In the 1970s and 1980s, Gene Wilder became a master of combining the comedic pause with physical comedy. You can still see the thread of Benny’s bit decades later any time the reaction to an absurd situation is also the punchline in the television show “The Office.” The resulting pause, in which Benny reacts to the interruption, becomes the funniest part of the joke. Then, midway through, Benny was interrupted by two performers who were doing a bit that was completely unrelated to Benny’s monologue. In a 1968 episode of “ The Jack Benny Program,” Benny used his monologue to tell what first seemed to be a pretty standard joke about two drunk men in a bar. In the ’50s and ’60s, Jack Benny became a big name in comedy with his strategic use of pregnant pauses as punchlines. His frequent use of the pregnant pause for his “take my wife…please!” jokes gained a lot of attention. In the 1930s, comedian and violinist Henny Youngman, known as the King of One-Liners, got his break thanks to his comedic timing. PAROLLES: Right, as ’twere a man assured of a. LAFEU: Of all the learned and authentic fellows. PAROLLES: So I say, both of Galen and Paracelsus. LAFEU: To be relinquished of the artists. PAROLLES: Why, ’tis the rarest argument of wonder that As an exercise, think about how the right timing, delivery, cadence, and pauses elevate what is, on the page, a basic back and forth: The repetition in and of itself is funny, but since Parolles is interrupting Lafew, the timing is key as well. The very concept of delayed gratification creates much of the comedy-and what is a delay if not the manipulation of time? Comedic timing is particularly important in a scene between Kinesias and his wife Myrrhine, who tortures him with distraction after distraction to his dismay-and the audience’s uproarious delight.Īs for Shakespeare, comedic timing plays a large role in many of his plays-including “All’s Well That Ends Well.” In Act 2, Scene 3, the sycophantic Parolles attempts to ingratiate himself to the king by agreeing with everything that the older and more respected Lafew says. Take, for example, Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata.” The Greek comedy, written in 411 B.C., is about a group of women who swear off sex with their husbands until the end of the Peloponnesian War. The works of Hellenic playwrights and Shakespeare are written in verse, and the rhythm of that verse helps to dictate the pace. Some problems should not exist at all.Early examples of comedic timing can be found as far back as ancient Greece and the Elizabethan era. Imagine what organizations can achieve if hundreds or thousands of employees get these hours daily to work on something constructive! They spend more than six hours a day grappling with problems that should not exist. Up to 70% of employees’ time is spent ‘fire fighting’. Problem-solving has a synonym today, especially in the corporate world - fire fighting. But where people differ is in their ability to solve problems. Problems are an integral part of everyday life. To whet your appetite for the upcoming Isaac Newton show we wanted to reshare one of the great problem solvers, Albert Einstein - enjoy!Ī lot of people think that Albert Einstein’s greatest ability was his mathematical mind, but Einstein’s greatest skill was the ability to sift the essential from the inessential - to grasp simplicity when everyone else was lost in the clutter.
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