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Anarchic comedy (or wacky comedy) is a genre of cinema using nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness humor. Films of this nature stem from a theatrical history of anarchic comedy on the stage. Jokes and visual gags are utilized, usually in a non sequitur manner that eschews narrative for sheer absurdity. Like farce, anarchic comedy uses wildly exaggerated characters and situations to provide humor, but unlike farce, where any outrageous event springs from the situation, the gags used in this type of comedy have no narrative context. The gags are often similar to slapstick, but with less emphasis on physical violence and more emphasis on comic antics. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Image File history File links Circle-question. ... Look up genre in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a literary technique which seeks to portray an individuals point of view by giving the written equivalent of the characters thought processes. ... // The origin of Asian theatre can be traced to over 3500 years ago, beginning with early forms of theatre. ... A farce is a comedy written for the stage, or a film, which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely and extravagant - yet often possible - situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include puns and sexual innuendo, and a fast-paced... Look up Humour in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated physical violence. ...

History

The anarchic comedy has its roots in the low-brow popular stage, namely the circus, minstrel shows, the traveling medicine and Western shows, vaudeville, burlesque, and the music hall. In these venues, especially the last three, comic business came in the form of sketches which generally had no self-contained narrative. Since the performers needed to get immediate reactions from the audience, any and all appropriate jokes were thrown in these sketches at the expense of telling a story. The Big Top of Billy Smarts Circus Cambridge 2004. ... Detail from cover of The Celebrated Negro Melodies, as Sung by the Virginia Minstrels, 1843 The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the American Civil War, African Americans in blackface. ... Vaudeville is a style of multi-act theatre which flourished in North America from the 1880s through the 1920s. ... Photograph of Sally Rand, 1934. ... Music Hall is a form of British theatrical entertainment which reached its peak of popularity between 1850 and 1960. ...

Silent Anarchic Comedy

This type of moment-by-moment comedy made its way into early film. From the dawn of the medium through the mid-1910s, film comedies either showed one single gag – like the Lumière brothers' L'Arroseur Arrosé (The Sprinkler Sprinkled) – or, in a one-reeler, showed repetition of the same basic gag – like 1912's That Fatal Sneeze. The famous comedians of the silent screen started out, in their two-reelers, using disconnected black-out sketches built around one theme (Buster Keaton's The Playhouse, for example), but by the early 1920's they had moved on to more cohesive narrative forms and, thus, abandoned anarchic comedy altogether (although Buster Keaton captured the anarchic spirit with Sherlock, Jr). Auguste (left) and Louis Lumière. ... LArroseur Arrosé (also known as The Waterer Watered and The Sprinkler Sprinkled) is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent comedy film directed and produced by Louis Lumière and starring François Clerc and Benoît Duval. ... Joseph Frank Keaton, Jr. ... Sherlock, Jr. ...

1930s

It was in the 1930s that the anarchic comedy started to blossom, as vaudeville performers raced to the big studios. The Marx Brothers were the main proponents of their own brand of no-holds-barred humor captured for prosperity in films like Animal Crackers, Duck Soup, and Horse Feathers. They had a knack for complex wordplay, double entendres, outrageous slapstick, and being able to walk into a room full of society people and leave the place in shambles. Another comedy team in the 1930's with an anarchic bent was Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, who, while not as creative as the Marx Brothers, were still fun in such films as Hook, Line and Sinker and Hips Hips Hooray. Groucho, Gummo, Minnie (mother), Zeppo, Frenchy (father), Chico and Harpo. ... Animal Crackers is a 1930 comedy film, and one of the Marx Brothers most beloved and oft-quoted movies. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Horse Feathers (1932) was the fourth Marx Brothers film. ...

There was also W.C. Fields, a vaudeville comedian who made the switch to film in the early '30s and worked his own twist on the "up-the-society" theme. In such classics as The Bank Dick and Never Give A Sucker An Even Break, Fields perfected an everyman persona who fights the world of henpecking housewives, bumbling bureaucrats, and obnoxious children with made-up words, a shyster's sense of chicanery, and a steady stream of liquor. W. C. Fields (January 29, 1880 - December 25, 1946) was an American comedian and actor. ... The Bank Dick (released under the title The Bank Detective in England) is a 1940 comedy film in which W. C. Fields plays a character who trips a bank robber and ends up a security guard as a result. ...

1940s

The '40s produced Olsen and Johnson, two comedians whose Hellzapoppin' manages to spoof Hollywood musicals, the aristocracy, and the entire notion of narrative linearity, and whose Crazy House contains in its first fifteen minutes the wackiest comic business of the decade. Also in this decade, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour started making the casually anarchic farces known as the "Road" pictures. Hurried ad-libbing by all involved made otherwise corny comedies into gems such as Road to Morocco and Road to Utopia. Bob Hope would later return to the anarchic format in Son of Paleface. Hellzapoppin was a musical revue which was a Broadway hit, running from 22 September 1938 to 17 December 1941, and was at the time the longest-running Broadway musical with 1,404 performances—one of only three plays to run more than 500 performances in the 1930s. ... Bob Hope, KBE (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003), born Leslie Townes Hope, was an English-Born American entertainer who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, on radio and television, in movies, and in performing tours for U.S. Military personnel, well known for his good natured humor and career longevity. ... Harry Lillis Bing Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor whose career lasted from 1926 until his death in 1977. ... Road to Morocco is a 1942 comedy film which tells the story of two fast-talking guys who find themselves tossed up on a desert shore and sold into slavery to a beautiful princess. ...

1950s and 1960s Decline

The '50s saw a general decrease in anarchic comedy, although some works of Frank Tashlin (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?)and Jerry Lewis (The Bellboy) definitely had some anarchic elements, as did the big budget comedy epics of the '60s, especially It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Great Race, and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Frank Tashlin (February 19, 1913 - May 5, 1972) was an animator, screenwriter, and director. ... Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is a 1957 20th Century Fox comedy motion picture starring Jayne Mansfield, with Tony Randall, Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, John Williams, Henry Jones, Lili Gentle, Mickey Hargitay, and a cameo by Groucho Marx. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is an American motion picture directed by Stanley Kramer about a madcap pursuit of $350,000 by a diverse group of strangers. ...

1970s Revival

When the Monty Python group made a big splash in cinema with such films as Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Meaning of Life, they brought down institution after institution with deadly accuracy. Thus, the 1970s became the Golden Age of Anarchic Comedy; as American society spiraled out-of-control and the populace lost faith in the hypocrisies of the government and the church, the general public embraced a style of comedy that wasn't afraid to bite the hand that fed it. Movies such as Bananas, Blazing Saddles, National Lampoon's Animal House, The Jerk, and Caddyshack wore a thin veil of narrative over the basic theme of the slobs vs. the snobs and attacked the upper crust of society, while the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker team kept the stream-of-consciousness comedy alive with The Kentucky Fried Movie and Airplane!. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life is a comedy film/musical made in 1983 by Monty Python. ... Bananas is a film written, directed, and starring Woody Allen and Louise Lasser in 1971. ... Alex Karras as Mongo in Blazing Saddles Blazing Saddles (1974) is a comedy directed by Mel Brooks and starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, and released by Warner Brothers. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Jerk (1979) is Carl Reiners rags-to-riches-to-rags film comedy of belated self-discovery. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... US movie poster The Kentucky Fried Movie is an American comedy film, released in 1977 and directed by John Landis. ... Airplane! is an American comedy film, first released on June 27, 1980, produced and directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, and starring Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lorna Patterson. ...

Modern Anarchic Comedy

The surreal stylings of humor that mark the anarchic comedy still reigned supreme in the comedy of the '90s, predominantly in the work of Mike Myers (Wayne's World), the Coen brothers (Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski), and the Farrelly brothers (Kingpin, There's Something About Mary). // This article is about the actor. ... Wayne (left) and Garth (right) displaying a list of the Top Ten Babes of All Time. Waynes World was one of the most popular recurring sketches to come from the NBC television series, Saturday Night Live. ... Raising Arizona is a 1987 Coen Brothers comedy film starring Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, William Forsythe, John Goodman, Frances McDormand, and Randall Tex Cobb. ... The Big Lebowski, a 1998 comedy film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, chronicles a few days in the life of an unemployed California slacker and recreational bowler after he is mistaken for a millionaire with the same name. ... Kingpin is a 1996 Farrelly brothers film starring Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray. ... Theres Something About Mary is an American film released in 1998 by 20th Century Fox, directed by Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly (the Farrelly brothers). ...

See also

• Mo lei tau
• Surreal humor

Mo lei tau (無厘頭, Jyutping: mo4 lei4 tau4), loosely translated as makes no sense, is a type of comedy typified by Stephen Chows movies. ... Surreal humour is a form of humour based on bizarre juxtapositions, absurd situations, and nonsense logic. ...

External links

• Anarchic Comedy at All Movie Guide