Beethoven's Fight

[filkertom]

By way of digby and Tristero at Hullabaloo, the genius Sid Caesar and the babe-a-licious Nanette Fabray:

Got any kewl comedy video to share?

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

What a great ending, and a fantastic comeback to anyone that says mime can't be funny :-)

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

I don't know about "can't be funny," but I'm honestly not seeing the humour here. (Seeing an awful lot of sexist stereotyping and condescension -- probably faked, but ick -- written all over Caesar's face.) Maybe in the 1950s, a horribly stereotyped mime of a man and a woman having an argument was the height of physical comedy, but honestly, from where I'm sitting, it just looks weird. (It looks visually weird, too -- this must've been filmed before they figured out that tv does best with small, subtle movements.) I suspect I'm a little younger than most of the crowd here, though.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I'll try to explain what it is I find amusing about it in the hope it will at least enlighten you about why I enjoyed it, though explaining humour is always going to be an uphill struggle (for example while I can explain the Three Stooges, I just don't like their stuff)

1) the basic idea that this Beethoven piece can be interpreted (and it's a form of interpretive dance really that's happening here) as an argument is an interesting and amusing conceit.

2) like most mime (walking against the wind etc.) it's portraying in broad brushstrokes basic concepts, though I actually fail to see the sexist stereotyping you see ... I see a couple arguing, about to make up and then the "wife" (and yes, it's set in the past, so they are portraying standard characters or stereotypes, as that's a common part of comedy even today (see just about any sitcom) finds a long hair on his clothes that doesn't match her hair and kicks him out, then she pats the dog/cat and finds that the hair of the animal *does* match the one on his suit, and they have a happy reconciliation. It's a three or four panel comic strip acted out to music.

3) yes it looks weird, but then so does ballet

4) yes the TV production quality is terrible, particularly the burn out on her face.

5) I didn't see the condescension on Sid's face, but I wasn't looking for it ... he's portraying a character, just as Alf Mitchell and Carroll O'Connor did. Often in comedy people portray characters that are ignorant, pompous, petty, greedy, or have some other character flaw because it amuses people to see such characters make mistakes due to their flaws and suffer for them (Mr.Bean being a particularly egregious example). If this character was being sexist and condescending, then the treatment he received right up to the end should have been amusing to you ... similarly the wife's assumption that a hair was proof of an affair and the realisation that she was wrong was a deflation of her making assumptions about the poor quality of husband she'd chosen.

It's not as funny as, say, who's on first, or a fair bit of the Marx Bros. body of work, but it's clever (in my opinion), and it's too long, but the ending is funny and the plot is farce.

The trouble with farce is that it has been vastly over exposed in the last however long, so it has lost a lot of its freshness ... and then it still relied on embarrassment humour which I really can't stand.

However I could enjoy this because it was an interpretive piece set to music I know well (so like An American in Paris, or the interpretive bits of Fantasia) ... as a comedy sketch it's hackneyed and old, but as a musical interpretive piece, it's still got some legs.

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

Brilliant!

Bunches of comedy video collected

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

We all at The Mad Music Archive (http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/index.aspx) have collected bunches of links to comedy on youTube (and a few other sources). Enter 'youTube' in the search and it will find all references to it in the forums, including the links in the song forums. Found in these main forum threads:

Mad Music on youTube (http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/thread.aspx?TopicID=1054)
More Mad Music on youTube (http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/thread.aspx?TopicID=1417)
Even More Mad Music on YouTube (http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/thread.aspx?TopicID=1607)
Evener Morer Mad Music on YouTube (http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/thread.aspx?TopicID=2338)
sketches and stand ups on YouTube (http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/thread.aspx?TopicID=2329)
Mad Pirate Music at youtube.com (http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/thread.aspx?TopicID=2361)

That should keep you busy 'till Tuesday.

-Ryan

[jss]

The Hallelujiah Chorus and Nine Inch Noels are what I've seen lately that tickle my fancy.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see what they were doing during the "Ode To Joy"!

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Oh my gods I had never seen that before! That is AMAZING!!! Thank you!

EDIT: unfortunately the ones I'd like to share I haven't been able to find. Someone, probably the guy who did the singing dogs (Jim Franklin?), made stop-motion videos of two Stan Freberg numbers ("Banana Boat Song" and "Yellow Rose of Texas") using Bugs Bunny and Speedy Gonzales bendy toys. Well, I thought they were funny, and the visuals added to the effectiveness of the songs. But they seem to have gorn without trace. Ah well.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Brilliant. Thanks so much for sharing! (Too bad they don't make 'em like that anymore.)

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

Not exactly comedy, but this teaser for Persepolis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxu0h8R8iUg) always makes me smile. (best version of 'Eye of the Tiger' ever)

The same goes for this Keepon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPdP1jBfxzo) video. I mean, who doesn't like cute dancing robots? Aside from Luddites and Sarah Conner.

And speaking of robots, here's a group of death machines (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hNDZ79MDC0) trying to figure out Schrodinger's cat.