For slapstick to work, the audience needs to believe the victim isn’t really getting hurt, even if he is. Curly had to pop right back after Moe poked his eyebrows, and any animated character had to come back to life intact in the next few frames, etc.
More broadly, a rule broken or a boundary crossed. A lot of very funny stuff doesn’t involve anyone being humiliated.
Also, how common something is in real life can affect what’s considered funny. The slip-on-banana-peel-gag came about only after bananas became a common food stuff in North America around the turn of the last century. Back then, there were few public trash cans and hardly any anti-littering laws so people just threw their garbage on the ground. That led to banana peels being a frequent hazard on streets, sidewalks, and floors. Thus, in addition to the physical humor of seeing someone fall down, there was a “we’ve all been there” sense to the joke. Now, however, most people above the age of two know you’re supposed to dispose of a banana peel in a trash can and there are enforced anti-litter laws. Thus, you rarely see banana peels on the ground any more. Not only is the joke tired, it’s hardly relevant to anybody in 21st century America.
An academic take on the subject (Monty Python, Hollywood Bowl, SAFE for work)
The audience didn’t think Lewis or Chase were getting hurt at any time. I’m talking about decisions made by the comics themselves.
You ever see someone slip on a banana peel? Have you seen lots of people do so? I haven’t because it doesn’t happen. Today’s banana is the Cavendish, a variety that was put into production after a fungus wiped out the Gros Michel in the 1960s. According to stuff I read someplace - a good enough cite for me - the Gros Michel’s peel was literally far more slippery than the Cavendish’s. You could easily slip and fall when stepping on a Gros Michel. It’s possible to fall from stepping on a Cavendish, but it’s far less likely and few people have ever seen it happen.
“Bananas” meant crazy. “Banana oil” was phony stuff (probably from the easily made chemical used as an artificial flavoring). But the big thing that made bananas funny in the 19th century, when slipping on banana peel jokes become common, was that it was the go-to code for a penis. Lots of bawdy limericks used banana as a punchline. A banana was intrinsically funny, which is why the lead comedian was the top banana and the lesser guy was the second banana.
All this banana lore got lost somewhere along the line. We’re literally no longer getting the joke.
Slapstick is physical comedy and it still has its place.
Rowan Atkinson, who invented the Mr Bean character, made a fortune from this style of comedy. The show sold to huge number of countries. Bean is an adult, who behaves and sees the world with all the lack of self awareness of a 9 year boy. The fact that he is silent, but has a very animated face and gets into absurd situations, helps to sell it in places where many viewers may not understand English but they sure get the humour. Kids the world over know who Mr Bean is and it gets past the censors.
There is nothing like a well crafted physical sketch. I guess in the Silent era, there wasn’t much else in the way of comedy that worked in that medium.
Leslie Nielsen in the Airplane spoofs, Mel Brooks, Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey…
There is nothing like a good belly laugh and few more reliable ways to get one than a bit of silly slapstick.
Yeah, the repetition factor hurts.
As a kid I loved the 3 Stooges. But now the slapstick gets in the way of the other bits too much. Just not a lot you can do with eye poles, slaps, etc.
When it was new to people (even adults) it was interesting. Then … it wasn’t.
As to Mr. Bean, if you’ve seen one sketch you’ve seen them all.
One key thing about humor is when something unexpected happens. With things like Mr. Bean you pretty much know second to second what’s going to happen next. Yawn.
Slapstick will always be funny. It’s one of the first things babies laugh at. There are always new variations, like cats freaking out about pickles. Or dogs bamboozled by their owners disappearing behind a blanket.
The banana peel gag may have started by using a banana, a naturally funny fruit, to replace a slip on a less acceptable slippery substance for the movies, namely manure, let’s just go with horses on that one. But slipping on a banana peel is a gag that works the first time. I forget which of the early movie comedians worked it out but the real humor comes when someone spots the banana peel, steps over it and into a hole. The ubiquity of the banana peel provides the setup, humor comes from the unexpected.
No discussion of modern physical comedy is complete without mentioning the martial artist Jackie Chan.
Slapstick is generally not very funny. The Three Stooges were never funny. Laurel and Hardy were much more likely to get a laugh from me, though I still find their slapstick to be very unfunny.
But then, I don’t spend my time on YouTube watching videos of people falling off things and hurting themselves, either. I know many people find those endlessly entertaining. :smack:
I’d say to see modern-ish slapstick at its best, you probably have to watch some old John Ritter in “Three’s Company”. Or for that matter, Jim Carrey in “In Living Color” or the Ace Ventura movies. Ritter though, was (IMO) a more talented comedian, in that he was a very funny comic actor without the slapstick physical comedy, but was terrific at that as well. Carrey was pretty much only slapstick in the early 1990s.
I read somewhere (citations? who needs citations?) that around the turn of the 20th century, bananas were sometimes used as cheap shoe polish. If you couldn’t afford a shoe shine, you’d rub a banana peel on your shoe for a quick shine. This may have led to an association of bananas with shoes, and then later to the slipping on a peel gag.
Ever step on a bannana peel? The really are that godamn slippery.
Home Alone is one of the best slapstick movies around.