The kind of stupid character that I find tiring is the “Gracie Allen” type - she misunderstands everything and it just seems incredibly stressful to know her, possibly because I can’t see any core competency that she has. Sheldon is good at physics, Abe can do math and write publishable theatre reviews, Gilligan can collect wood and assist in sailing, but Gracie gets confused everywhere.
Her core competency is making the funniest straight man of the 20th Century look good.
That’s the actress’ core competence, certainly - the character is a different story.
I think someone hit it on the head (upthread somewhere): A well-written and well-acted character can be hilarious and even poignant. Smart or stupid, hippie or bigot, loud or shy.
The Office had characters that I would’ve bet I wouldn’t like, but then the way they were written and acted give them a depth, to the point where you can see WHY they’re stupid/conniving/self-important/etc.
.
(…The original Office, and the colonial version. And Seinfeld, and Curb, and Arrested Development, and Always Sunny… I could go on, dissecting each character. So I’d better quit now.)
“Say goodnight, Gracie.”
“Goodnight, Gracie.”
“Goodnight everyone, you’ve been a great audience.”
Come on! He should have got an Oscar nom at least for The Ghost and Mr. Chicken! He was robbed.
Like many have said, it depends. Joey’s good guy with no brain best friend was perfect on Friends. I couldn’t imagine Married With Children without meterzoologist Kelly. The Office was borderline so I only managed a couple seasons. While Michael was supposed to be the dumb one, no one else really impressed me in the brains department either. it didn’t help that almost everyone in the show was an asshole.
You can count me out if everyone on the show is stupid. So no Gilligan, no Laurel and Hardy, no Beverly Hillbillies, no Threes Company no Arrested Development. The list goes on and on.
Nine seasons and he couldn’t even buy a new set of clothes? I assume he wasn’t born dressed like that, so sometime before the start of the show he must have visited some sort of store, even a thrift shop. Did he forget how to shop? It’s not innate wisdom that causes you to decide to wear the same clothes all day every day for 9 years (plus). It’s mental illness. Or use that innate wisdom to know a belt with a buckle is superior to a rope. And a car with an electric starter is superior to a hand crank.
Maybe I just plum forgot all the episodes where he was smart. Jethro, on the other hand…
I hate the too dumb to breathe characters …most of the time these days you find them in ensemble shows aimed at kids and young adults …
It’s called ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’, not ‘Fine Fashions For Funny Folk’. It’s a fish-out-of-water comedy. No one yearns to see Jed sporting an Armani suit or a silk kimono.
I agree. But the thread is about stupid characters, and someone too stupid to know you can buy a new pair of jeans and shirt and belt with your $17M and not be considered a reckless spender is stupid.
Most folk in Bugtussle would like the finer things, they just can’t afford them, so they make do. The Clampetts can afford them. but they think dressing like a, well, hillbilly in Beverly Hills is a virtue, a sign of true character. I submit they’re just…stupid. They bought that house, fer crissakes! Probably the entire town of Bugtussle could live in there. You can buy a fleet of Armani suits for the difference in the cost between that mansion and a “normal” LA house.
The show follows the fashion (no pun intended) of a cartoon, where the characters wear the same thing every day, mostly because it’s cheaper and easier. Oddly, there was a serious drama character (the only one I can think of) that was not in uniform that wore the same thing in every episode - Carl Kolchak. He wore his suit and hat like a uniform.
(Gracie Allen) I thought she was hilarious, because of (IMO) the disconnect between what the ditzy character said, and the intelligence in the performer’s eyes.
This was quite common, from the 1950s through the 1970s. It enabled the editors to re-use footage from prior episodes, if they got caught in a bind. It was not “cartoon”, it was “the producer is a cheapskate”.
Boys and girls, do not waste your money on the 400 level class at USC’s “Tv Bullshit” class.
You got it all for free right here.
Most Excellent post!
She was. Her “stupidity” was extremely clever, a way of looking at things that was positively surreal.
For instance there was the time an elevator arrived and the operator said, “Down?” Allen pointed to the floor and said, “It’s that way.”
A supid person would never thing to do that.
Wasn’t he wonderfully creepy in that? I think he could have played that into a longer more interesting career, if he’d wanted to.
I think his problem is that he always overacted. It made him a lot of money, but I find that unwatchable. Dialing it back made him better.
I feel the same with Burt Lancaster. He tried too hard (I wouldn’t call it overacting, but he pushed too much). But toward the end of his career, he learned how to dial it back and added a new dimension.
Bonanza was bad that way.
Jianyu/Jason on The Good Place was too dumb to live (literally!) but one of the sweetest characters on that show.
Agreed, but his screwball comedies (e.g. The Reluctant Astronaut, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Incredible Mr. Limpet) seemed more aimed at children than they were at adults. Oh, they weren’t strictly kids’ movies, since adults could enjoy them; but they seemed more designed as the B-picture at a drive-in, or as part of a Saturday afternoon kiddie double-feature. Knotts’ overacting made them just more fun to me as a child, and even my parents got a few chuckles out of them when they were shown before the main feature at the drive-in.
In later years, he dialed it back for Pleasantville, and did a superb job. But that film was meant for adults, which I was when that came out, not for kids. I would have liked to see him in more like that, actually.
I always liked Don Knotts. He was a talented comedian and I believe a genuinely kind, modest person. His performance on the Andy Griffith Show is what elevated the show into a hit (Griffith was intelligent enough to recognize Knotts talent and to his credit, didn’t mind playing second banana to Don on his show). His character may have been a bit slow-witted, but not dumb as nails. It was the nervousness and delusions of grandeur that made Barney Fife shine.
On closer look, the Barney character was well-balanced and more nuanced than typically given credit for. Knotts stand-up routine characters exhibited similar traits and were equally funny. And, I agree, his performance in Pleasantville was deliciously creepy. Too bad he wasn’t offered more roles in that vein.
Don’s performance on Three’s Company was quite cringe-worthy, but then again, all the characters on that show were cringe-worthy over-actors. I don’t blame Knotts, I blame the writers and director of the show. Over-the-top acting and mugging for the camera are not the way to showcase someone with Don’s fine comedy chops. Hopefully, he just did it for the paycheck. As mentioned, the hammy Knotts performances were appropriate for his movies geared toward kids.
The same could be said of Jerry Lewis, though he wasn’t a genuinely nice and modest guy like Don Knotts IRL (benevolent, but not nice). When Jerry dialed down the over-the-top acting and mugging, his comedy chops were apparent and spot on.
Bertie Wooster.