"Joey" - The Fight Against Ignorance Has Been Lost

Cafe Society
21

Well, depends on the genre. I love oddball, wacky, fantastic, non-sequitur-ical, surrealistic humor. I love ‘Father of the Pride’ which has huge amounts of suspension of belief in the surreality of Sigfried and Roy. Ah, but with the rest of the family, they are doing sitcom… but sitcom for a fantastical world. I’ve accepted the presmise of talking animals. That’s OK with me. Within that framework they do both sitcom and parody of sitcom (I like many layered comedy).

However, the genre of sitcom itself with live action people that is not a parody of sitcom and does not have a built in fantastical element (like Alf or Mork and Mindy), is supposed to be based on reality. A reality made funny with extraordinary (not impossible!) coincidences, and human foibles, and overhearing the wrong part of a conversation and taking out of context. Sometimes reality is stretched to make the ‘situation’ funnier.

But, given the episode of ‘Joey’ I just described. Come on.

Can you imagine Frasier coming in and says, “Hey, guess what, Dad? NASA picked me to go to space! I’ll be the first Crane in space!”

“Hate to break this to ya, son, but they took me up this morning.” <laughter>

Niles: “Oh, gee, sorry Fraze, I didn’t want to tell you, but, aliens took me into space last night. See, they gave me a 1920’s style ray gun. {shoots couch, it vaporizes}” <big laughter>

The comedy comes from the situation. But when they screw with reality just to get the laugh, that’s not only not funny… it is the most assinine, laziest, and imbecilic writing of comedy you can find. There’s no plausibility. There’s no verisimmilitude. There’s no hope for humanity.

Peace.

22

[QUOTE=Rube E. Tewesday]
You’re aware that Keanu Reeves has done Shakespeare, right?

[QUOTE]
I nearly choked to death when Keanu said “My Most Excellent Lord” in Much Ado About Nothing. Whatever he was “doing” in that movie, it most certainly was not acting.

23

I saw the stupidest play I have ever seen the other day. It stretched credulity like a Stretch Armstrong, and I just couldn’t get past it to enjoy the story.

Two affluent traders had a legal fight, and ended up in court. Neither of them brought an attorney, although we were supposed to believe they were both well-established businessmen. This guy Antonio was being sued by this Shylock guy - for a pound of flesh - as though you could even try to enforce an illegal contract!

Anyway, the judge presiding over the case was not a judge, but actually this chick hot for Antonio, dressed up as a man. Nobody noticed - none of the court officers cared that they’d never seen this jurist, and not even Antonio himself recognized her :rolleyes: . And then the whole case was decided on this non-existent “tenet” that you can only do physical harm when removing a pound of flesh if you have explicitly written into your contract that you may.

I mean, WTF? I hope this guy never got another writing job, or civilization is beyond hope.

24

Was there universally abysmal writing on:
Maude
The Jeffersons
Happy Days
Laverne & Shirley
Mork & Mindy
Rhoda
The Facts of Life
Benson
A Different World
Gomer Pyle, USMC?

25

Um…

26

I’m confused as to why you feel that those examples you cited have no elements of realism. Isn’t Wayne’s World funny because it is an exaggeration of the way some real people act? Comedy has elements of realism, mixed with elements of ridiculousness. All ridiculousness isn’t funny, nor is all realism. There’s got to be something that resonates with your real world experiences or you won’t find it funny.

By the way moriah, your posts are hilarious.

27

I didn’t say that. Regardless, you can’t tell me that Ace Ventura is any more realistic than Joey, then again, you may not have found that movie funny, thus concluding that humor is entirely subjective.

28

You know, I wouldn’t naturally think of MST3K in a thread dealing with Joey or Keanu Reeves, but now that you bring it up…

29

Hey, Gomer Pyle was an occasionally touching show. Like that one when there was the big misunderstanding and Sgt. Carter shows his tender side to help Gomer out of a jam, remember that one? That one was nice.

30

“Hooty-hoot! Hooty-hoot!”

31

I see. So Monty Python and the Holy Grail is an example of realism? How about Duck Soup? When that conveyor belt goes all haywire in I Love Lucy, is that not funny because the realistic thing to do would be to shut down the line?

You can play that game with any comedy ever made.

32

What is unrealistic about actors being stupid?

I’m honestly asking. I’ve known a lot of actors and it doesn’t strike me as being a profession full of real geniuses.

33

You thought Dream On was schlock? I hope you only saw the edited versions in syndication, not the original HBO episodes. Dream On was, IMO, the first great HBO original show (although if you’re a stickler for realism, I can see how it may not have been your cup of tea).

Oh, and great post, bup.

Pash

34

Oh, yes, I saw the original series as it was first aired… broadcast… um… cabled on HBO.

The use of movie clips to emotionally highlight the inner thoughts of the protagonist was clever. However…

  1. It became just a gimmick once the novelty wore off. The clips were never integrated enough into the plot for my tastes. They were more like a post littered with smilies.

  2. I always wondered why the protagonist, who grew up on TV, kept having flashes of black and white movies. Sheez, they could at least have had him be a film buff as a plot point.

  3. The plot. The only plotline that I thought was really funny was trying to compete with the ex-wife’s new husband who was always off screen and who was heroically perfect. The rest of the plot points were merely contrivances in order to show breasts on TV.

I know, I know. For many, many, #3 is sufficient. <insert clip of black and white movie with some actor in suit and hat loudly and nasally proclaiming, “Some people ain’t never satisfied!”>

Peace.

35

Jazz hands!

36

Bup

IMHO Shakespeare makes it work. I’ve found that great writers often use cliches and unbelievable situations. The difference between they and the writers of Joey, is that a great writer is able to render an unbelievable situation plausible, and a cliche genuine.

Re Reality

To me, the point is not whether a show is realistic, but whether it remains true to the setting it establishes. If Joey has established that it takes place in a fairly accurate copy of the real world, then it should be faulted for violating that setting. Finding Nemo established a world in which fish(and other sea life) are inteligent, can speak to eachother, understand human speech, and in some cases read, humans remain unaware of this. It did not violate those rules. Toy Story had a world in which toys can move and speak, some are aware they are toys and some are not, and nobody moves or speaks in front of human witnesses. The last rule was violated, but it was shown to be an extreme case and was necessary to defeat the villian.

37

This whole thing reminds me of the memo Robert Reed sent to Sherwood and Lloyd Schwartz explaining why he refused to appear in the final episode of The Brady Bunch. Now, I know that Reed had a reputation for being stuck-up and pedantic, but I’ve read the memo (reprinted in Barry Williams’ book) and it made some very good points.

Reed went on at length about various genres (fantasy, farce, drama, comedy-drama), and insisted that they cannot be mixed. He gave an example of an undoable crossover. A typical operating-room scene in MASH starts out with the usual banter and medical-tech talk; then suddenly Batman walks in. “Now the scene cannot go on!” Of course, it could continue if a plausible explanation is given: Klinger rushes in to explain that “Batman” is actually a shell-shocked soldier who appropriated the Batman costume from Klinger’s wardrobe. But then the character wouldn’t be Batman; he’d be a soldier wearing a Batman costume. So it would be believable in the context of MASH, but none of the elements of “Batman” the series would be brought in. “But at any rate, the Batman-soldier’s presence would have to be adjusted to by the surgical team, not just abruptly accepted.”

Some crossovers do work: the X-Files/Cops episode, for instance. But that wasn’t very far-fetched: goverment agents do sometimes interact with local law enforcement, and Mulder and Scully were still fully in character. I love how Mulder totally plays to the camera, while Scully clearly resents being filmed (“Because the FBI [glares into lens] has nothing to hide.”) Similarly, Jay Sherman appearing on The Simpsons was not, as Bart claimed, “another cheap cartoon crossover”. Jay and Homer are equally jerkish and buffoonish, but just different enough to create some tension. And the premise of a film festival was a plausible reason to bring him on.

As far as the Joey episode, it does sound pretty bad. I’d say what moriah said. Even though we’re talking about a spinoff of a show that expected the audience to believe that a person could work at a coffee bar and still afford a studio apartment with a gorgeous view…it’s one thing for the overall premise to be implausible, and quite another for the structure of an entire episode to have such gaps in plausibility.

38

So, what was the final episode of the Brady Bunch and why didn’t Reed want to appear in it?

39

Ivylass As Rilchiam mentioned, the final episode involved Mike Brady being horribly wounded in what seems to be a construction accident. But, as the brave doctors of 4077 struggle to save his life, the Caped Crusader walks in and anounces that the explosion was actually the work of that Clown Prince Of Crime, The Joker! At that moment, Peter Brady awakens, revealing the whole series to have been a dream. He turns to his wife, Marsha, and says “Have you ever thought about wearing more sweaters?”

40

You guys just don’t get the incredibly subtle and biting satire that is Joey.

Just like Showgirls.

Running like mad