Back in the early seventies, I saw Dan Aykroyd (whom I had
known since he was seventeen and was part of a team with the wonderous Valri
Bromfield) perform onstage in a review, mounted by the Toronto-based chapter of
Second City. In one sketch, Danny played a White Collar
office drone returning home from work.
“How was your day, Dear?” inquired his wife.
“My desk blew up,” replied Aykroyd. “But otherwise, it was fine.”
To this day, I recall the laugh that projectiled out of my
mouth, so explosive, it nearly blew the head off the audience member sitting in
front of me. If they’d been wearing a
wig, the back part would have shot right
up into the air. It was that funny.
I don’t generally like to explain comedy. Why?
Two reasons. One, it’s too boring. And two, my explanation could easily be
wrong. People laugh for different
reasons. And also, don’t laugh. A standup, during his act, does an innocuous dead
armadillo joke and someone comes up after the show and says,
“I was desperately looking for relief after my beloved pet
armadillo Andre passed away, and I have to be subjected to this? For shame,
comedian! For shame!”
(Apologies if you’ve
had a recent armadillo loss. Had I
known, I’d have changed the reference to lemur.
But then, of course, there are grieving pet lemur owners, and it never
ends. There is not one dead animal you can safely malign.)
Going back to “My desk blew up.”
Let’s say for argument’s sake that, rather than simply
reviving a classic Second City comedy
sketch conceived by one of the great improviseurs or improviseuses from Chicago
– they often did that, most notably with the classic sketch set at a funeral
where the most recent arrival asks the person who arrived immediately before
them, “How did he die?”, only to have the story repeated once again that, while
trying to get the last remnants of pork and beans out of a large tin, the
deceased had gotten their head stuck inside the tin, and had suffocated – let’s
say that, instead, Danny Aykroyd had originated the line “My desk blew up” for
the first time, right then and there.
Which is precisely what improvising means.
He made it up on the spot.
THE INNOCUOUS SETUP:
“How was your day, Dear?”
THE SPONTANEOUS IMPROVISED RESPONSE: “My desk blew up.”
That’s what made me laugh so hard. That a guy on stage had come up with this
hilarious incongruity on the spur of the moment, while I was sitting there,
watching him. He didn’t read it off a
paper. He didn’t memorize it and then
deliver it. He didn’t improvise
something considerably less funny
like, “I got my tie stuck in my stapler.”
“How was your day, Dear?”
“My desk blew up.”
Followed by the contrasting calmative:
“Otherwise, it was fine.”
That’s improv at its best.
How does it work on television?
Not nearly as well.
I once consulted on a series where the show runner had been
a member of an improvisational group for twenty years. One of the writers on the staff had a similar background. The latter, when I asked him what there was
about his improv experience that served him well in his current job, replied, “I am never afraid to pitch. Because if one joke doesn’t work, I can come
up with a hundred more that are just as good.”
When you’re constantly on the lookout for a better joke, it
is valuable having someone in the room, fearlessly machine-gunning pitch after
pitch. Where we part company, however,
is in the assertion that all jokes are equally as good.
For me, jokes more deeply rooted in character and most
sensitively attuned to the situation are of a higher quality than jokes that
are merely funny. They resonate
more. And the laughs they elicit are
deeper and more satisfying.
I believe this is true not only for the sitcoms of yore but
for contemporary sitcoms as well. In 30 Rock, the character played by Tracy
Jordan is bizarrely surreal, but there’s a reliable consistency to that surreality.
I know it seems strange to say about such an “out there”
character, but I can imagine writers pitching “surreal” jokes for Tracy Jordan,
and the show runner saying, “That’s not Tracy.”
I would get that. I would not
know what they were talking about. But I would get why they said that.
Unlike sitcom-type comedy, improv’s greatness derives from
its “flash of the moment” immediacy, where the audience is thrilled, not just by the funniness of the line, but
also by the quick-minded magic they are witnessing in front of them. The problem is, just like with actual magic performed in TV, in
scripted comedies, the enhancing immediacy is no longer a factor.
Other than live sporting events, TV flattens everything out. There are no surprises on TV because
everything always works. If it didn’t,
they’d do “Take Two”, or how ever many takes it required to get things
right.
Watching it on TV, you expect
the magic to work, and are therefore less than electrified when it does. The same goes for comedy. Scripted comedy is supposed to be funny. So there is no jaw-dropping amazement when it
is.
Also, unlike improv, there are no “Bonus Points” for their
making the jokes up in front of you, because they don’t. Even improv on television is not terribly
exciting, there being the suspicion that, if it was not funny the first time,
they could simply have inprov-ed it again.
A complete writing staff needs a variety of
contributors. If you want a perpetual
“pitching machine”, you could not do better than a writer with “improv” on
their resume.
But if you’re looking for “stick to your ribs” comedy, where
the jokes are richer and the laughs are hardier (and heartier), keep looking,
because that’s not what the improv people do.
Earl, I disagree with your statement that hearty laughter is not generated by improv folks. Look at a film like Groundhog Day-Written,Directed by and Starring 'Improv Folk' Harold Ramis and Bill Murray. Good Improv has always been about so-called 'character-based' comedy, not going for laughs via so called 'cheap jokes' (which 'my desk blew up') could arguably fall under, but achieving humor as a result of examining the honest truth of the character.
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