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Having retired from full-time college teaching in May after 26 years, I finally have time to rummage through my archives. Much to throw away, but some goodies I’d forgotten about. Here are a few of my favorite physical comedy cartoons from a few decades ago. Click to enlarge.
About a year ago, rumor had it that San Francisco’s Clown Conservatory, which I’d written about in this 2010 blog post, was on its last legs. Another hard pie in the face for Bay Area zaniness, what with the School of the Flying Actor (James Donlon & Leonard Pitt) having recently closed its doors.
One of Buster Keaton’s most famous (and dangerous) gags was standing obliviously in the path of a falling side of a house in Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928).
Charlie Chaplin died on Christmas Day 1977 and — I’m not making this up — a little more than two months later his body was stolen from his grave and held for ransom. Surprise surprise, this tactic failed. After two months the body was recovered and the grave robbers caught.
No one, not even David Robinson, knows Chaplin as well as Dan Kamin. Dan knows him inside-out, knows him as only another physical comedian could know him. A Pittsburgh-based solo performer with a lifetime devoted to the study of silent film comedians, Dan coached both Robert Downey for the film Chaplin and Rob McClure for the current Broadway show, Chaplin: the Musical, as well as Johnny Depp for his similar character in Benny and Joon.
Two dance legends with some funny moves and sharp partner work. I’ve been known to include back-to-back leans when teaching counter-balace techniques, so I especially appreciated this!
A standard formula for silent film comedy was for our shy and inept hero to pursue the girl of his dreams against all odds and somehow emerge triumphant in the end. Lloyd and Keaton stayed true to this narrative in most of their films, whereas Chaplin, with his penchant for pathos, would sometimes wistfully let the girl get away.
Parkour and Rube Goldberg both overlap with the athleticism and inventiveness of physical comedy, and I’ve already written about them on this blog, especially here and here. And while parkour freerunners usually tackle found environments, here’s a wild video of parkour being staged on what may be the world’s largest Rube Goldberg machine. It features German freerunner Jason Paul and was sponsored by Red Bull™. Best viewed at full screen!
In his heyday almost 100 years ago, Charlie Chaplin was such a celebrity that his “little tramp” character was openly stolen by other comedians. According to David Trotter of the British Film Institute, “his rapidly escalating popularity encouraged a wide variety of imitators, from Stan Laurel, whose Chaplin imitation was overt, and thus flattering, to Billy West, a smalltime vaudevillian who copied Chaplin’s costume and make-up in more than fifty 1- and 2-reel comedies. In 1916, Charles Amador, a Mexican actor, changed his name to Charlie Aplin, and copied Chaplin’s most successful routines. Chaplin sued, and won, though not without difficulty.”
I complained in this previous post that the Broadway show Chaplin: The Musical — like most biopics — did a poor job of probing its hero’s genius and artistry. There were many bad reviews that echoed this sentiment.
In my last post, I praised Rob McClure in the title role of Chaplin: The Musical but worried about the rest of the show — books, music, choreography, all those incidentals — being strong enough to justify Broadway prices. I was expecting lukewarm reviews but obviously I was way too optimistic. When I saw the word “soppy” in the second sentence of the NY Times review, I knew the show was in trouble.
Thursday night I caught a preview performance of Chaplin: The Musical, a new Broadway show starring newcomer Rob McClure that was first developed at the La Jolla Playhouse under the title Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin. That first draft did not get particularly good reviews, but that was a couple of years ago.
Here’s a curiosity I stumbled upon while sitting in a bar with some clowns in Vilnius (Lithuania) this summer. In one of those rare moments when television coverage wasn’t devoted to the Olympics, our eyes all took notice of a slaphappy video playing on the tv above us. I am proud to say that I was still sober enough to write down the name that flashed on the screen at the end. I guess it must have been early in the evening.
After more than three months abroad, where work and travel left no time for blogging, I’m finally back in New York. With a whirlwind of physical comedy performance coming up this month, there should be a lot to report on.
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin