Timing is everything in comedy as they say, and it got me thinking…
What is the most perfectly executed pause, before delivering the whammy?
I’m thinking John Cleese in Holy Grail is number 1:
“She turned me into a newt!”
“A newt?!?”
…pause…
“I got better”
Followed by runner up Christopher Guest in Spinal Tap:
…pause…
“But this one goes up to eleven”
Other contenders?
From Life of Brian:
Her name is Incontinentia. (Pause) Incontinentia Buttocks.
Cary Grant’s triple-take in Arsenic and Old Lace.
From LA Story:
Steve Martin: So I understand you’re an expert conversationalist.
Girl: (Pause) Yes.
I’d always heard that the all-time champ was on Jack Benny’s radio show (which often milked his reputation for frugality). JB is being held-up at gunpoint:
Robber: Your money or your life!
(pause)
(pause)
(pause)
Robber: I said…
JB: I’m thinking!
Benny was a master of the pause. He could keep one going for almost a minute and that would only make it funnier. Basically because the audience knew his character they could see the punchline coming, his genius was to make them wait for the obvious rejoinder.
Ben Folds Five, “Song For The Dumped”:
“So you wanted to take a break?
Slow it down some and have some space…”(music and singing pause for a couple seconds)
Benny did that joke more than once, and on both his radio and his television shows.
“I’m thinking” is the way most people remember it, but IIRC, the lines were: “I’m thinking it over,” and “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”
Benny’s pause is the one that’s always brought out because it was entirely verbal – no expressions or sound effects to emphasize it.
Two brilliant visual pauses:
Dick VanDyke - convinced the Peterson’s had gotten the Petrie’s newborn son by mistake, Rob arranges a meeting. His face registers surprise, shock, consternation and embarassment before the Petersons, who are African-American, can even walk through the door.
Jane Curtin - On 3rd Rock from the Sun, Dick Solomon tries to convince Mary Albright that he really is from another planet. “Just think of everything we’ve been through over the past four years. Now imagine it as if it were happening to you for the first time.” Curtin shows surprise, anger, shock, confusion, lust, humor and about a dozen other expressions before finally screaming “Oh my God!”
Let’s talk Tim Conway and Harvey Korman.
They worked together a lot, and The Carol Burnett Show was one of their main forums. Conway was so damn funny that he would often crack Korman up during the course of a skit, sometimes so severely that Korman could barely continue. In particular, I’m thinking of the skit where Conway describes a pair of Siamese elephants, born joined at the trunk. Every pause Conway makes as he describes them (and what happens when one tries to trumpet) is pure gold, with Conway’s deadpan face and Korman totally losing it right next to him…
I was going to use this one, too. Plus, FTR, he also performed this skit on his TV show.
Actually, it’s “Oh, you’re taking a course in converation?”
I guess she needs it. 
I’d have to go with Johnny Carson (Boy, do I miss him).
When a guest would say something that was unintentionally funny, that was just waiting for a wisecrack reply, Johnny would just silently pause and look directly into the camera. I loved it.
E3
Whoops, forgot to add my own favorite. From Top Secret!:
Nick: I’m not the first guy who fell in love with a woman that he met at a restaurant who turned out to be the daughter of a kidnapped scientist only to lose her to her childhood lover who she last saw on a deserted island who then turned out fifteen years later to be the leader of the French underground.
Hillary: I know. It all sounds like some bad movie.
[They both pause and turn slowly to stare awkwardly at the camera.]
Affleck: “Matt, I’ve told you and told you. One ‘art’ movie…then one ‘safe’ movie. pause Then there are the movies you do because you owe the director a favor.”
Stare at camera.
All from the Revelations show by the master of the comic pause, Bill Hicks:
Because I’ve seen that movie dozens of times in the past few months, I feel obligated to correct that:
“You’re like a child. What’ve I been telling you? You gotta do the safe picture. Then you can do the art picture. But then sometimes you gotta do the payback picture because your friend says you owe him.”
beat
Stare at camera.
Also in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, again by Affleck:
“I mean, I don’t think I’m alone in the world in imagining this flick may be the worst idea since Greedo shooting first. You know it, but… a Jay and Silent Bob movie? Feature length? Who’d pay to see that?”
beat
Stare at camera.
That’s a great moment, but the pause didn’t make it funny. The only reason there’s a huge pause is because the audience wouldn’t stop laughing.
Jack Benny’s was the first that came to mind.
After that, Nigel Tufnel’s.
Also, though, is from All in the Family: Meathead Michael and Gloria are getting married in the living room and everyone is waiting for Archie. Someone asks “where is Archie?” and right then, the upstairs toilet does a massive flush. The live audience bursts out laughing and there has to be a long delay. Then, Edith, I think, pauses, looks thoughtful, gives a small nod and says “we’ll give him a minute.” and the audience loses it again…
Antici …
…
…
…
…
…
… pation
The Rocky Horror Show
This may be a little off of the topic, but I think it still relates.
In the book Penn & Teller’s How to Play in Traffic Penn and Teller tell the story of “NASA’s Successful Quantifying of Comedy Timing”. I’ll put the rest in a spoiler, because I think it is a good read.
They tell the story about how they went to Florida to see the Space Shuttle launch. The gist of which is that when the shuttle lifts off, there is no sound at all which seems very strange, and most people (who have not seen a shuttle launch before) are just about to ask, “I thought it would be loud?” Just then, of course, the sound of the launch reaches the viewing stand and it is the loudest thing that you have ever heard. Perfect comedic timing
Og, yes! That is a classic! I’m busting up at the computer just thinking about it.
I’d like to nominate Zero Mostel, in just about every movie he ever made. He has some beauts in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and his pause after Gene Wilder suggests that a flop would make more than a hit in **The Producers ** is a gem.