“If you tell the truth about how you’re feeling, it becomes
funny.”
Have you ever heard of Seinfeld?
Seen it maybe? I saw the whole thing. Multiple times. I remember first watching
it in high school as a way to unwind from the stress of being an adolescent
girl. I’ve re-watched it several times since then. For those who are not
familiar, the show follows the lives of four adults (3 men and one woman)
living in New York. But the show is about nothing. There’s no real plot line.
Each episode is simply about their lives—their incredibly funny, random lives. Larry
David (and Jerry Seinfeld of course, but we’re not talking about him here)
wrote this show. Larry David is a comedian, writer, actor, playwright, and
television producer (oof). He won two Emmy awards for Seinfeld and one for Curb
Your Enthusiasm which is the other show he wrote. He plays himself in Curb Your Enthusiasm but completely
lacking in any social sensitivity or awareness which makes for a hilarious
show.
Larry David grew up in Brooklyn, New York in a Jewish family
of lower means. He started out as a stand-up comedian while working other jobs on
the side to earn a living. At one point of his early life after college, he
lived in a federally subsidized housing complex in Manhattan.
Seinfeld started
in 1989 and lasted nine seasons until 1998. Curb
Your Enthusiasm came out in 2000 and is on its ninth season right now. Larry
David has been writing comedy since 1989 and although not every episode of both
shows is genius, he has created two hilarious, highly successful shows. In Curb Your Enthusiasm he does not fully
write the script. Instead he allows the actors, including himself, to do improvisation
which can be seen as another form of creativity, or at least an opportunity to
be creative.
Larry David’s comedy is creative because it is so simple and
mundane, but original. In Curb Your
Enthusiasm, his character Larry is socially unaware of the proper way to
act. For example, in one episode he tries handing a twenty dollar bill to a
pharmacist so that he can get his prescription filled faster. We have all
probably had to wait to get a prescription filled out—it is relatable. But few
of us (I hope) would think to bribe a pharmacist.
There is a certain kind of creative genius in coming up with
such simple, daily life comedy for over thirty years.
I think effective comedy often seems very effortless. For something to be funny, it can't seem like it's trying too hard. Because of this, I think it is easy for people to overlook how much effort and creativity goes into comedy. I think you addressed something that I think is crucial for successful comedy: taking something mundane and turning it into something unexpected, but not so unexpected that the audience can't relate to or follow along with it. The example of bribing the pharmacist was a good instance of this, because it takes something that everyone experiences and relates to (wanting to make the pharmacist work faster), but takes it to an extent that the average person wouldn't do.
ReplyDeleteSo glad to see a post on Larry David! As Sara pointed out above, there is an elusive notion that comedy is effortless. We encounter funny people in all facets of life: friends, co-workers, and even random daily encounters. However, when you learn about the processes of comedic writers and performers, you realize the great deal of mental energy and sheer time put into creating these works. In regards to Seinfeld, I know he has kept all of the jokes he has written "since 1975." As we've garnered from class readings, greatly creative people often output more products then less creative people. Thus, on proportions alone, the portion of successful products produced surpasses others who create less. I wonder if David has kept such a log of jokes (from his stand-up days) or compiled scripts over time.
ReplyDeleteWhich show do you like better? Are you also surprised Larry never made an appearance on Seinfeld? So glad he is making a new season of Curb right now. The show is absolutely ludicrous.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Larry David changed the field of television comedy which the work he did on Seinfeld. For example, Larry and Jerry had the "no hugging, no learning" rule on the show which said that episodes should never end with the characters making up or learning a valuable life lesson, they would just continue on being their same terrible selves forever. This ran contrary to the origin and decades long tradition of the "family values" sitcom. The shift to terrible people doing terrible things endlessly opened the door to some of the best contemporary sitcoms of today, like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which took the idea of scumbag characters to the absolute extreme.
ReplyDeleteI love Sunny! You should check out this video of Seinfeld
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp79Q8Scyi8
The video shows how Seinfeld reinvented the sitcom mold from being emotional, cheesy and moral to something more random and complicated. None of the episodes are resolved and despite that the show explores social norms which seem petty and yet are timeless because we still laugh about the jokes they made in 1989.
DeleteThere is something genuine and unique about Seinfeld in that it doesn't rely on gimmicks or hooks. So often comedy and sitcoms rely on a hook or premise to get the show going, for instance BLackish relies on african american stereotypes to produce comedy or Big Bang Theory relies on the oddity of highly trained scientists to give its show an edge and uniqueness. But Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm is real. It does force you to buy into stereotypes and gimmicks. It presents comedy in real life and that is so difficult but so rewarding to do. Definitely a creative feat.
ReplyDelete