ABSTRACT
CHAPTER 6 “Film and Television Comedy” transports the reader into a variety of comedy films and TV shows. It focuses on the two basic principles of film and TV comedy – incongruity and exaggeration – and all the different styles and approaches that are based on these two principles – medium – and how to write them. Readers will see how to envision and develop two funny characters through a Case Study (called Brothers) involving an Amish teenager thrown into the world of edgy video games and his counterpart – a technology-addicted edgy video game player, who is thrown into the world of the Amish – a non-technology group and culture. Then the reader will camp out on the different comedic styles that were included in the Brothers story: parody, satire, spoof, lampoon, farce/screwball, black/dark comedy, irony, props/devices, gags, delay, rule of three, jokes, one-liners, wisecracks/put downs, malapropisms, puns, misunderstanding, and allusion. This is followed by a section on the distinctives and challenges of TV comedy versus film comedy. Then the reader will take a look at some script close-ups of some classical and contemporary transcribed scripts from Monte Python and the Holy Grail film, and a case study on the Saturday Night Live (SNL) sketch “Matt Foley Talking to Kids About Drugs.” The SNL also includes a plot diagram. Then the reader will explore comedy techniques and scripts for two successful TV sitcoms: The Big Bang Theory and The Office on the companion website. The chapter closes with a summary, some common beginner-writer “problems and solutions” for inexperienced writers, and some review, reflection, and analysis questions and some envisioning exercises.
