Portal:Comedy

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The Comedy Portal

Comedy (from the Greek: κωμῳδία, kōmōdía) is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which engender dramatic irony, which provokes laughter.

Satire and political satire use comedy to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of their humor. Parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them.

Other forms of comedy include screwball comedy, which derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters, and black comedy, which is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways, which can often be taken as offensive by the subjects of said joke. A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper-class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love. (Full article...)

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Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel is a situation comedy radio show starring two of the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Chico, and written primarily by Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman. It was broadcast in the United States on the Blue Network between November 28, 1932, and May 22, 1933. Episodes were initially broadcast live from NBC's WJZ station in New York City, then later from Radio Pictures in Los Angeles, California, before returning to WJZ for the final episodes. The series depicts the misadventures of a small law firm, with Groucho as attorney Waldorf T. Flywheel and Chico as Flywheel's assistant, Emmanuel Ravelli. Many of the episodes' plots were drawn from the Marx Brothers' films. The show garnered respectable ratings for its early-evening time-slot though it did not return for a second season. The episodes were thought not to have been recorded, as was usual at the time, although the scripts were stored in the Library of Congress. In 1988, 25 of the 26 scripts were rediscovered and published, and a complete recording of the final episode was later found. Adaptations of the recovered scripts were performed before modern audiences and broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Radio 4 in 1990.

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Credit: Jastrow

Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost, i.e. preserved only in relatively short fragments by authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis. New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander.

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...that Groucho Marx joined Hillcrest Country Club even though it was willing to have him as a member?

... that the episode of 30 Rock titled "Sandwich Day" was actress Johnnie May's second appearance in the series, after playing a blood donations nurse in the episode "Tracy Does Conan"?
... that Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! won the 2009 Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for comedy?

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Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite.

— Christian Morgenstern

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Matthew Abram Groening (born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist and television producer and writer from Portland, Oregon. Groening is best known as the creator of The Simpsons. He is also the creator of the comic Life in Hell and co-creator of Futurama. Life in Hell caught the attention of James L. Brooks. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation for the FOX variety show The Tracey Ullman Show. Originally, Brooks wanted Groening to adapt his Life in Hell characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening decided to create something new and came up with a cartoon family, the Simpsons and named the members after his own family, except Bart, which was an anagram of the word brat. The shorts would be spun off into their own series: The Simpsons, which has since aired over 400 episodes in 19 seasons. In 1997, Groening got together with David X. Cohen and developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000. After four years on the air, the show was cancelled by Fox, but Comedy Central commissioned 16 new episodes to be aired in 2008. Groening has won 10 Primetime Emmy Awards, nine for The Simpsons and one for Futurama as well as a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for his work on Life in Hell.

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... that the title of the romantic comedy film Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven mentions the three places that had the biggest box-office appeal in the 1940s?
... that the 2018 Nepali comedy-drama Mr. Virgin was criticised for its title?
... that Japanese pool player Naoyuki Ōi once responded to a question asked at a press conference with lyrics from the comedy song "Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen"?
... that "Storm Area 51" was a comedic Facebook event intended as a raid on Area 51 in search of aliens?
... that many of the teen actors in the Jane Withers comedy film High School had been guests at her thirteenth birthday party?
... that the 2019 romantic comedy Kabaddi Kabaddi Kabaddi set the record for the highest-grossing opening of a film in Nepal?

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Main topics

Comedy

Terms: Black comedy • Comedian • Comedy club • Comedy of manners • Convention (norm) • Irony • Komos • Parody • Political satire • Race humor • Restoration comedy • Satire • Screwball comedy • Surreal humour • Taboo • Toilet humor

Comedy genres: Bouffon • Comedy film • Anarchic comedy film • Gross-out film • Parody film • Romantic comedy film • Screwball comedy film • Slapstick film • Comic novel • Dramedy • Improvisational comedy • Musical comedy • Stand-up comedy • Alternative comedy • Impressionist (entertainment) • One-liner joke • Comedy genres • Sketch comedy • Television comedy • Radio comedy • Situation comedy • Tragicomedy

History of theatre: Ancient Greek comedy • Ancient Roman comedy • Burlesque • Citizen comedy • Clown • Comedy of humours • Comedy of manners • Comedy of menace • Comédie larmoyante • Commedia dell'arte • Face • Jester • Restoration comedy • Shakespearean comedy • Dadaist/Surrealist • Theatre of the absurd

Comedy events and awards: British Comedy Awards • Canadian Comedy Awards • Cat Laughs Comedy Festival • Edinburgh Festival Fringe • Just for laughs • Halloween Howls Comedy Festival • Melbourne International Comedy Festival • New York Underground Comedy Festival

Lists: List of comedians • List of British comedians • List of Canadian comedians • List of Finnish comedians • List of German language comedians • List of Italian comedians • List of Mexican comedians • List of Puerto Rican comedians • List of Indian comedians • List of British TV shows remade for the American market • List of comedies • List of New York Improv comedians

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