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aGnLdY NCu WltuHreI TaEt tihs eL eUcntuivreerr siinty Towfe Snatilefothrd Century Literature
John Mundy and Glyn White
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
Laughing matters
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Laughing
Matters
Understanding film, television and radio comedy
John Mundy and Glyn White
MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS
Manchester
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Copyright © John Mundy and Glyn White 2012
The right of John Mundy and Glyn White to be identified as the authors of this work has
been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA, UK
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 0 7190 8314 3 hardback
ISBN 978 0 7190 8315 0 paperback
First published 2012
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any
external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee
that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Typeset in Calluna with Candara display by
Koinonia, Manchester
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Contents
List of illustrations vi
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
Part I: Comedy forms
1 Silent film comedy 23
2 Early sound film comedy 45
3 The romantic comedy film 65
4 Radio comedy 81
5 Television comedy 100
6 Comedy and genre boundaries 130
7 Animated comedy 149
Part II: Themes, effects and impact of comedy
8 Comedy, gender and sexuality 173
9 Comedy and cultural value: from bad taste to gross-out 207
10 Comedy, race and ethnicity 231
Conclusion: ‘You had to be there’ 254
Appendix: Writing an undergraduate essay about comedy
in film, television or radio 259
Select bibliography 261
Index 273
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List of illustrations
1 Buster Keaton and Marion Mack in The General (United Artists
1926). page 8
2 Oliver Hardy in the opening sequence of Beau Hunks (Hal Roach 1931). 59
3 Will Hay as schoolmaster in Good Morning Boys (Gainsborough 1937). 62
4 Tony Hancock’s Hancock’s Half Hour ran on BBC radio 1954–9 and
on BBC Television 1956–60. 94
5 The cast of The Phil Silvers Show (aka Sergeant Bilko) (CBS 1955–9). 111
6 The cast of the BBC’s most repeatable sitcom Dad’s Army (BBC
1968–77). 116
7 The cast of distinctive hospital comedy Green Wing (Channel Four
2004–6). 120
8 Doris Day and Rock Hudson, stars of Pillow Talk (Universal 1959). 181
9 Benny Hill, star of The Benny Hill Show (ITV Thames 1969–1989). 215
10 Sacha Baron Cohen promotes Borat (Twentieth Century Fox 2006). 225
11 A crucial scene from terrorist comedy Four Lions (Film Four 2010). 228
12 Bill Cosby as Dr Clifford Huxtable in The Cosby Show (NBC 1984–1992). 246
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Acknowledgements
Over the several years that this project has been in the works we have accrued
debts of gratitude to many more people than can be individually named and
thanked among our colleagues, students we have taught, friends and family.
We have also gained a lot from attenders and speakers of the annual Comedy
conferences at the University of Salford in 2007–11. We would like to thank
Matthew Frost, the readers of our proposal and all at Manchester University
Press who have had a hand in shaping this book.
John would like to thank colleagues and students at the University of
Central Lancashire and the University of Salford for sharing an enthusiasm
for comedy and particularly to thank the School of Media Music and Perform-
ance at Salford for a period of sabbatical leave. As always, thanks to Karen,
Ellyn and Alice.
Glyn would like to thank colleagues past and present for help with this
project, and the following individuals, without attempting to shift any blame
to them: Douglas Field, for timely reassurance; Peter Krämer, for advice on
teaching comedy film; Alan Peterson, for detailed feedback; Ian W. White,
for as far back as I can remember; Michaela Schoop, for retaining a sense of
humour and creating the cover illustrations; and Edmund, William and Greta
for learning jokes along the way.
[ vii ]
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To students of comedy
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Introduction
Our aims in writing this book have been fourfold. Firstly, we want to
produce a wide-ranging introductory academic book for students and
teachers interested in studying comedy on film, television and radio (and for
anyone else with an analytic interest in these media). Secondly, we want to
discuss key issues around comedy through analysis of significant and revealing
comedy texts from these media. Thirdly, on the basis of our teaching experi-
ences, we want to show students how to respond to comedy analytically; that
is, to write about it interestingly and originally, referring to – but differing
from – other writers on the same or similar comedic texts. Finally, we hope to
point the way for new research in the area, knowing that we couldn’t possibly
cover all aspects of this vast field alone.
Our focus and the choices we have made
The title of this book, Laughing Matters, signals both our focus on comedy and
our belief in its social, psychological and cultural importance. Still a relatively
mysterious form of human behaviour, laughter appears to be a universal
human experience. One research study suggests that we laugh, on average,
eighteen times a day, mostly in the evening, and mostly owing to common
social incidents rather than formal jokes (Rappoport 2005: 25). In this book our
focus is on professional comedy, and particularly the films, programmes, jokes,
gags, slapstick and narrative situations that are produced by people whose job
it is to make us laugh. This is not to deny the importance of what we might call
everyday laughter that runs throughout all our lives, as when we share a joke
with a work colleague, or laugh at some incident on the street. Such ‘amateur’
moments of laughable incongruity are important, but they are not something
that can – or indeed should – be recreated for a wider audience since, as we
often say when we attempt unsuccessfully to recount the joke, ‘you had to be
there’. Instead we highlight film, television and radio as the key media in deliv-
ering comedy for mass consumption. Of course ‘comedy’ is not just a genre
but a meta-genre far beyond the scope of a project of this size to encompass
entirely. Among the media and performance modes that we largely or wholly
[ 1 ]
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