Comedy Teams – The Penguins of Madagascar

The Dreamworks animated film “Madagascar” was about a group of animals who escape from a metropolitan zoo in an effort to return to the wilderness.  Like many animated films, it included secondary characters who have no purpose beyond  comic relief.  Such characters do not have the complex development arc to follow, so they can just be funny.  Those are the kinds of characters I really like.  In Madagascar, the secondary characters were a team of penguins following their own plan to escape from the same zoo.  As entertaining characters the penguins were successful enough that Dreamworks spun them off into their own television show, which is produced by Nickelodeon.

The four penguins are Rico, Skipper, Private and Kowalski.    Skipper is the leader, and speaks with a speedy patter reminiscent of hardboiled detective movies.   Kolwalski is the smart one.  He’s a genius who reportedly is unable to read.   I like his name because it was also a character in the old TV show “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”.  Tossing a Polish name into the mix used to be standard material in combat related stories.  Rico is a supposedly a “weapons and explosives” expert.  He is a sub verbal character who is able to regurgitate any thing they might need.  Private is the omega in the group, but he provides a simplicity that helps group from becoming too weird.  Why he has an English accent I don’t know.

When the show first aired, I watched an episode.  But I was disappointed.  It just didn’t work then, and I didn’t follow up.  But recently my nine year old was watching it, and I joined him.  I found it much funnier now.  I was continuously entertained, and at a brisk pace too.   It is an excellent cartoon, and the show also got me thinking about comedy teams.

I realized that comedy teams create their own reality.  Such teams are blissfully out of touch with what other people are thinking.  They develop a small society, reinforcing each others beliefs.  They understand each other where outsiders would be confused.  They develop language to suit their purposes, and their verbal stylings become a humor of their own.  The penguins all share the same delusions about their situation.  It’s like an improv comedy group where saying no stops the momentum.  They are a team, in the sense of a sports team who play together to win.   None of them would stop and say their plan is foolish, unless they had an even more foolish plan in mind.

Teams tend to have a leader, or at least a star.  Groucho was the most functional of the Marx Brothers, he could actually catch a woman or become president of a country.  Skipper is the alpha of the penguins, and he is somewhat paranoid.  He tends to get very dramatic about their situation, and the rest of them follow orders.  His over-reaction is often what drives the comedy.   The para-military theme of their operation allows for lots of action.

Another characteristic of great comedy teams is their energy.  Like the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges, the shear speed and determination of the penguins overwhelms the rest of the zoo society.  The “normal” world doesn’t have a chance.  The comedians also have strange talents that allow them to achieve things others can’t.

Also, comedy team members each have distinct and interesting styles.  They can break off individually, or into subgroups, and the dynamic changes and allows for fresh direction.  The variety adds depth to the individual personalities, and broadens the range of comedy.

Even though the penguins are funny, they are serious about what they do.  To balance the energy they are often interacting with the lighthearted disco dancing lemurs who also came from the first movie.   The lemurs form a team of their own, and the two teams in relation form a kind of comedy duo.  Serious team in contrast with silly team.

The Penguins of Madagascar were created by Eric McGrath and Eric Darnell.  The show is directed by Brett Haaland and Nick Filippi.

Straight men

I should spend a little time considering the “straight man” in comedy. Margaret Dumont was probably the greatest straight woman of all time. Typically the term applies to verbal comedians, but I’m sure physical comedy has it’s own kind. What springs to mind is the audience member brought on stage to have fun with. Also, I think of the court jester who plays off the king as his straight man.

In animation, Elmer Fudd may be the greatest straight character ever. Foghorn Leghorn played off the dog. Did that dog have a name?

Here is Groucho Marx talking about the role of the straight man with Dan Rowen.  On the TV show Laugh-In, Dan Rowan was the straight man to Dick Rowan’s dimwitted character.

One of the youtube commenters notes:
“Groucho & Chico traded being straight man to each other. Groucho played straight man to Chico quite a bit.”

If you have the patience for a 45 minute podcast, try this.

 

Staging for Visual Comedy

Staging is one of the principles of animation, and the word gets used for both scene layout and character posing.  I have created a new video about staging for visual comedy, and it is primarily concerned with scene layout, or composition and motion in shots. There are many great books and videos about composition in film. Most are filled with beautiful examples from famous cinematographers, and we can all learn a lot from them. But there is precious little available on comedic staging.  Are there funny ways to arrange and move your characters in a scene?

I have spent a lot of time watching comedies, and I have identified several kinds of staging that re-occur in live action and animated films.  These are shots that rarely happen in dramatic films.  These are upstaging, peek-a-boo, pass through, awkward sets, and crowded spaces.  Please watch the video, and in the comments below I would love to get more suggestions.  If and when I get to revise the Comedy for Animators book, I will include a new chapter on this topic.

I would very much appreciate subscriptions to my YouTube channel.  I hope to start producing these videos more often.

 

The Six Varieties of Physical Comedy

M. Wilson Disher wrote “Clowns and Pantomimes” which was published in 1925. He lays out six varieties of physical comedy. These are:

FALLS, BLOWS, SURPRISE, KNAVERY, MIMICRY, and STUPIDITY

FALLS. Easily the first one to come to mind. Gravity reminds us we are not special. The more important or serious the person is, the funnier it is when they fall. There are many combinations of people and ways of falling. It’s really about the set up, and also about having a reasonable belief that the person isn’t seriously injured. It’s about making them look foolish.

BLOWS This is the bread and butter of the Three Stooges. It’s also the category that pie fights fall into.

SURPRISE One reason Buster Keaton was considered a great film maker was his ability to set up surprises. You are all set to see one thing, then he gives you another. There are two good surprises in this clip from his short film “One Week.”

KNAVERY is the sneaky stealing of things. The sly trickster is appealing. He is the partner of stupidity. I immediately thought of Harpo Marx.

MIMICRY. You probably noticed the brief moment of mimicry in the previous clip. When someone pretends to be some one or something else, it is funny. Dressing in drag is a form of mimicry. The greater the skill, the greater the comedy. Jim Carrey has great skill and he pushes the exaggeration as far as he can.

STUPIDITY. Here’s the problem with demonstrations of stupidity: The professionals have been pushed out of the market by the amateurs. I’m talking about “fail” videos. Damn if there aren’t lots of cameras trained on lots of stupid people. But we want to see how the professionals act stupid. The comedy of mistakes. It’s about seeing things wrong, being confused, but it’s also seeing things in a different way. The stupid character misinterprets directions and repeatedly makes the same mistake over again. Stan Laurel was one of the great stupid comedians.

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