More Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy. C. 1. 84. 7Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? Christy's Minstrels. Mr. Tambo: Say, boss, why did the chicken cross the road? Interlocutor: Why, I don’t know, Mr. Tambo, why did the chicken cross the road?

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Bones: To get to the other side! Minstrel is considered the original sin of American show business. The history of the country cannot be separated from the fact that it was built on the backs of black slaves, and the history of modern comedy cannot ignore that it started with white men in blackface. This includes the first joke most Americans learn as children, which has its roots in 1. To get to the other side” was one of a handful of riddle- gags frequently used by Christy’s Minstrels, a group of blackface entertainers, formed by Edwin Pearce Christy, who would go on to become the most famous minstrel troupe ever. Likely it began as a folk joke that the Christy’s adapted.) The group is credited with inventing or at least popularizing “the line,” the name for the three- man act that would be the focus of the first of a three- act minstrel show, with the “interlocutor” in the middle, between “Mr. Tambo” and “Mr. Bones.” Rhetorical question- and- answer bits like “Why did the chicken cross the road?” were performed as a rapid- fire dialogue between the three.

It was a precursor to the vaudeville two- man act, and thus a precursor to essentially all future comedy. The influence of the joke, and white minstrel shows in general, on the form is complete and total, but it shouldn’t be ignored that the goal was affirming white supremacy. The fight for fair representation of black people in comedy continues to this day, over a century and a half later; however, white minstrel shows would soon fall out of fashion in favor of black minstrel shows, burlesque, and, eventually, vaudeville. Billiard Ball Trick. Billy Kersands. None was more popular than Billy Kersands. Famed vaudeville comedian Tom Fletcher wrote, “In the South, a minstrel show without Billy Kersands is like a circus without elephants.” Though he eventually wrote the lyrics of the song that led to Aunt Jemima becoming a pancake icon, Kersands’s greatest gifts were physical. One could only image the response to his billiard- ball trick.

100 More Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy. A second look at bits, sketches, one-liners, and even modern art that have influenced American humor for the past 170 years.

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Still, that joke underlines his complicated legacy. Kersands’s act affirmed many of the worst stereotypes of the slow- witted Sambo character seen in white minstrel shows. As a result, many blacks, particularly in the north, opposed his act. That said, Kersands had more black fans than white, and his popularity resulted in theater owners relaxing their segregation policies. Also, although his performance – especially from a modern perspective – might be seen as horribly offensive, it was more nuanced and human — even if only slightly — than those of white minstrels and incorporated some black folk traditions. As black- comedy historian Mel Watkins writes in his book On the Real Side, Kersands was likely the first black comedian to face what would become a recurring dilemma from Stepin Fetchit to In Living Color: “the conflict between satirizing social images of blacks and contributing to whites’ negative stereotypes of blacks in general.”1. Way Down in Front.

Lydia Thompson“And way down in front by the footlights’ glow /The bald- headed men sat in the front row. Their parody musicals mocked the traditions of theater and opera, often featuring female characters in traditionally male leads and spoofing popular songs of the day. Within a year of Thompson’s arrival, the New York Times was declaring a “mania for burlesque,” despite the paper’s evident snobbery about this newly popular theatrical style. In the first wave of American burlesque, the productions were female- led and the costumes were revealing — above- the- knee dresses and tights — making them a risqu. Since most of the music used was stolen outright from other works, they kept few records of their performances, but their influence was enormous, spawning troupes around the country and a style that remained popular for decades, offering a high- brow alternative to minstrel shows and setting up the rise of vaudeville. It also goes to show that women have been telling dirty jokes as long as women have been allowed to tell jokes, a legacy that continues to this day.

Pinafore, and set sail for New York to stage it there. Only, nobody was interested in going to see it since copyright law didn’t extend to foreigners at the time, and a number of theater companies had already staged the show in America. The solution? Stage a new production in America, copyright it there, and beat the pirates at their own game. The classic comic opera The Pirates of Penzance would go on to feature the best example of their influential modernizing of the patter song — “The Major- General Song.” Made up of many types of humor — wordplay, references both historic and cultural, social satire (a “modern” military man must be educated rather than brawny), and even meta humor (“that infernal nonsense Pinafore!”) — the funniest and most lasting part remains just how absurdly fast it is, setting a comedic pace soon seen in vaudeville. The song brought the house down in 1.

You may not know any of the hundreds of words, but I’ll bet you know the tune, and there aren’t a lot of Victorian- era operatic songs that can claim that. Fools in Town. Mark Twain, ! What do we k’yer for HIM? Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?

Mark Twain’s most famous work is best known for its biting commentary on racism and the Victorian panic over corrupted youth, but just as important is Twain’s satire of man as a whole. The young boy Huck and runaway slave Jim encounter two con artists, referred to as the king and the duke, who don’t just exploit their fellow man, they play them like fiddles. The two criminals disagree on whether they should quit while they’re ahead, since the doctor in the town that they are swindling has figured them out. The king says the above, not only winning the argument, but taking down every town in America in one fell swoop. There were plenty of people speaking truth to power and writing things that made people think back then, but when’s the last time you heard about somebody reading John Esten Cooke for fun?

Twain was able to make his point stick because you laughed when you heard it, by rooting the jokes in specifically funny character, not just turn of phrase. There’s a reason, after all, that the Kennedy Center award for humor is called the Mark Twain Prize: So much of what we think of in terms of modern comedy comes from this revelation. Bunburying”Oscar Wilde, .

You don’t seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none. Treading Water (2015) The Movie High Quality. That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years. Algernon: Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

The wittiest piece of theater from one of the wittiest playwrights to pick up a pen, Earnest is not just a playful comedy of manners about marriage but a subtly subversive take on the life and times of Oscar Wilde himself. At first blush, the story of upper- crust gadabout Jack and his pal Algernon is about coupledom, class, and fibs told in the pursuit of love; scratch the surface, and it’s about identity, willful blindness, and the strains of living a double life in 1. London. Amid all the repartee and revelations about babies abandoned in handbags, Algernon’s notion of “Bunburying” sums up the play perfectly — and Wilde’s dilemma as a married man who was, at least, bisexual.

While looking to avoid bland social engagements, Algernon pretends to care for sick friend “Bunbury” somewhere in the country; this mirrors Jack’s relationship with his nonexistent brother, Ernest.