Chad Froomkin

September 23, 1999

Group Seven

Physical Comedy is overlooked in today’s comedy world. When most people think of physical comedy they think of the days before movies projected sound. They think of Mack Sennett and the Keystone Kops and how his production studio revolutionized slapstick comedy. They think of Charlie Chaplin with his little moustache and hat and the patented Chaplin waddle. There is also Buster Keaton, who was called “The Great Stoneface,” because although people were laughing at him he never had a smile on his face. Harold Lloyd is another great example of physical comedy. He was the first person to really use death-defying stunts as comedy. Finally there was the great comedy team of Laurel and Hardy, who were adults, but always acted like a bunch of children. Even though the development of sound in movies made silent film of the past, it didn’t eliminate physical comedy completely.

One comedian today that could be compared with the silent greats of the past is Rowan Atkinson, better known as Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean is as silent of a comedian as there is in today’s age of comedy. Every part of his comedy is based on the physical aspect, and the reactions that he gives and that other people give to him. Most of his skits would not be funny if it wasn’t for hi always widening his eyes, or him always blowing air out of his mouth. Also with his type of visual comedy he has to do some things that trick the human eye. For example, in the testing skit where he was tying to cheat of the guy’s paper that was sitting next to him, he moved himself on his chair, and made it look like he was being pushed or he was not the one controlling where he was going. Just that trick and his demeanor during the trick was one of the funniest parts of the skits. Not all of the real funny physical comedy is silent, though.

One actor that interacts physical comedy and scripted comedy is Jim Carrey. He got his start in the comedy clubs in Los Angeles, and his spiel was that he would bend his body every which way and bend his arms behind his head, making himself look like a human Gumby toy. He continued doing this on the television show “In Living Color.” He did this with such characters such as Fire Marshall Bill, where he would curl his upper lip and always catch things on fire, or with the she-male aerobics instructor, where he would do all of the bending and the flexible stunts that made his stand-up routine take off. Hollywood soon noticed his talent and decided to put him up on the big screen.

One of Carrey’s first feature films was Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. This movie created classic physical scenes that people still remember and even imitate today. One of those scenes was the slow motion scene. He acted like he was a running back scoring a touchdown in slow motion. It looked so real that it was hard to believe there were no camera tricks involved. Another classic physical scene in a Carrey movie was in Liar Liar. He needed and excuse to postpone the case he was representing in court, but he could not lie about it. So, he went into the bathroom and started beating himself up. He was hitting himself, running into walls, banging his head against the sink, and flushing his head in the toilet. It is scenes like these that make Carrey one of the greatest physical comedians today.

It was on a show that was influential to “In Living Color,” where physical skit comedy originated. The show is “Saturday Night Live” and it gave us such great physical comedians like Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, John Belushi, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Chris Farley, and Adam Sandler. Even in the recent cast there are the likes of Molly Shannon, Will Ferrel, and Chris Kattan who use different variations of physical comedy. The classic SNL alumni who is probably most known for his physical comedy would have to be the late John Belushi. Even though he died in 1982 his face is still seen every day in college dorms and on the front of many t-shirts. On SNL he would always run through walls and beat himself up for a laugh. One of the most famous Belushi scenes was in Animal House, and even though he didn’t utter one word, the scene was still drop-dead funny. At the bottom of the stairwell there was a guy singing a folk song and playing a guitar in the middle of a toga party. As the guy sings, the audience sees Belushi arrive at the top of the steps. The camera would pan to the folk singer, then pan to Belushi with a kind of bewildered, yet disgusted look on his face. After the camera pans to the singer and then to Belushi a couple more times, Belushi just loses it and takes the guitar and shatters it into a million pieces. Belushi’s style of comedy was influential to so many comedians, but maybe the person who was influenced the most by Belushi was Chris Farley.

Farley was probably considered the nineties version of Belushi. On SNL he did the physical comedy that Belushi did like beating himself up all the time, falling over and breaking things, and breaking out into bursts of rage. Another sad comparison was that they both died before their time, because of heavy drug abuse. Not only did Chris Farley model his comedy after Belushi, but he also modeled his outrageous lifestyle after his. Even before his death though, Farley established himself as one of the greats.

Some of his most memorable moments were during his SNL years. The most famous was probably Matt Foley, motivational speaker. Just the way he would move his arms and his body when he talked was so distinctive, and before the skit ended he would always fall over on a table and bust it completely. Another classic Farley skit was Da Bear’s skit. Toward the end of every skit, Farley would always fake having a heart attack. He would just start pounding on his chest and then fall over. You still see people imitating that today.

The start of sound in movies didn’t totally diminish the art of physical comedy. Just because the movie is not silent does not mean there is no visual or physical comedy contained in the movie. Today’s actors revolutionized physical comedy in the film and television industry so much that the boundaries of physical comedy in the future are unlimited.