fandomhigh | Birth of Television Comedy, Monday, Period One

"Today, we'll be talking about sketch comedy," Mitchell began. "Another brand of TV humor that's been around since time immemorial." He raised his eyebrows in amusement. "Perhaps the most famous of sketch comedy shows was ~~meta for~~ Monty Python. It aired in the late 1960s, early 1970s, and explored the boundaries of absurdism. Since, it's practically been implanted into many minds across the globe. 'And now for something completely different', anyone?" He rubbed at his hands. "Made up of a couple of friends straight out of Cambridge-- it's still hard to avoid John Cleese these days. Another big part of it was their completely random animation. The ensemble changed the field of comedy, especially on TV, for good."

"Sketch comedy is fairly simple. You've got a sketch - that's a short scene - and you sprinkle it with comedy. The genre hails from music hall and vaudeville, types of entertainment where they had to string a lot of tiny things together to form a program to entertain the unwashed masses. It found its way to radio, from which all things found their way to television. Sometimes, sketches happen once, then tail off into the next. Other times, you'll find a situation and characters from a sketch reused across the programme, or even the entire series. The main thing is that there's no long storyline to string them all together."

"Out in the States, you've got shows like Saturday Night Live who use sketch comedy to lampoon the news," he continued, "It doesn't all have to be absurd. A lot of it comes from improvisation, too - just a few people farting about in a room."

He grinned at the class. "Today is easy," he said, "We'll be watching some ~~meta for~~ Monty Python sketches, and then I'll be pairing you all off to make your own. You all get one word to work around, too. I'll be expecting to see these next week."

He jotted names on the whiteboard.

Bod - Delirium - Grass seeds
Robin - Chloe - Living legend
Kate - Layla - Epic showdown

"Now get to watching."

[[ ~~wait for the~~ ocd up! ]]

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Well, that was an idea. Bod couldn't help a quiet laugh. "With grass seeds?"

Delirium raised a hand...and she was holding a grass seed. "Well, yeah." And the seed opened, and grass started to come and come, falling at the sides, making a little mess on Del's feet. "It's what I do, after all."

"That's quite impressive," Bod had to say, eyes widening. "I don't know if it will suffice for sketch comedy but it's really impressive."

Del let the seed fall...but there was no seed. Or grass. Nothing at all. Just an hallucination. "Funny, most of people don't like to have their sanity poked; it makes them feel the world they return could be just a lie after the lie." And then she went thoughtful.

Maybe the gardener has a funny accent? And the wife can't understand what he says, and he does the wrong thing to do?"

"She tells him to plan the seed, he puts in the dishwasher because he can't understand her?" Bod tried. "Something such as that?"

That...actually got her laughing. "Yes! Like that!" That, and more senseless stuff. "You are good at this. We can make this."

Birth of Television Comedy, Monday, Period One

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