy movies. Any time you see two workmen carrying a piece of lumber and they pass a pane of glass, you just *know* the board is going to swivel and break the glass! There was a lot of slapstick in a Monty Python movie ["And Now for something completely different," I think] in the Japery skit.

The movie version of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had a *literal* example of slapstick. Just after Arthur and his friends land on the Vogons' planet, they walk along, and every time one of them thinks, a stick pokes out of the ground and slaps them smiley - laugh.


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 6

Orcus

Laurel and Hardy in a Sawmill

Laurel and Hardy shifting a piano....

Hmm, just about anything by Laurel and Hardy :D


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 7

tucuxii

http://www.search.ask.com/videos?o=apn10373&gct=kwd&q=sideshow+bob+rakes&tpr=10

Well it made me laugh anyway


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 8

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

" just about anything by Laurel and Hardy " [Orcus]

I totally agree! smiley - ok They can get into more trouble just standing in a small room than anyone could imagine.


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 9

Wand'rin star

Mrs Brown falling into the Christmas tree in last year's Christmas special smiley - starsmiley - star


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 10

You can call me TC

There must be something wrong with me. I can't laugh at any of this. Not even the Tin-Tin one which was only a cartoon. I never laughed at Laurel and Hardy or Abbot and Costello. And whilst I admired Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, I never laughed at anything they did. If someone is getting hurt, they have my sympathy. If they are embarrassed by it, doubly so.

Don't let me stop you lot, though.


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 11

tucuxii

Not even this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63rcdLeXiU8


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 12

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

"There must be something wrong with me. I can't laugh at any of this. " [TC]

I'm sure there's nothing wrong with you. smiley - hug Different people laugh at different things. Are there other things that you do find funny?


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 13

You can call me TC

Oh yes - I'm not that smiley - weird!! Always up for a giggle!


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 14

You can call me TC

I had a look at that youtube clip. No. Not funny. Saw it coming. As, of course, you were supposed to. It would have been funnier if he'd done something else. Youtube suggested to me a clip of collected Blackadder bloopers. That DID bring a smile to my lips (Stephen Fry getting hysterical when he tripped up over some lines)

Anyway - back to funny slapstick, whether I believe in it or not.


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 15

Bluebottle

There are superb examples of slapstick in the Pink Panther films - but it is Peter Sellers' expressions that make it funny. Also the Monty Python films.

Sadly I've seen the films too often to find them funny now, as I know when the jokes are coming.smiley - blue

<BB<


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 16

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

" I've seen the films too often to find them funny now, as I know when the jokes are coming." [Bluebottle]

When the Monty Python did live shows, they could count on cues from the audience when they forgot their lines. smiley - laugh


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 17

Baron Grim

Don't worry about it, TC. Humor is the epitome of a subjective subject. Humor defies definition and quantification. When one thinks about humor, one realizes just how ineffable it is. We all think we have a sense of humor until we try to define what's funny and why it is. I've given a lot of thought to humor. I haven't any answers, but I have a lot of thoughts.

For example, I see a modern trend in humor that totally escapes me. Many of the modern comedy films leave me completely flat. I usually point to Napoleon Dynamite. I found this to be one of the unfunniest films I've ever seen. Yet many in their 20's and 30's find it hilarious, or at least they laugh quite boisterously at it. I have a theory on this. It has in common with shows like Family Guy and Tim and Eric's shows what seems to me as not humor, but awkwardness and dissonance. Many scenes inspire discomfort in the viewer rather than mirth and the younger audiences, being a bit more repressed than earlier generations, relieve this nervous feeling with laughter.

But that's just my subjective opinion.

Humor is a very philosophical subject.


Further Reading: http://www.iep.utm.edu/humor/


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 18

tucuxii

..or as the Red Baron put it in Black Adder

"'How lucky you English are to find the toilet so amusing. For us, it is a mundane and functional item. For you it is the basis of an entire culture.'"


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 19

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

On my side of the Atlantic, it is believed that jokes about death can never be very successful -- with certain exceptions such as "My Weekend with Bernie." Particular criticism was leveled at the novel "Bonfire of the Vanities," in which a guest at a restaurant died. The lesson was that you should not even try to get laughs out of death. However, the British "Fawlty Towers" had an episode about a guest who died in his room. Then American television came up with their version of the inn-with-an-exasperating-owner. They called it "Amanda's Place," and starred Beatrice Arthur. That show also had an episode in which a guest died. The series died very soon.

A British movie called "Death at a Funeral" was very successful [and funny, as far as I was concerned]. There was the earlier "The Wrong Box."


Can you think of funny examples of slapstick?

Post 20

Florida Sailor All is well with the world

What about Arsenic and old Lace?
I recall that play to be quite amusingsmiley - biggrin

F smiley - dolphin S


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