Evolution of Humour, part 1

Some time ago, I was browsing JumptheShark.com's Welcome Back Kotter forum. Based on memories of the re-runs, I feel the show was always insufferable, and I wanted to see how many 'fans' agreed. Most, alas, pin-pointed John Travolta's exit, or the 'maturation' of Horshack as the breaking point. Those things may not have helped the show any, but I think it was dire from the premise on.

Anyway, one poster had a sublime realization-- in many a show, the characters that are supposed to be funny, the ones people glom to the during the show's first run, are not funny in the least. Rather, it's the 'straight' (as in 'not comic,' rather than 'not gay') characters, the ones who aren't written as borderline retarded, who are truly amusing. I dunno who the 'actually funny' character in Kotter would be (Horshack, of course, is the funny-retarded character), but the poster also cited the case of not-actually funny ReRun vs. actually-funny Raj in What's Happenin'.

I always liked Raj best.

It's a dead-on observation, too. Take one of my favourite shows, The Monkees. I'm sure people cooed over Peter Tork, and rolled around laughing at Micky Dolenz-- at least they were supposed to. Hell, I do even today at times. Still, when I watch my season 1 DVD, it's apparent that Peter Tork the character isn't as amusing as Peter Tork, the intelligent off-screen commentator, that Dolenz is far more charming when he's not acting loopy, and that the most witty and engaging characterization is given to Mike Nesmith, whose cynicism (and sideburns) probably turned off some of the kiddies back in '66.

Dolenz and Tork play 'cute kids' by acting like an ADHD three-year old and a none-too-bright three year old respectively. Nesmith tries the teenage-ingenue bit on occasion, and is totally unconvincing at it; he was married with a child before becoming a Monkee, and it may have affected his ability to successfully impersonate a preschooler. When he acts as an adult, the default brains of the group, he's not just amusing, he's the only character with any depth or who even hints at depth. 'Peter' and 'Micky' are caricatures, and 'Davy' is drawn with too few lines to make it into the second dimension. 'Mike' seems human, and if his screen test is any indication, he really was being true to himself-- being a person.

The same is kind of true of the Beatles. Lennon's sharp-edged foolerly and Ringo's sweet clown act drew the raves in the '60s, but watch Help! or A Hard Day's Night now and see how underrated George Harrison's role in the films is. His AHDN scene with the slimeball television exec shines as bright as the "solo turn" scenes given to Lennon and Starr (McCartney's were cut, probably because his comic timing was off. I'm guessing this based on the rest of his filmography.). George's little comments in Help!-- his implied rivalry with Paul, his attempt to impress the girl, his sweetly underplayed rescue of Ringo-- all provide a charming contrast to the OTT wackiness that threatens to derail the film at times. I'm not saying Lennon and Starr weren't good, as they were (McCartney, though...), but George's contributions were underappreciated.

Where am I going with this? That anonymous JtS poster was onto something-- a character with comparatively dry and subtle wit, one whose comic side is backed by maturity or otherwise grounded in reality, will age better than a character whose comic shtick is composed of repetitive puerile outbursts and/or wacky hair. The character whose appeal lies in a pretty face, a reputation with the ladies (or girls) and little else will certainly lose against time.

Hell, even Full House demonstrates the rule. Danny Tanner wasn't great shakes as a character (I love Bob Saget's po-mo take on his role, though), but Uncle Joey the unfunny man-child was terrible even before his damned talking woodchuck suspended the viewer's reality from the neck until dead. Danny and Uncle Jesse (Elvis act bad, but sarcasm good) had each a modicum of maturity that made them watchable. So did the long-suffering father in Family Matters, particularly in his interactions with Urkel. It's just too bad that wacky-wacky-wackjobs are popular enough in the short term to hijack shows that otherwise might have been fair entertainment.