COMEDY

     existential appeal

•           hostility, laugh AT....,aggression, tendentious
•                misunderstandings, misalliance
•                enjoy misfortunes of other, not me, ritual protection
•                imperfections, foibles
•                insults, cuts, putdowns
•                derision
•           wish fulfillment
•           absurdity, incongruity
•                irony of fate
•                gallows humor, doctors, racial minorities
•                exaggeration
•                betrayal, the switch
•           grossness, baby's attitude toward physicality, infantile
•           playing off different realities against each other; levels of experience and awareness; forbidden feelings
•           frustrated expectations, unresolved contradictions, tension release
•           culturally impolite, burlesque conventions, deflate the pompous and pretentious
•           satisfaction and protection from awareness of hostility-- comedy about the poor, about racial conflict, HAIRSPRAY
•           opening up a space for new attitudes, feelings
•           social criticism and anger that is otherwise taboo
•           daring

     elements of comedy

•           detachment, comic distance, no permanent harm
•                destructiveness
•                out of control
•           flatten characters, types, less empathy, sometimes overdrawn, not trying to be funny
•                comic character, physical and emotional traits
•                exaggeration
•                overdrawn event, comic premise, sutation
•           we know, they don't; glad it's them doing the embarassing thing
•                fantasy, not for real, set up early on as comedy
•           timing, allow for the laugh
•                mix of serious and light
•                fast paced
•                running gags
•                tension, build and payoff or topper, rule of three
•                build to the payoff, delay even more
•                reversals, switch --ann takes candy away
•                rule of three
•                recall, pull up a comic bit several times, with retrospect and new version
•           physicality--infantile
•                stage business
•                props, devices
•                chase, bonk, spy
•                comic bit--cockroach
•                visual joke, pratfalls
•                comic reaction
•           verbal tactics, dialogue
•                understatement
•                punch line, surprise twist, topper
•                one liners
•                funny stories
•                puns, malapropisms--gross and absurd misuse of words
•                irony, meaning is opposite
•                allusions--"credibility gap"
•                double entredres
•           parody
•                spoof, play it out exaggeratedly, MONTY PYTHON
•                satire-play it out subtley
•                irony
•                     contrast
•                     understatement
•                     imitation
•                     mockery masked in politeness