List of Posts
I chanced upon the Slate Brothers in a star-studded but less-than-memorable film, College Swing (1938; available on Netflix). Just eight minutes into the movie, this bit comes out of nowhere:
Don’t want to give away the joke, so just watch!
The Return of Marcel Perez!
The DVD and Companion book
Ben Model / Steve Massa
reviewed by Ben Robinson
Last night I made it out to Triskelion Arts in Williamsburg for a totally fun double-bill of comedy dance with a Valentine’s Day theme, and it got me thinking how some of the best physical comedy is to be found in the world of dance. [The double-bill was the Red Gloves’ Flannery and the Valentine’s Day Ninja, created by Billy Schultz and Geneviève Leloup; and Tough Cookie Dance’s Love Letters, by Josselyn Levinson. If you happen to be reading this on Valentine’s Day in NYC, don’t miss the last performance tonight.]
The carpenter gag or construction gag is a staple of physical comedy: large lumber merely missing unsuspecting heads; tools flying; wet concrete welcoming any descending pratfall. Classic stuff.
Yes, I’ve been pretty much away from the blog for more than half a year, but I’m now trying to get back to it. As we all know, life gets complicated, and what with travel, travel, travel; a book project; a show project; and an injury, I just ran out of time. Can’t do it all, etc., but I keep trying. –jt
Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been away from the blog (and Facebook) for a few months. Not to worry, just busy on other projects that I realized wouldn’t get done if I overdid the multi-tasking thing.
I’m plotting a return in the new year, but didn’t want my favorite holiday to go by without thankfully sharing a few delicious morsels plucked from Cartoon Heaven. Yes, a few
days late, but we all know they taste better that way.
You’ve worked hard all year, you deserve a break. Luckily, another (American) holiday is upon us, and you know what that means. Time to clean out my files and share some more physical comedy cartoons and jokes. And if you like these, then you’ll want to rewind to these earlier holidays goodie bags you may have foolishly missed:
If you perform as a clown, variety artist, physical comedian — whatever you want to call it! — you’ve no doubt taught workshops. Sometimes workshops are a more dependable source of income than performing. Such is life, but the result is that some teachers, and they may be excellent performers and instructors, never get beyond a few sure-fire hours of classroom material, guaranteed to entertain, and more often than not liberally borrowed from their own favorite teachers.
From my friend the inimitable Julia Pearlstein comes this intriguing news item: FX cable tv has contracted to produce ten episodes of Baskets, co-created by Louie C.K., Zach Galifianakis, and Jonathan Krisel, and starring Galifianakis as an aspiring clown who flunks out of “a prestigious Paris clown school” but lands a job working for a rodeo. Perhaps not coincidentally, I know that Louie C.K. came to Avner “the Eccentric” Eisenberg’s one-man clown show in NYC last year and loved it. Avner, by the way, did not flunk out of Lecoq’s.
I always hesitate to post a viral video since it’s already been seen by millions, no doubt including many of my readers, but there are 7.2 billion people in the world, and yesterday’s viral video is forgotten by tomorrow, whereas this here blogopedia is eternal, give or take a few years, so….
Two posts ago I highlighted a strong table comedy acrobatic act by Zahir Circo. I also linked to a couple of older posts where I shared earlier versions of this kind of act. Now comes another predecessor,from the French tv show La Piste aux Étoiles, a three-man, three-table act by Les Pauwels, who hail from an eight-generation circus family. Some real nice stuff, including a triple peanut roll under the table!
I’ve written a lot about parkour and its relationship to physical comedy, especially here, but also in all these other posts, so I can’t resist sharing the feline version, “Purrkour,”a brilliant piece of filmmaking by Robert Dollwet. (Thanks to Riley Kellogg for the link!)
This excellent trio comedy acrobatic act by Barcelona’s Zahir Circo is a virtual encyclopedia of partner and table tricks. I’ve seen most of them at some point before, and done more than a few myself, but here they are crammed into a tight, fast-paced six minutes. A great vocabulary builder for anyone interested in (very) physical comedy!
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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