Why do you think TNG has a less than... stellar record when it comes to comedy?
- Thread starter Skipper
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Maybe it was simply the cheapest available?
As an Italian (meaning born and raised in Italy), I had absolutely no idea who he was when I saw the episode (this was before the internet). I wondered who this cringe-worthy guy Data had pulled from the depths of history to teach him "humor."
I know it's a TV show episode, not a sociology treatise, but few things are more dependent on historical context and location than humor. Why did Data think an American comedian from the 1980s could help him understand 24th-century humor on a spaceship, like someone on the level of Buster Keaton?
Incidentally, I'd read that the original idea was to call Jerry Lewis. Is it true that Americans generally didn't find him particularly funny and thought he was a comic genius only for the French?
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He had a successful career in America. Part of one of the top comedy duos in the 1950s. Kinda got got up in being an "auteur" as a solo act. Host of an annual telethon to raise money and awareness for Muscular Dystrophy. So very much in the public eye for years.
Yes, but did people in the 80s and 90s find him funny?
Incidentally, I loved The King of Comedy, but every time he showed up to do what was supposed to be something "funny," I hoped he'd hurry up and get on with the movie.
He was past his comedy prime by then. I prefer his early work with Dean Martin.Yes, but did people in the 80s and 90s find him funny?
Incidentally, I loved The King of Comedy, but every time he showed up to do what was supposed to be something "funny," I hoped he'd hurry up and get on with the movie.
Yeah, and he was never "stand-up comedy" material. I remember that his comedy was almost all physical.
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Based on how Piscopo's character's cheesiness and how that plot ends, I think he was intentionally written and performed as a bad, hackneyed comedian.
Piscopo was certainly channeling Lewis at the very least. I'm sure the script called for Lewis or a Lewis like comedian.
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He didn't have to fake it.
I like some of the comedy episodes mostly "Qpid", "Rascals", "Hollow Pursuits", if they count "The Big Goodbye", "Deja Q", "Conundrum" (those particularly good at mixing comic and dramatic elements), thought "The Outrageous Okona" was OK.
There is the factor, at least consideration, that the show was so (high-stakes-drama) serious so much of the time that when it did comedy it tended to feel at least a little weird doing it at all and the writers sometimes also did just overdo it.
Edit: "Up the Long Ladder" really suffers from the too different tones/styles of the sections (completely-annoying simpletons vs. practice and ethics of cloning, right to survive in any way vs. right to not be cloned), it feels like the director and actors felt pretty unsure of the material so decided at least go full-blown for the value of that, the writer insists that she was trying to be affectionate or at least respectful to the simpletons, that they are at least needed valuable part also, but that really doesn't come across, let alone successfully.
There is the factor, at least consideration, that the show was so (high-stakes-drama) serious so much of the time that when it did comedy it tended to feel at least a little weird doing it at all and the writers sometimes also did just overdo it.
Edit: "Up the Long Ladder" really suffers from the too different tones/styles of the sections (completely-annoying simpletons vs. practice and ethics of cloning, right to survive in any way vs. right to not be cloned), it feels like the director and actors felt pretty unsure of the material so decided at least go full-blown for the value of that, the writer insists that she was trying to be affectionate or at least respectful to the simpletons, that they are at least needed valuable part also, but that really doesn't come across, let alone successfully.
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my favorite Worf moment is when they were playing poker and Worf mentions that too many wild cards are a "Woman's game" and that a Man's game does not need wild cards..
Beverly: 'So you're saying that women are weak and need extra help?"
Worf: (no emotion, no inflection), just 'Yes' in a matter of fact , business like manner
for some reason that always makes me laugh
Beverly: 'So you're saying that women are weak and need extra help?"
Worf: (no emotion, no inflection), just 'Yes' in a matter of fact , business like manner
for some reason that always makes me laugh
I remember my folks taking me to see a Jerry Lewis movie with another family we were friends with in around 1980. Hardly Working. I remember some older people were laughing. Us kids just watched completely bored. It might have been the first time I went to the movies and wished that I hadn't. Comedy doesn't always work well era to era. It's like reading old Roman or Victorian jokes and just not getting it.
"Take back Joe Piscopo" -Tom Petty and Bob Dylan (from Jamming Me). They got it.
Sometimes it was funny for the wrong reasons, like Barclay for some reason having spiders in his evolutionary history. Or stuffing Mick Fleetwood in history's worst costume. Or civilian attire.
I think TNG was at its funniest when it wasn't trying to be funny. It often tried to make the most ridiculous things look so super serious that you can't help but laugh. As soon as it deliberately tried to be funny, things tended to go downhill, and quickly so.
