Day 33: Laugh - or Not - but Learn in "Make 'Em Laugh"

This is just finishing up the last two episodes of the PBS series – on DVD as well.

Film 27: “Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America” (2009) (PBS)

Never Give a Sucker An Even Break: The Wiseguys and
Sock it to Me?: Satire and Parody

Two quotes, both from the “Wiseguys” episode, finish up this series for me perfectly:

“I’m not really great at describing why something is funny because there’s nothing more boring than that.” – Judd Apatow

“I’m almost never comfortable. I’m never comfortable, and I think most comedians have this thing where they’re too aware of things. And you know what they always say, ‘Ignorance is bliss.’ So what’s the opposite? What’s the opposite? To be aware of every little thing, to notice everything. It’s hell. There’s a kind of hell to that.” – Chris Rock

I chose the first because even in the middle of fantastic gag reels from “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life,” and Carol Burnett’s infamous Scarlett O’Hara curtain-rod dress scene, I sometimes found myself wondering whether this was a Ken Burns wanna-be Guide to Comedy – heavy on biography and short on levity.

I chose the second because it explains the first. Before watching this series, I thought I didn’t enjoy comedy that relied on making people uncomfortable (e.g. “The Larry David Show” or Kathy Griffin). Now I realize that all socially relevant comedy does exactly that. Outside the pure nonsense of the Laurel and Hardy “Who’s on First?” routines, which were fashioned during the tense war years, every comic profiled here pushes someone’s button. Some of those buttons don’t bother me; some do. But that has everything to do with me, and very little to do with whether the comedian is intrinsically funny.

“Make ‘Em Laugh” in fact has showed me something great – my own funny button. Or as my uncles always liked to refer to it – the key to the “giggle box.”

Yuck it up, fuzzball.

Tomorrow: Sexual Adventure in 1929 Hollywood - pre-Code, baby!