In comedy, a visual gag or sight gag is anything which conveys its humour visually, often without words being used at all. The gag may involve a physical impossibility or an unexpected occurrence. [1] The humor is caused by alternative interpretations of the goings-on. [2] Visual gags are used in magic, plays, and acting on television or movies.
The most common type of visual gag is based on multiple interpretations of a series of events. [3] This type is used in the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps . Lead actor Robert Donat was kidnapping actress Madeleine Carroll and they were handcuffed. When they checked into an inn, the innkeeper assumed that they were passionate lovers because of the handcuffs. [2] The film used dialogue that could be interpreted both ways. [3]
Another visual gag is a switched image, often at the beginning of a film. A subsequent view of the scene shows something not viewed before. [4] Switched movement may be the gag, such as Charlie Chaplin in The Pawnshop . Chaplin fights with his coworker and aims to punch at him once. Their boss walks in mid-swing and Chaplin changes the motion to act like he was dropping to his knees to scrub the floor. [4]
Noel Carroll established the most influential taxonomy of sight gags, breaking down the varieties into six types, two of which are enumerated below.
Mutual Interference: The audience is fully aware of the on-screen situation, but a character comically misunderstands
Mimed Metaphor: A variety of virtual simile an object may be treated as if it is a different object or be used in an unconventional way, such as acting like a doughnut is a barbell or using a tuba as an umbrella holder. [5]
There are numerous examples in cinema history of directors who based most of the humor in their films on visual gags, even to the point of using no or minimal dialogue. Visual gags began in live theater. [2] The first known use of a visual gag in a film was in the Lumière brothers' 1895 short, L'Arroseur Arrosé ("The Waterer Watered"), in which a gardener watering his plants becomes the subject of a boy's prank. [6] An early pioneer in visual gags was Georges Méliès. The filmmaker experimented with techniques in the then-new film media creating techniques to trick viewers. [2]
Vaudeville actors often used gags in their routines. A classic vaudeville visual gag was for two actors to mirror each other's actions around a prop. [7] Visual gags were continued into silent films and are considered a hallmark of the genre. [2] In silent films, the actors in the mirror bit performed in silence with no music playing. [7] Comedians including Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and the Marx Brothers [7] often used visual humour because the technology used to record voices in film (and play it back in a synchronized presentation) did not yet exist. Often the differences between people are part of the comic duos, especially thin and fat actors are used such as Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy. [8]
The New York Times cites the fourth Gilligan's Island episode, "Goodnight, Sweet Skipper", as a classic American sight gag. [9] The castaways were trying to contact civilization with a radio. In the episode, Skipper can recall only how he converted the radio into a transmitter in World War II when he was sleepwalking. After Skipper was unsuccessful, Gilligan got it to work by pounding on the radio; he used it to briefly contact a pilot flying overhead. Gilligan retrieved Skipper and demonstrated how he pounded on the radio, causing the guts of the radio to fall out. Their rescue was foiled. [9]
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes on humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh in amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending. Comedy is one of the oldest genres in film and it is derived from classical comedy in theatre. Some of the earliest silent films were comedies such as slapstick comedy which often relies on visual depictions, such as sight gags and pratfalls, so they can be enjoyed without requiring sound. To provide drama and excitement to silent movies, live music was played in sync with the action on the screen, by pianos, organs, and other instruments. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1920s, comedy films grew in popularity, as laughter could result from both burlesque situations but now also from humorous dialogue.
A pun, also rarely known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic, homographic, metonymic, or figurative language. A pun differs from a malapropism in that a malapropism is an incorrect variation on a correct expression, while a pun involves expressions with multiple interpretations. Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, especially as their usage and meaning are usually specific to a particular language or its culture.
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as saws and ladders.
Gilligan's Island is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz. The show's ensemble cast features Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells. It aired for three seasons on the CBS network from September 26, 1964, to April 17, 1967. The series follows the comic adventures of seven castaways as they try to survive on an island where they are shipwrecked. Most episodes revolve around the dissimilar castaways' conflicts and their unsuccessful attempts to escape their plight, with the ship's first mate, Gilligan, usually being responsible for the failures.
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolish, or employing prop comedy. A comedian who addresses an audience directly is called a stand-up comedian.
Bernard "Ben" Turpin was an American comedian and actor, best remembered for his work in silent films. His trademarks were his cross-eyed appearance and adeptness at vigorous physical comedy. A sometimes vaudeville performer, he was "discovered" for film while working as the janitor for Essanay Studios in Chicago. Turpin went on to work with notable performers such as Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, and was a part of the Mack Sennett studio team. He is believed to have been the first filmed "victim" of the pie in the face gag. When sound came to films, Turpin chose to retire, having invested profitably in real estate, although he did do occasional cameos.
The Tramp, also known as the Little Tramp, was English actor Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character and an icon in world cinema during the era of silent film. The Tramp is also the title of a silent film starring Chaplin, which Chaplin wrote and directed in 1915.
Silent comedy is a style of film, related to but distinct from mime, invented to bring comedy into the medium of film in the silent film era (1900s–1920s) before a synchronized soundtrack which could include talking was technologically available for the majority of films. Silent comedy is still practiced, albeit much less frequently, and it has influenced comedy in modern media as well.
Circus clowns are a sub-genre of clowns. They typically perform at circuses and are meant to amuse and entertain guests.
A mime artist, or simply mime, is a person who uses mime, the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a theatrical medium or as a performance art. In earlier times, in English, such a performer would typically be referred to as a mummer. Miming is distinguished from silent comedy, in which the artist is a character in a film or skit without sound.
Funny Business is a BBC television documentary series about the craft of comedy. Originally airing in the UK on 22 November 1992 the series consisted of six 50-minute episodes, with each one focusing on a different aspect of humour and show business entertainment. The Series Producer was Sarah Williams and was produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for the BBC. The series was also broadcast in Germany and New Zealand and later released on video.
Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary, television, and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorized under three types: "black comedy, parody and spoof." It often crosses over with the black comedy genre. Comedy horror can also parody or subtly spoof horror clichés as its main source of humour or use those elements to take a story in a different direction, for example in The Cabin in the Woods, Trick 'r Treat, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, Shaun of the Dead, Beetlejuice, Gremlins, An American Werewolf in London and the Evil Dead franchise.
Gilligan is a fictional character played by Bob Denver on the 1960s TV show Gilligan's Island and its many sequels. Gilligan, affectionately called "little buddy" by the "Skipper", is the bumbling, dimwitted, accident-prone first mate of the SS Minnow. His first name, given in the pilot episode, is Willie. He wears a trademark red shirt, pale trousers, white sneakers, and white navy cap.
The Property Man is a short 1914 American comedy silent film made by Keystone Studios starring Charlie Chaplin.
Comedy 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.
In the early history of cinema, trick films were short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects.
French comedy films are comedy films produced in France. Comedy is the most popular French genre in cinema.
American comedy films are comedy films produced in the United States. The genre is one of the oldest in American cinema; some of the first silent movies were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. With the advent of sound in the late 1920s and 1930s, comedic dialogue rose in prominence in the work of film comedians such as W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers. By the 1950s, the television industry had become serious competition for the movie industry. The 1960s saw an increasing number of broad, star-packed comedies. In the 1970s, black comedies were popular. Leading figures in the 1970s were Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. One of the major developments of the 1990s was the re-emergence of the romantic comedy film. Another development was the increasing use of "gross-out humour".
Celebrity comics are comics based on the fame and popularity of a celebrity. They are a byproduct of merchandising around a certain media star or franchise and have existed since the mass media and comics came into existence in the 19th century. Celebrity comics are usually not held in high esteem by critics, because of their purely commercial nature. They are solely created to capitalize on media trends and therefore published so quickly and cheaply that drawings and narratives tend to be of very low quality.
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