From Deadline Hollywood (the inspiration for so many blog posts):
After exploring 1960s New York City with Mad Men and the Nebraska territory circa 1865 with Hell On Wheels, AMC is heading to Colonial Boston for a comedy project, now in development. Titled We Hate Paul Revere, it is written and executive produced by writer-actors Ethan Sandler and Adrian Wenner (Whitney). It centers on two brothers living in Colonial Boston who are not fans of local industrialist and activist Paul Revere.
That's a fine idea. Sounds funny. And I bet the script will be hilarious. But when it is filmed and put on TV, it will not work. Because period comedies do not work.
Well, usually they don't.
To be clear, I would not include stuff like Happy Days or Laverne & Shirley in this. That's not the period I'm talking about. When you watch those shows you barely remember that they're in a different time. I'm talking about anything set in a time that does not resemble our own.
Like, for example, Year One or Your Highness.
Here are two theories/reasons for this:
1) A huge part of comedy is the ability to relate to the situations. There's a reason Jerry Seinfeld begins every joke with "Have you ever noticed...". That's huge. No one has ever noticed that George Washington doesn't pluck his nose hair. We can't identify with that the way we can relate to a close talker.
2) From a production stand point, comedies can't pull off historical shit like dramas can. Daniel Day Lewis isn't playing a wacky Abraham Lincoln, he is Lincoln. And Spielberg isn't worrying about the jokes in Gettysberg, he's making that shit look like Gettysberg.
Historical comedies always seems like a great idea. There are so many possibilities. Especially the notion of throwing modern types into well known historical events (Black Knight, Almost Heroes).
It's funny on the page. Cause you get to think of things like, "remember Paul Revere, American hero? Yeah, well what if he was a huge dick and a glory hog? So our main character is all pissed off at Revere, and while he's running around yelling The British Are Coming!, our guy is back at Revere's house fucking his wife!"
It sounds interesting. But it does not translate to the eyes. We know that's not Paul Revere. We know that's not how it went. We can't relate to how stuff was back then. There's no investment in it whatsoever. It's just goofy for goofy sake.
I guess the only exception to this rule is if you go completely absurd with it, ie Monty Python or Mel Brooks or sketch shows. Just admit you're in crazy land and go super big.
On a side note, it should be fun watching AMC get into the comedy game. It will remind us all how much harder comedy is than drama. But I'm very happy about it - I always love having more networks to pitch to and be rejected by. So AMC execs, I'll see ya soon with my show, "Benjamin Franklin Totally Loves Dudes".
10 comments:
Blackadder? Or is the part of the 'completely absurd' exception?
never seen it. but maybe english people have figured it out and we haven't...
I love Blackadder, but part of the reason it works is that there are only six episodes per season. And then they completely change periods in between.
Let's not forget the comedic brilliance that was The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer.
HOGAN'S HEROES? or was that too soon?
The reason British period sitcoms work (Blackadder, Dad's Army, etc...) is that, unlike the US, the Brits have a historical culture that almost every citizen is part of, unlike the US's melting pot.
But for every Blackadder there's a 'Allo 'Allo. Blackadder would still be hilarious if it were 12 episodes/season because Ben Elton and Richard Curtis are brilliant writers. Not true for the other show.
But for a *professional* comedy writer to not have seen Blackadder... let's just say your comedy writing education is sadly incomplete and leave it at that.
hogan's heroes = too soon.
pliny, no matter what happens in life one thing is for sure: there will always be something you haven't seen that someone tells you you HAVE to see. yet i've somehow managed to struggle through this career of mine without witnessing blackadder.
Irwin, fair enough I suppose.
In my defense, when I was *much* younger I once entertained dreams of being a pro guitar player. I tried to listen to everything I could get my hands on, in any style, just to try & hear a new riff or lick, learn a new way to play something, or even to hear something different just because I was a fan and obsessed with music and guitar playing. In my experience, the same is true for any serious creative type (unlike the casual fan) and I assumed that you would be a kindred spirit in that regard.
Given just how many British sitcoms end up reimagined on US TV (Archie Bunker (Till Death Us Do Part), Sanford & Son (Steptoe & Son), Office...), when you said you'd never seen Blackadder that *shocked* me, to be honest, because it's not an obscure show, it's on DVD & Netflix, and furthermore it's almost universally considered to be a "pantheon" level Brit sitcom, right up there with Fawlty Towers, The Office, etc...
Wouldn't you be surprised if a Brit sitcom writer had never seen Cheers, Friends. Seinfeld or MASH?
So I mean this sincerely: please do yourself a favor and take the time to watch the 6 episodes of, say, the 4th season of Blackadder. Trust me, you won't regret it.
btw Irwin, you can have this idea for free:
If I were to write a period sitcom, it'd be a multi-camera about immigrants who come to the US through Ellis Island and settle in one of New York's many ethnic neighborhoods. I'd call it "Tired, Poor and Huddled".
The theme of the show would be about the struggles of new immigrants against the system, life in a tenement block, rich vs poor & upward mobility in the 1900's, how the establishment kept them down and the small victories against the system.
Given the low sensitivity level established by Chuck Lorre shows, there'd be free rein, imho, to play with and deconstruct ethnic stereotypes (Irish cop, Jewish tailor, Italian baker, Grandma who doesn't speak English, Greedy Landlord, etc...) and the conflict of old-world culture with the new world.
Huddled Masses: Three friends on a field trip to Ellis Island go back in time, and have to hustle their own then-young great-grandparents through immigration or they'll never be born.
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