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Anyone who enjoys animated movies must have seen Flash the Sloth.  He was given a lot of time in one of the trailers for Disney’s Zootopia.  When I watched the full movie, I fully expected the audience to laugh at Flash, even though they had already seen him at least once or twice.  Not only did they laugh, but I laughed again myself.  He is a very successful character.

The first layer of the joke is that Flash works at the Department of Motor Vehicles.  There is no bureaucracy more familiar to Americans than the DMV, which is infamous for having its customers wait in long lines that hardly seem to move. Having the office be staffed by sloths is simply brilliant, and brilliantly simple.

Flash is a character built for contrast.  For his joke to work, the situation around him has to have an opposing energy.  There has to be something moving fast.  When the Fox, Nick Wilde, brings the rabbit police officer, Judy Hopps, into the DMV, she is in a great hurry.  So having to deal with Flash’s slowness is agonizing for her.  Contrast between characters is one of the essential tools of comedy. You might, for instance, have a character who is established as a germaphobe, and he he has to deal with someone who has a obvious cold.  One is instantly at odds with the other, and the comedy can get moving quickly.

Flash is appealing because he is focused.  He finishes his sentence regardless of how long it takes.  The single minded character is admirable, because they seem assured and confident that they are doing what needs to be done.  He appears calm, centered, and meditative.  They are simple for the audience to understand, and can be built to fit the comedy.   Nick is able to distract Flash with a joke, but it’s less a distraction than an extension of the gag by making things go even slower.

Flash also works the comedy of miscommunication in a unique way.   Classic comedy double acts would sometimes have one person verbally confusing another person.  Hopefully you are familiar with Abbot and Costello’s famous “Who’s on first?” routine.  The exchange between Hopps and Flash is entirely spoken in medium close up shots.  These are just two characters talking.  But we can’t deny that Flash’s sloth nature is physical trait that influences his communication.  His words are not funny, but they are delivered in a way that is funny, especially given the situation.

What a pleasure it has been to read Julian Dutton’s recent book Keeping Quiet:Visual Comedy in the Age of Sound.  It truly feels like it was written by a fan of the art, not an academic or historian.  In addition to being an occasional creator, I am an insatiable consumer, and dedicated student, of physical comedy of all kinds.  I can tell the author loves the art of non-verbal comedy just as much as I do. In his introduction, he includes a tip of the hat to animation as a medium that had never turned it’s back on visual comedy. Mr. Dutton not only knows his history, he is an award winning screenwriter and actor.  I very much enjoyed his 6 episode show Pompidou, created with actor Matt Lucas, which is available in the US on Netflix.  Keeping Quiet is available through Amazon in the US HERE. And in the UK HERE.

There have been many many books written about the great comedies of the silent film era.  And there have been a few books written about specific comedians from after that time, such Jacques Tati and Ernie Kovacs.  But this is the only book I am aware of that provides a good general coverage of filmed physical comedy since the coming of sound.  It is about the art and how it adapted and differentiated itself from the other talkies.

The book has two areas of focus.  First, those comedians who achieved international fame, such as Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, and Peter Sellers.  And second, English comedians who are familiar to Mr. Dutton and many of his readers.  While visual comedy had it’s golden age in the United States during the silent film era, the English have shown a much greater respect for the art in the many years since the introduction of sound.  Witness, for example, the wordless animated programs such as Shaun the Sheep, and Mr. Bean: The Animated Series.  I am fortunate to be familiar with some of the artists he refers to, such as Norman Wisdom and Eric Sykes.  And for those I hadn’t seen, I am now provided with a descriptive list for future viewing.  I was, however, hoping to learn a little bit about one of my favorite English comedians, Will Hay.  Hay’s film Where’s that Fire? includes scenes that rival Laurel and Hardy.

As I am always on the lookout for potential quotes that animators might appreciate, here is the first one I want to share:

“The essential schtick of Laurel and Hardy was slapstick and pantomime, to be sure, but slapstick and pantomime with character.  Their routines and jokes are not imposed from without, but emanate from the personalities themselves.”

Mr Dutton also includes a quote about Laurel and Hardy milking a routine.  That is an idea I did not put into my book, and may include in a potential revision.  Live actors can improvise and build on their comedy.  A scene can be extended significantly if the actors are inspired, even to the point of creating entire films around a simple idea.  Laurel and Hardy’s gags have been described as “open-ended,” meaning they can get on a roll, and keep building it.  Where live actors can sometimes go overboard, and overmilk a routine, animators are often not allowed to extend them much at all.  Modern studios generally restrict gags in favor of plot.  But great character comedy should be free to take a break from the plot and go for the laughs.

One thing I have been thinking about lately is the presence of onlookers, or bystanders, in comedy.  Offhand, I can’t think of an animated shot that included someone not engaged in the story who reacts to what is going on.  There probably are some, but not many.  I am hopeful that Zootopia might include this idea.  In live film, it’s considerably more common.  In referring to Eric Sykes, Dutton writes this:

“Another Tati-esque element employed by Sykes is his use of the placid observer.  Tati would often place an onlooker on the edge or at the back of the frame: not only to highlight the comedy but also to punch home and magnify its truthfulness – look, the gag is actually happening in the real world and hasn’t merely been made up for the cinema or television viewer.”

Mr. Dutton and I agree on how to understand visual comedy through its history.  That is what both of our books are about.  So I will finish with this quote from his book:

“If there is one theme in this book it is that all the great visual comics belong, as it were, to the same family, so similarities of style and trope are inevitable.”

And that is a good thing.  Audiences like fresh ideas and surprises, of course, but in comedy they also like familiarity.  Striking the balance is one of the challenges.  If I were to make a list of recommended books about comedy for animators to read, Keeping Quiet would certainly be high on the list.

In the end credits of most movies there will be a batch of names under “Thank you” or “Special thanks.”  These are people who performed some service too small, or too unusual, to get their own job title.  The producers still want to acknowledge them in some way.

At the end of Pixar’s Ratatouille, the special thanks group includes the name John Gilkey.

Who is John Gilkey?  Here is a video of him in action:

John Gilkey is a clown.  Wait… a physical comedian and actor.  That video is from Cirque du Soleil’s touring show Quidam.  That was where I first saw him perform.  Note how much noise he makes on his entrance.  You have to look at him.

I have seen him in Cirque’s Quidam, Dralion, and Varekai, and on some small stages in San Francisco.  He is one of the best comedians in modern circus, and the sort of performer animators should be watching.  As a fan, I happened to stop by his website, JohnGilkey.com and I noticed he had a tailer from Ratatouille on his page of videos.  I contacted him to ask what that was all about, and it turns out he was invited to Pixar to work up ideas and act out reference for the artists.  He also consulted on the Pixar short La Luna. That is exactly the kind of thing I like to hear.  If anyone from Pixar would like to talk about this, I would be very interested in learning more.

Here is a 2-part radio interview with him, where he discusses his career and mentions the Pixar experience.  He was invited by the story department because they were having difficulty visualizing the kind of physical comedy they were hoping to achieve.  I suggest you listen to the entire interview to hear all that he has to say.  He has a sage bit of advice about learning to be funny.