I've said it before but I'll say it again: physical comedy is everywhere. Not just in silent films and the circus, but in dance and mime, in straight drama and in television commercials, in rodeos and —you can see where I'm going with this— in basketball. Of course I'm referring to the Harlem Globetrotters and to the great Meadowlark Lemon, a five-decade veteran who passed away yesterday at the age of 83.
Lemon was the type of clown who could make fun of a particular skill because he was actually very, very good at it. “I’ll put it this way,” he explained. “When you go to the Ice Capades, you see all these beautiful skaters, and then you see the clown come out on the ice, stumbling and pretending like he can hardly stay up on his skates, just to make you laugh. A lot of times that clown is the best skater of the bunch.”
In fact, Wilt Chamberlain (who started as a Globetrotter) maintained that Meadowlark Lemon was the most awesome basketball player he had ever seen, even ranking him ahead of Michael Jordan. That may be hyperbole, but the basketball skill was indeed formidable and was enhanced by ball manipulation chops that any juggler would be proud of and some silly but slick movement not too far from eccentric dance. I know that when I first saw the Globetrotters as a kid, my reaction was "I didn't even know that was possible." And all of the skills were packaged with creativity and irreverence, so I laughed A LOT. (It also forever lodged "Sweet Georgia Brown" in my brain.)
Much has been written about Lemon and the Harlem Globetrotters, including a sweet guest post to this very blog by comedy animator Jonathan Lyons. Here are a few fun videos, interspersed with excerpts from the NY Times obituary.
This was a time, however, when the Trotters were known not merely for their comedy routines and basketball legerdemain; they were also a formidable competitive team. Their victory over the Minneapolis Lakers [white world champions--jt]in 1948 was instrumental in integrating the National Basketball Association.
It was his charisma and comic bravado that made him perhaps the most famous Globetrotter. For 22 years, until he left the team in 1978, Lemon was the Trotters’ ringmaster, directing their basketball circus from the pivot. He imitated Tatum’s reams [gags--jt], like spying on the opposition’s huddle, and added his own. He chased referees with a bucket and surprised them with a shower of confetti instead of water. He dribbled above his head and walked with exaggerated steps. He mimicked a hitter in the batter’s box and, with teammates, pantomimed a baseball game. And both to torment the opposing team — as time went on, it was often a hired squad of foils — and to amuse the appreciative spectators, he laughed and he teased and he chattered and he smiled; like Tatum, he talked most of the time he was on the court.
“Man, I’ve had a good run,” he said at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, recalling the first time he saw the Globetrotters play, in a newsreel in a movie theater in Wilmington when he was 11. “When they got to the basketball court, they seemed to make that ball talk,” he said. “I said, ‘That’s mine; this is for me.’ I was receiving a vision. I was receiving a dream in my heart.”
Sure, you've all seen the "Naked Towel Dance" video that's gone viral on YouTube, but do you know what's behind it? Probably not, which is why you come to this here blogopedia for the full monty.
But first, for those of you who have better things to do with your life than hang out on Facebook clicking links and haven't yet seen the video, here it is. For the record, they are "Les Beaux Frères" as seen on the French television show, Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde. The official title is "La Serviette" (the towel), but it's showing up on YouTube as "Naked Towel Dance."
Now a towel dance is a mildly naughty form of strip-tease that I'm sure you've all tried in the privacy of your own home in front of a mildly amused partner or three, but it also has its own, ahem, distinguished performance history.
Back in BYT (before YouTube) days — yes, children, some of us are old enough to dimly recall that primitive era — back even before pole dancing... there was burlesque, a naughtier vaudeville featuring baggy pants comics alongside erotic female dancers; originally kootchie dancers but, starting in the 20s, strippers. Not surprisingly, there was some artistic crossover, with strippers putting humor into their act. The tease part of stripping was always intrinsically a bit comic, but some strippers went further with the comedy.
Today's neo-burlesque is more ironic than erotic. "What they do, mainly, is comedy," writes Joan Acocella in the New Yorker (5-13-13). "They pour Martinis out of shakers lodged in their cleavages; they sprout extra hands, which then feel them up. They don't have naughty names; they have dirty names-Lucy Fur, Creamy Stevens, Fanny Fromage." Here, for example, is Dirty Martini using striptease to parody a sappy American patriotic song:
But burlesque strippers, old and neo, deliver some or all of the goods, whereas the towel dancers and their immediate predecessors are playing with the embarrassment of being exposed, an extension of the old pants-drop schtick.
Before the naked towel dance there was the legendary naked balloon dance performed by the sketch group "The Greatest Show on Legs" (Malcolm Hardee, Paul Wiseman, and Martin Soan) on the edgy British tv show Over the Top on January 2, 1982. Though not jugglers, all the same elements are here: the false modesty, struggling with objects that don't always cooperate, the every-man-for-himself desperation.
There were still enough staid Brits in those days to provoke a bit of an outrage over this, but that didn't prevent a sequel from being aired that same year:
If you think about it, the naked balloon piece is actually naughtier than the towel number — the baring of asses, the phallic balloons. One of the balloon masterminds was Malcolm Hardee, the British petty thief turned comedian and "amateur sensationalist" whose autobiography I Stole Freddy Mercury's Birthday Cake chronicles a lifetime of outlandish pranks. Here's one from his Wikipedia entry:
"When performing at The Circuit venue at the Edinburgh Fringe – a series of three adjoining tents in a construction site with a different show in each tent – he became annoyed by what he regarded as excessive noise emanating nightly from Eric Bogosian's neighbouring performance tent. Hardee obtained a nearby tractor and, entirely naked, drove it across Bogosian's stage during his performance."
But I digress...
If you do a YouTube search for "naked balloon dance" you'll find plenty of imitators using balloons, guitars, you name it. And then there's the running gag in the Austin Powers movies.. for example...
There's another piece of classic schtick in play here, the gag of two characters being stuck together, used here with so much urgency. For a nice (and fully clothed) example of this, here's Betty Hutton, Walter Darewahl, and Johnnie Trama from the movie Star Spangled Rhythm(1943):
So if it sounds like I'm criticizing the naked towel dances for being unoriginal, I'm not!
Oh contraire, mes beaux frères, I find their piece superior and funnier than this earlier stuff because... no drum roll needed..... of the strong physical comedy elements. They built on an old idea and made it better. They brought to it a higher skill level in object manipulation and split-second timing. There's more danger and it's more exciting to watch. They also have the good sense to be able to stop for specific comedy moments so we can savor the characters trapped in their predicament. Sure it's perhaps more cutesy than naughty, but in this era of Puppetry of the Penis and web porn, the "shock" of full nudity is anything but.
Whether or not it's "clown" or even very good comedy was the topic of a somewhat heated discussion in the "Clown Power" Facebook group, a topic that has elicited well over 100 comments to date, with such clown performer/teachers as Jef Johnson and Jon Davison weighing in. For example, Jon writes "You can use bodies and props comically, interact well, be physical, construct a number precisely in order to elicit maximum effect, which they do here, but that has nothing at all to do with whether you infuse that action with humility or vulnerability or self-ridicule or the pleasure to play the stupid idiot, which is what they don't do here."
I'd say that of course it's not a clown piece and that to criticize it for not being one is kind of silly. But Jon has a point. We're not truly worried about the situation these characters find themselves in. (Why are they only wearing towels to start with?) It's a presentational dance piece that winks at the audience, and if anything makes more fun of our voyeurism than their modesty. But it's very well done, tightly choreographed, and hits some nice moments. I like.
You can see more work by Les Beaux Frères by visiting their web site, which is located right behind this towel.... ooops, no.... right behind this towel.
UPDATE: (a day later) This just in via Kenny Raskin via Skip Mendler... Naked Lunch (apologies to William Burroughs, I hope),a variation on the theme. Not sure which one came first. Though I'd rate Les Beaux Frères higher, this does build nicely and incorporates some basic partner acrobatic moves. The signage is in French, but not sure who the performers are. Here are two versions worth comparing. The second has more of a set-up and has young kids hanging over the edge of the stage! Vive la France.UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: This just in via a comment by Kenito: The short one is Kevin Brooking, a wonderful American clown who has been living in Brussels and has a company called Zirk Theatre. His partner is named Colm... Vive la Belgique!
I was researching something else on Dominique Jando's excellent Circopediaweb site (which I highly recommend!) and came across this gem and thought it worth a cross-posting. After all, if I had never seen this it's likely many of you haven't either.
This is Francis Brunn, one of the greatest jugglers ever (you'll see why) making an appearance on the Jack Benny Show back in 1961. Benny was an ex-vaudevillian with a dry wit and real talent as a violinist, but certainly not known as a physical comedian. Here he does get a bit physical, though Dominique assures me that the pratfall was done by a stunt double, though one with a pretty believable physical resemblance.
Click here or on the screen image below to go to Circopedia and see the video, then stick around a bit and browse the site!
I don't know about you, but I still remember as a kid upsetting my parents by trying the old trick of yanking a tablecloth out from underneath some dishes and glasses with, er, mixed results. I've also written about this trick, including an advanced variation, in this blog post. But now I can offer a more scientific explanation....
First a little background: there's an organization and web site, coursera.org, that distributes free, interactive online classes from major universities. I decided to enroll in "How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Objects" because, well, I'm interested in that kind of stuff. And here's the professor, Louis Bloomfield of the University of Virginia, beginning his very first lecture with — you guessed it — the tablecloth trick.
While Bloomfield makes a distinction between the scientist who shows how things work and the magician who hides things, he is in fact being a bit tricky here himself. For example, he says he's adding a degree of difficulty by pouring wine into the glass. Yes, the spilled wine would make a mess, but of course the added weight makes the glass less likely to tip over in the first place. And removing the wine bottle from the table hardly seems insignificant. Because of its shape and higher center of gravity, the wine bottle is far more likely to be displaced than the plate.
His very next demo is conisderably more interesting and uses a trick I'd never seen:
Drew Richardson is visiting and we were watching this together, leading us to brainstorm on how this could be turned into a clown bit. Hmm... It might be hard to find a reason to be sticking a pencil in a Coke bottle, but what if the pencil were a straw, a straw that somehow you couldn't insert in the usual manner? But wouldn't a straw, because it's so light, be more affected by air currents and be in danger of missing the opening? Maybe you could make your own "straw" out of heavier material. In fact, the object wouldn't have to be hollow so long as there were an opening visible on each end. (3D printer, anyone?) Now for the hoop. You can see why you'd need it rather than, say, a rectangular frame (too much friction), but what would the excuse be for having a hoop handy? A hat band? It would have to be perfectly circular. A spring-form pan?? Well, you get the idea. I'm sure this is how Grock worked.
Anyway, good stuff, and the course just started this week, so if you want to enroll, just go to coursera.org. Did I mention that it's free?
Here's a simple but effective comedy idea. How do you make a highly skilled but somewhat standard hoop spinning act more engaging — not to mention funny? Simply perform it while trying to fetch and drink a glass of red wine! Here's Annabel Carberry in A Glass of Red.
By the way, I did indeed try this at home and was actually able to do about half the act. I'll let you guess which half.
Thanks to Karen Gersch for the link!
Click here for another comedy hoop spinning act.
We interrupt this program of free and complete books about the commedia dell arte that you probably don't have time to read to present an emergency broadcast of a decidedly more modern diversion. Step right up and take a gander at the Robot Juggler, a product of the Czech Technical University's Department of Control Engineering (Prague). Yes, I did say robot. Thanks to Riley Kellogg for the link!
Here's our droid friend juggling three billiard balls:
Hmmm... I don't know about you, but I was taught not to hold my hands so high. But I do know what you're saying: "Sure he can do three, but can he do five?" Here's your answer.
Okay, this is interesting enough, perhaps even cool, but to impress me they'll have to invent a robot that can do comedy juggling. As the old saying goes, an onion can make you cry but there's no vegetable to make you laugh.
Did you ever enjoy a great act in person and then later see it on video and find it flat and nowhere near as exciting? Yes, it's incredible to be able to watch performances from around the world on our laptop computer or even on a telephone, but still there's nothing like live performance.
A case in point is Craig Reid, whose Elvis Presley hula-hoop act blew me away both for its technical virtuosity and its sharp humor. Sheer delight. This video clip — just an excerpt — doesn't quite capture it for me, but here he is. Enjoy, but do try to catch his show if you can.
And here's one I haven't seen live, his take on The Wizard of Oz.
Which reminds me of another one of my favorite pieces, Bobby McFerrin's version of The Wizard of Oz.
This one's already gone viral, but I just found out about it from colleague, poet, and fellow world traveler Martie LaBare. In fact, I'd never heard the term flair bartending until a few minutes ago! Clearly I need to get out more instead of hiding at home, sad and lonely, staring into a bottle, nobody to talk to but my imaginary blog friends...
But I digress. Watch it first — pretty sure you'll be entertained — then let's say we have a short discussion, okay?
There are seven pages (so far!) of comments on YouTube debating whether this is real or fake. I teach visual effects, so I know anything— and I do mean anything — can be faked, but my suspicion is that this is a clever mixture of serious juggling chops and sophisticated compositing skills. Translation: some of it is real, some of it vfx. The fan neatly slicing those limes into wedges — how would a single blade do that? — is the most obvious visual effect. Basically what the compositor can do is place a separate "clean plate" background image of the bar wall in a layer below the original footage, erase the original limes from the footage layer, then add lime wedges to the glasses in the foreground. I downloaded the movie and studied it frame by frame. Let's just say that the movement and timing of the lime after leaving her hand and before miraculously reappearing in the glass as a perfect wedge is highly suspect.
While most Facebook commenters opined that the napkin trick had to be fake, one viewer offered this explanation: "Here's how you do the napkin trick. David Blaine does something similar with playing cards. First you prep the napkins so they're weighted on one corner — so u know where they land first. Then prepare the bar by wetting six even spaced spots. So the paper sticks. Then practice, a lot of the napkins fall evenly." I'm no magician, but it seems plausible.
Either way, the bar is real and they're very much into this stuff. We're looking at a branch of the American chain restaurant T.G.I. Friday's ("thank God it's Friday") located in the UK in Prestwich, North Manchester. These guys are serious about performing, as witness this video from the same bar, apparently an entry into a bartending mixology competition.
It turns out flair bartending is a big enough thing that there are even annual competitions, which you can follow on YouTube. Here's just one sample:
Joan Schirle of the Dell Arte School of Physical Theatre has added this comment on the subject via my Facebook page: "Some of the Japanese chefs in the benihana-type restaurants do simliar flair stuff with knives and bottles."
And if you want to learn to show off like this, and I admit I do, there's even a series of video tutorials on YouTube courtesy of a gentleman by the name of Chris "Mango" Myers. Here's video #1:
There are 35 — count 'em, 35 — of these lessons on Chris's Bar Guide & Flair Tutor web site, so what are you waiting for?
Finally, a note of personal trivia: my first foray into publishing was editing a special "Popular Entertainments" issue of The Drama Review (March, 1974), with authors that included Hovey Burgess, Carlo Mazzone-Clementi, Marvin Carlson, and Brooks McNamara. I only bring it up here because the cover for that issue (photo by Diane L. Goodman) showed a carnival performer doing the old trick of flipping a bottle to a balance on the back of his hand.
Now if you take a second look at that bartender from our original video, you'll see he's doing the same trick.
I doubt that this seems amazing to most of you, but who back then would have predicted that circus skills would eventually spawn such phenomena as parkour, trouser diving, and flair bartending? Not me.
We interrupt my onslaught of free books about medieval fools and jesters to bring you this important 50-second message from Germany's top handyman; at least I think it's from Germany. He's definitely handy. I mean, sheesh, I can juggle and I can fix things, but I never thought about combining them!
I teach visual effects, I know anything — and I do mean anything — can be faked in the digital realm, but I'm taking this as legit. I am guessing, however, that the nail was sticking into a pre-drilled hole just a bit smaller in diameter than the nail itself, thus requiring less force from the free-flying hammer to drive it in.
The same weekend I was catching Aurélia's Oratorio in Berkeley, our intrepid reporter and master animator Jonathan Lyons was in Oakland enjoying a performance by the Harlem Globetrotters, who I am embarrassed to say I have never seen perform live. But talk about physical comedy!
You can click here to read other posts by Jonathan and to view his impressive bio, to which I will add that he is currently working on the film Mars Needs Moms for Disney/Image Movers Digital. — jt
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Milton Berle is quoted as saying, “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
Abe Saperstein loved sports. When he failed to make the basketball team at the University of Chicago, he left school. But he didn’t let that stop him. He just formed his own team. He assembled five African American basketball players and made himself coach. They were hired to play demonstration games at the Savoy Ballroom, in an attempt to lure people to stay and dance after the game. The “Savoy Big Five” weren’t so successful at attracting dancers and the program ended, so Abe took them on the road.
It was 1927, and all sports were segregated. The idea of playing for a professional team was out of the question for all of them. In an effort to make a career out of sports, they went barnstorming around the Midwest. Saperstein had the sense of a showman, and he thought a special name would be more likely to bring in spectators. Harlem was the center of African-American culture, so he appropriated the name, and added “Globetrotters” to give the impression of having traveled great distances before arriving in whatever small town they would play. Vaudeville performers of the day would routinely get booked for a week at a time; the Globetrotters moved on daily. They would take on the local team and show them how the game is played in the big city, for money. Of their first 106 games, they won 100.
Eventually they became so good, they would build up a comfortable lead in the score, and then relax and have fun at the expense of their opponents. The spectators laughed. This would be the ingredient that would make them more popular than they ever dreamed. As the crowds grew, so did the recognition of their tremendous skill in the game of basketball. The comparison to white players was inevitable, and soon the question of who would win in a game became too great to ignore. In 1948, a game was arranged with the champion Minneapolis Lakers. The game ended in classic movie style. A Globetrotter takes one last shot just before the final buzzer goes off, and he wins it. In 1949, they beat them again. In 1950, Chuck Cooper became the first African-American drafted onto a white team. The Globe Trotters now had to compete with the professional teams for the best players.
While Abe Saperstein deserves full credit for founding and building the Harlem Globe Trotters into an internationally renowned group, he is also remembered as a tough business man, who’s treatment of his players was sometimes less than fair. But putting that aside, the greatness of the players eventually overcame his shortcomings, and they are responsible for earning the victories and generating the laughs. Hundreds of great players have played with the team, and these five had had their numbers retired: Wilt Chamberlain, Marques Haynes, Curly Neal, Meadowlark Lemon, and Reece Tatum. In 1993, Mannie Jackson, a former player, became the first black owner of the Harlem Globetrotters.
A fun vintage bit.
Having the honor of a 7-year old basketball player in the family, I recently had the opportunity to see the 2010 Globetrotters. It would be my first time seeing the real thing live. Previously I had only seen video, and the Canadian knock-off version “The Harlem Diplomats.” The Harlem Diplomats had an advance team put up those cheap 1 color posters around my hometown. They were a real traveling novelty act, performing in the high school gymnasium. I was quite young at the time, and what I recall most about the game was feeling rather sorry for the team of sad sacks they brought with them to humiliate.
I knew the Trotters would play against a team of stooges, and I wondered if I would feel the same about their opponents, “The Washington Generals.” But they solved this problem, by making the General’s coach into a sort of villain. The Generals were introduced first, jogging out in house lights and cheesy fanfare music. Then the coach was introduced, and his behavior begged the crowd to dislike him. Dressed in a gaudy yellow suit, and using a bullhorn, he loudly proclaimed he had a “secret weapon” that would allow him to finally defeat the Globetrotters.
I had also wondered what kind of crowds the Globetrotters could attract, and I was surprised to see the Oracle Arena in Oakland nearly filled. And it was the first of two games. By the way, for many years now, the Globetrotters have had multiple teams touring at any one time. You can buy tickets to games on the same night in different cities. Their roster includes enough coaches and players for 4 teams.
When the Trotters enter, the house lights go down, the spotlights shine, and loud hip hop music booms, while they take a lap around the court, and are introduced one by one. When they form up the “magic circle” and begin the warm-up tricks, and the whistling of “Sweet Georgia Brown” is played. It was then that I really felt the history of the show coming to life.
After the lengthy warm up, the game begins. But before the initial tip off, one of the Trotters determines the ball is flat, and goes to the side to get a fresh one. When the new ball is tossed for the tip off, it turns out to be a balloon filled with helium, and floats off to the roof. I love the gag balls. I won’t go into detail about every gag, but I certainly recognized some of the old standards. The splashed water cup that escalates to a bucket of water in the refs face, and ultimately confetti flung at the audience. It wouldn’t be a Globetrotters game without it. Of course somebody got pantsed. I really do wonder if somewhere they have a big book of gags to pull from. The coaches are all former players, so I’m sure they act partly as coaches, partly oral historians, partly as directors. It would be very interesting to interview one of them.
It’s important to remember that the players take great pride in their basketball skills. Like all great clowns, the Globetrotters are highly skilled to the point of being spectacular. Every year, they still hold an exhibition game against the NCAA college all-stars. When the Generals have the ball, they are expected to play to very best of their ability. Except perhaps the General wearing the tear-a-way uniform, who ended up running to the locker room in his boxer shorts. When the Globetrotters have the ball, they just have to play along. Foul shots are only called for to get in the related jokes.
The “secret weapon” the Generals coach used was hypnosis. He brought out an umbrella with a spiral design on it, which he twirled before a Globetrotter. After this, the player would do his bidding. The only way to free him of the spell was to do something “spectacular,” which usually meant one of their fantastic “alley oop” baskets.
Like most clowns, they interact with the audience, bringing children onto the court to spin balls on their fingers, and take successful shots at the hoop while the Trotters kneel and pray. They flirt with moms. They fill out the show with a very funny mascot, “Big G,” a character who is mostly a giant inflated globe head. His antics are available on youtube. My only criticism of the show was that the audio system wasn’t the highest quality. I was only able to understand about half the spoken jokes.
After researching the history and attending a game, I am now seriously impressed with the entire enterprise. They have existed since the latter days of vaudeville, and are going as strong as ever. They have a proud history in integrating American culture and sports. They are an impressive business, with courtside seats selling at a premium, and a very long line at the merchandise stand. They are wholesome family entertainment all decked out in patriotic uniforms. What’s not to like?
This video is a fun compilation piece
A documentary The Harlem Globetrotters: The Team That Changed the World. [Posted in segments to youtube; complete DVD also available for sale and to rent on Netflix.]
A bit of a fluff piece, but it includes Senator Barack Obama.
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Editor's Note: Can't resist adding this spoof from the Onion to Jonathan's post; click here for full article. —jt
Today is the 73rd birthday of Tommy Smothers and, as much as I think it's important to honor the work of those who have passed away, it's a pleasure to be able to salute a fine comedian who is still very much with us. Tommy Smothers was one-half of the Smothers Brothers, partnering his younger brother Dick (born 11-20-39) on their own CBS television variety show. They are still active and in fact both can be seen in cameo roles in last year's The Informant!. The Smothers Brothers' m.o. was folk music, not physical comedy, but their act was right out of vaudeville with Dick playing straightman on string bass to a confused, emotional Tommy on acoustic guitar. You never knew what words would come from Tommy's mouth. His character was the one who blurts out what everyone else may be thinking but is afraid to say out loud.
But this is a physical comedy blog, so here's a clip of Tommy showing some pretty cool chops on the yoyo!
And here they are (their actual voices) as part of a Bart Simpson dream (he badly wants a brother) on an episode this past December on The Simpsons:
Fired from CBS? Yes, another reason to praise the Smothers Brothers is that back in the turbulent Vietnam War era, long before cable tv and the internet, when three major networks controlled everything Americans saw and heard on television, and most entertainers chose not to make waves, the Smothers Brothers continuously fought back against this wall of censorship. They engaged in weekly battles with the CBS censors, who insisted that television was entertainment, pure and simple, and that politics was bad for business. They lost most of these battles, but paved the way for the greater freedom enjoyed today by such satirists as Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert.
One of the biggest controversies was over a Harry Bealfonte song that was accompanied by footage of police violence at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. The song (video clip below) was not aired and later that season the Smothers Brothers were booted off the air for refusing to cave to the censors. This Wikipedia summary pretty much nails it:
With the focus of the show having evolved towards a more youth-oriented one, the show became both popular and controversial for those same references to youth culture and the issues that both interested and affected this particular target audience. Three specific targets of satire — racism, the President of the United States, and the Vietnam War — would wind up defining the show's content for the remainder of its run, and eventually lead to its demise.
Whereas most older audiences were tuning into shows like the western Bonanza, the younger generation — ages 15–25 — were watching the Smothers' more socially relevant humor.
The Brothers soon found themselves in regular conflicts with CBS' networkcensors. At the start of the 1968/69 season, the network ordered that the Smothers deliver their shows finished and ready to air ten days before airdate so that the censors could edit the shows as necessary. In the season premiere, CBS deleted the entire segment of Belafonte singing "Lord, Don't Stop the Carnival" against a backdrop of the havoc during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, along with two lines from a satire of their main competitor, Bonanza. As the year progressed, battles over content continued, including a David Steinberg sermon about Moses and the Burning Bush.
With some local stations making their own deletions of controversial skits or comments, the continuing problems over the show reached a boiling point after CBS showed a rerun on March 9, 1969. The network explained the decision by stating that because that week's episode did not arrive in time to be previewed, it would not be shown. In that program, Joan Baez paid tribute to her then-husband–David Harris–who was entering jail after refusing military service, while comedian Jackie Mason made a joke about children "playing doctor." When the show finally did air, two months later, the network allowed Baez to state that her husband was in prison, but edited out the reason.
Despite the conflict, the show was picked up for the 1969-70 season on March 14, seemingly ending the debate over the show's status. However, network CEO and President, William S. Paley, abruptly canceled the show on April 4, 1969. The reason given by CBS was based on the Smothers' refusal to meet the pre-air delivery dates as specified by the network in order to accommodate review by the censors before airing. This cancellation led the Brothers to file a successful breach of contract suit against the network, although the suit failed to see the Brothers or their show returned to the air.[2] Despite this cancellation, the show went on to win the Emmy Award that year for best writing. The saga of the cancellation of the show is the subject of a 2002 documentary film, Smothered.[3]
Here's a telegram from CBS staking out their right to pre-censor the show, followed by the Harry Belafonte clip that did not make it to the airwaves in the fall of 1968.
The Video That Dared Not Be Shown:
As this final note from Wikipedia shows, the Smothers Brothers did receive some vindication decades later: In 2003, the brothers were awarded the George Carlin Freedom of Expression Award from the Video Software Dealers’ Association. The award recognizes the brothers' “extraordinary comic gifts and their unfailing support of the First Amendment.” In September 2008, during the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards, Tommy Smothers, a lead writer of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" was belatedly awarded a 1968 Emmy for Outstanding Writing In A Comedic Series. In 1968, Tommy Smothers had refused to let his name be on the list of writers nominated for the Emmy because he felt his name was too volatile, and thus when the writing staff won he was the only member not to receive the award.
Amsterdam is known more for its street performance than its variety theatres, or as Charlie Frye forewarned me,"not too much Variete, except in the windows." I loved the city, loved biking all over the place, but in my four days there this June I didn't find much street performance either. Maybe I went at the wrong time or to the wrong place, but several trips through Dam Square netted me only one street performer, a British juggler/contortionist.
Can you name this street performer? His show was not elaborate, his big tricks being to pass his entire body through a narrow hoop while balancing a ball on his forehead and to roll a juggling fireball all over his body, including down his pants. But it all worked well because he was quite funny. Unfortunately you'll have to take my word for it because my hard drive crash this summer deprives us not only of footage of his routine, which he said he was happy to have presented on this blog, but also his exact name. I'm thinking it was something like "The Impossible Paul." And there are a few seconds of his act on YouTube, but they don't really do him justice.
But before moving on to greener pastures in Berlin, here's something even more random, an Amsterdam street poster (left) that reminded me of an old Hanlon-Lees poster (right).
And here's a cool parkour mural outside the Amsterdam train station:
On to Berlin The train ride from Amsterdam to Berlin is quite pleasant, and it's nice to see all those northern Europe wind turbines at work! And it's not surprising to see a lot more in the way of performance in Berlin, a city of nearly 3.5 million people, whereas Amsterdam is actually quite small: 740,000. There's variety theatre, circus (old & nouveau), street performance, big commercial theatres (Mel Brooks' The Producers has brought the Führer back to Berlin), and of course the ubiquitous Blue Man Group.
As my (good) luck would have it, I was just in time for the...
The acts here are international and there's enough going on to schedule a Berlin trip around it. Unlike the Antibes street festival, this one is all in the same neighborhood, usually with acts performing on four stages at the same time, as well as juggling workshops for the non-juggler. This creates a more festive atmosphere, especially with all the great food, including one bakery that actually brought their own oven to the park!Alas, my video footage and some of my notes fell victim to my infamous hard drive crash, but let me at least single out my favorite show of the day I visited, Che Cirque, a solo act by Juan Cersosimo, an Argentinian currently living in Brussels.
Cersosimo is multi-talented, but his claim to fame is as a trick cyclist; he was the BMX national champion of Argentina in 1996 and of all of South America in 1997. Yeah, he's got himself some skills.
He also works quite well with audience volunteers, quite gently, making them look good rather than embarrassing them for cheap laughs. Here's his promo video from his web site, which offers some snippets though I wouldn't say it really captures the spirit of the live performance:
Is that a circus hiding behind those bushes? You know what's really cool? Walking or driving down a street and discovering a circus by accident, that's what. This happened to me in Berlin, so of course I walked in, and when I saw a small one-ring set-up with a solo trapeze suspended overhead, I asked when the circus would be performing. I was told that thevariety show would be putting on shows the next two evenings. I had stumbled upon the Shake circus tent, home for circus, Shakespeare, and all sorts of variety entertainment. Unlike the United States, where live variety shows are not a big part of mainstream theatre outside of Vegas, the word still has meaning in Europe.
The next night we headed back to the tent and took in the show — variety indeed —a mixture of professional and student performances serving up a smorgasbord of circus, clowning, magic, poetry, and dramatic readings. The poetry and the readings were of course in German — and the functionality of mine is intentionally limited to the beer hall — so a certain longueur set in during those segments, but the rest had some real rewards to offer, including a magician duo, several solo trapeze acts, and a nice physical comedy act performed by two guys ostensibly horsing around at the beach. A pleasant two hours.
Un Horizonte Cuadrado Another happy find was a troupe of six Chilean trapeze artists who performed their show, Un Horizonte Cuadrado, at a Berlin beer garden. Google tells me their name means "One Horizon Square," though I'm betting there's a lot better English translation lurking out there. I can't claim this show was physical comedy, but it was highly physical and it was not without some genuinely comic moments. Before it started, I was worried that there'd be no way for these six performers suspended from as many trapezes to keep our interest for an hour, but I was happy to be wrong. That they did, and much of it was exquisite.
Here's a minute of YouTube promo:
They actually have more substantial footage on their Flickr page. (Just click on the thumbnails that have a video PLAY button icon.) Here's one selection that shows more of the duet interactions:
In addition to the beautiful movement, what I especially liked were the relationships that developed between these "characters" as they moved from trapeze to trapeze, one moment sharing, another moment vying for power, sometimes antagonistic, other times flirtatious. All in all, highly original and creative.
Soap After an eye-opening side-trip to Poznan (Poland) to visit both the Academy of Music and the Academy of Fine Arts on college business, we returned to Berlin and caught the heavily promoted production, Soap, presented in a cabaret setting at the historic variety theatre, Chamäleon. This was variety theatre in the form of a revue, all of it revolving around bathtubs and scantily-clad but highly skilled bathers.
Here's a 35-second commercial advertising the show:
And here's a longer (three-and-a-half minute) preview of it that appeared in France on the television network Arte:
I might say the show is Vegas-style, though that doesn't prove anything since I've never been to Vegas. It's slick, a little bit naughty but not too much, and the performers are exceptional acrobats and jugglers. One woman who does all kinds of foot juggling from within one of the tubs was nothing short of amazing — there are glimpses of her in the Arte video above — as was one of the male acrobats. Another act I had never seen before (though that doesn't prove anything either) was a juggler who did a sort of strip tease while continuing to juggle three balls flawlessly. The only weak link in the show, unfortunately, was the clown, who was muggy and predictable, though in fairness the audience liked her a lot more than I did.
Is it a good show? Not really. It's the kind of show that looks better on the promo video, rather than vice-versa. None of it makes much sense, the soap and tubs are a gimmick that is used very inconsistently, the semi-operatic singer seems to be there just to give it the pretense of art, and it's all a little too calculatingly cutesy-commercial for my jaded tastes. Did the audience like it? Very much so. Was I glad I saw it. Yep, but for the individual acts, not so much the overall presentation.
From Thursday's NY Times. To read the article below, just click on the icon in upper-right-hand corner to open pdf, then on magnifying glass icon within Scribd to enlarge.
As many of you know better than I, street theatre and circus are flourishing in Europe, thanks in no small part to government funding of the arts. The happy result is that it seems like every town has its street theatre festival, where you can spend the day or even a long weekend catching a wide variety of international performers and consuming a whole lot of calories. I think museums are okay in moderation, but hanging out at a performance festival, especially one outdoors, gives me a much better feel for a place and its people. The fact that it's free doesn't hurt either.
Antibes (France) had a three-day festival the last weekend in May — Déantibulations: Festival Arts de Rue — and I got to spend a good part of Saturday there. Antibes is just 20 minutes west of Nice and is known as the former haunt of Pablo Picasso and current site of a significant Picasso museum, the outside of which I distinctly remember seeing as I dashed from one performance site to the next.
Here are some video highlights of last year's festival:
And here's some footage I shot just to give you the feel of this year's event... Disclaimer #1: Video Footage All video is shot on a cheapo ($135) Flip camera and thrown together on the fly. Hey, it's only a blog!
Disclaimer #2: My Festival Attention Span As much as I enjoy these festivals (coming soon: report on the Berlin Street Theatre Festival), I like to do other things too, so chances are I'm only going to see a fairly small part of the festival. I'm not attempting a comprehensive report, and for all I know I may be missing some phenomenal performances. As the French say, such is life. _______________________________
The first show I saw was Hocus et Pocus, a comedy duo in diapers whose premise is that they are Siamese twins, joined together by a large plastic umbilical cord, each one unable to function without the other. Here's a YouTube clip of their work:
As you can see, they've got some truly nifty juggling/manipulation chops, and I found a lot to like in their work. They also do a lot of other stuff — knife throwing, music, a levitation gag, etc. — which you don't see in the above video; here's a quick look at their one-man band duet from Antibes:
At the festival, however, I felt the show needed to be a lot tighter (yes, shorter), especially running as it did close to an hour in the hot sun. The umbilical cord premise was interesting enough — the desire for freedom, the necessity of cooperating — but once you set up a push-pull relationship like that, I think it really has to become your story and you have to build everything around it. The characters have a situation to deal with and I wanted to see the tricks grow more out of their attempts to problem solve. Disclaimer #3: Storytelling Hey, I warned you in my blog intro (over there in the sidebar >> ) that I like physical comedy that deals with context and storytelling, but the flip side is that I'm over-sensitive to comic premises that get dropped half way through a show. It doesn't mean I can't enjoy the show, just that I'd like to see them go further with their ideas. Okay, so maybe I am too literal-minded.... _______________
Next up was a trio performing a piece called Le Tennis, basically a partner juggling act but two of the performers were opponents in a tennis match, passing and sometimes hurling the clubs at each other over the net, with a percussionist-referee providing comic commentary. They had changed the venue because of windy conditions near the waterfront, so I got there late and only saw the last half of this, but what I did see was performed with flair and considerable skill, and was quite popular with the crowd. The festival site doesn't provide any info on these guys, and I haven't found a web site link, but here's some footage I shot from the back of the crowd showing them mixing a little kung-fu with tennis and juggling.
_______________
While waiting for the featured evening act, I caught a few musical acts —a hip-hop group, a large ensemble playing Brazilian music, and a French reggae band — all a lot of fun, and also caught an interesting theatre piece by Sara Martinet called The Bath. This was dance, not physical comedy, but it had a nice sense of whimsy, inventive use of props, dynamic rhythm changes, and a performer with a strong presence and wide range of movement. The collaboration between dancer and percussionist (Jean-Philippe Carde) was excellent, and the score worked quite well with the movement. I feared it would be too dry and artsy for my plebeian tastes, but I thought it was excellent, as did the crowd.
Here's her Vimeo clip:
And here's some Flip camera footage of the piece at the festival:
Milo e Oliviain Klinke Although this was a street theatre festival, several of the acts involved elaborate set-ups that one would not usually associate with the low-maintenance mises-en-scène adapted by most street performers. Such was the case with Milo e Olivia, from Italy (Accademia del Circo di Cesenatico), by way of Blue Lake, California (Dell'Arte School) and Montreal (Ecole Nationale de Cirque), who drew a large crowd to their prime-time Saturday night spot.
Klinke, a "poetically comic new circus show," is the story of two oddballs — a porter and a vagabond who apparently travels the world inside of wooden crates — who meet, fall in love, flirt and fight, but in the end unite. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. The plot doesn't always make perfect sense, and the skills are somewhat arbitrarily incorporated into the story. But so what? The performers were so engaging, the circus work so varied and at such a high level, and the non-stop inventiveness so refreshing that the end result was delightful. Here's a video from their web site, which will give you some idea of their work:
Unfortunately, I think this rally fails to capture the energy and the spirit of the live performance. Partly it's the classical music background, not in keeping with the show's eclectic music choices. (I especially liked their use of Bjorg's It's Oh So Quiet.) Partly it's just that video and live performance are not the same thing (so get off your ass and go see some live performance!). Here's part of their diabolo routine shot live in Antibes, though cut off when I ran out of batteries. (Note to Self #1: always bring extra batteries. Note to Self #2: read notes to self.)
Among his many skills, Milo is a master of the unsupported ladder. A couple of live clips from Antibes:
All in all, a good time... You have to hand it to those French. As long as you don't actually read the pretentious program notes, much less expect the acts to live up to all that poetic hyperbole crap, they do produce some good shows and, as always, attract international talent that may not get as much support on their home turf.
...that you can click on any blog image to see it full size?
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An Introduction...
[So this is what I wrote six years ago; more or less true!]
Ring around a rosie, a pocket full of posies Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down
Welcome to the All Fall Down blog, an exploration of all aspects of physical comedy, from the historical to the latest work in the field, from the one-man show to the digital composite, from the conceptual to the nuts & bolts how-to. Be prepared for a broad definition of physical comedy (mine!) and a wide variety of approaches. Physical comedy is a visual art form, so there’ll be tons of pictures and videos, but also some substantial writing and research, including scripts and probably even some books.
This blog is a result of me wanting to follow through on lots of unfinished research from the past 25 years. It’s made possible by a full-year sabbatical leave from Bloomfield College that will take me through August 2010. It’s also made more practical by the ease of Web 2.0 tools for managing and distributing content. I had envisioned a web site similar to this blog more than a decade ago, but never got too far with it because it was simply a lot more work. Now, no more excuses!
Just as this blog will be sharing lots of goodies with you free of charge, I hope you will share your knowledge and ideas with me. Feel free to comment on any of it, or to write me directly with your suggestions. Admittedly I don’t see this as a free-for-all forum on the subject of physical comedy. It’s my blog, I’m the filter, and it won’t be all things to all people. That being said, I hope it will bring together insights, information, and people, and encourage others to make their own singular contributions to the field.
I hope to be adding substantial and varied material to the blog on a regular basis, so check back often and be sure to check out previous posts. And finally, a thanks to all of you, past present, and future whose work contributes to our knowledge — and our fun. We are truly standing on the shoulders of giants.
— John Towsen New York CIty May, 2009
My Physical Comedy Qualifications
So if you don’t blink, you can see me doing a pratfall on the original 1957 CBS production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella(starring Julie Andrews, directed by Ralph Nelson, stage managed by Joseph Papp).
If that doesn't say it all, then click here for the full bio.
My Favorite Posts Okay, there are literally thousands of physical comedy blogs out there, but only one physical comedy blogopedia. Why list my favorite posts? Because I want to draw attention to my best research and writing, to posts that make the strongest connections between old and new, between theory and practice, between ha-ha funny and broader global issues. If I die tomorrow, which is impossible because it's already the day after tomorrow in Australia, these are the ones I would like read aloud at my funeral, with high-rez projection of all videos. (Is it bad luck to write that?) Also, please mention that I never voted for a Republican. —jt
Here are some useful and fun blogs and web sites that touch on the whole field of physical comedy, rather than just sites by performers about themselves (not that there's anything wrong with that). Click away!
For the latest posts from these blogs, see below. (Blogs only; not web sites.) These are automatically sequenced by Google in order of most current posts. The blog at the top of the list is the blog with the most recent post. Since the whole idea is to keep you (and me) up to date on current posts in the field, blogs that have not been posting regularly have been dropped from the list; if you've been dropped but are now posting regularly, just let me know.
Los otros hombres que ríen
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En nuestro camino para conocer a Gwynplaine hemos encontrado algunas otras
versiones de la célebre novela de Víctor Hugo. La primera película
inspirada p...
Caroline Loyo
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==Equestrienne==
==E...
R.I.P Dougie Ashton
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ICHOF inductee Dougie Ashton passed away on August 25th at the age of 96.
Please enjoy this rare audio interview with him from 1973 when he was
touring wit...
The Apache Dance
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I had heard of the “Apache dance”, but didn’t know much about it, until I
ran across this youtube video: It’s a humorous setting for a dance that
isn’t mea...
Canal Payasas
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Con todas las grandes payasas que conozco y admiro, había tardado mucho en
realizar esta lista. Seguramente porque a muchas las tengo incluidas en
otros....
Here's a list of complete books available for free as pdf documents right here on this here blogopedia, arranged in chronological order; dates are publication in the original language. Clickhere for a Tech Note on these books. Click on the book title to go to that post. More books coming!
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