I love your reflection about pomposity being the antithesis of good humour! I was very fortunate to count the fantastic Tony Hancock as a friend and we spoke at length about his philosophy of comedy. He was focused on expressing the absurdity of being human. In the ever striving effort to reach the heart of his goal, he gradually paired down his surrounding team. Kenneth Williams had to go because his marvellously funny voices were too easy to get laughs but were somewhat cruel. Bill Kerr then was finished because his character was slow witted, which also allowed the audience to mock him. He then parted company with his friend Sid James, because the comedic relationship was fixed into a pattern of the spiv and the victim. Finally he left his script writers Simpson and Galton, because they were consistently writing his character into a fixed working class role and he needed to explore the pomposity and the aspirations of people at any echelon of society. Simpson and Galton went on to take the Sid/Tony characters and created Steptoe and Son in their image. Unfortunately, Tony lived only for his work, was self-destructive and, when he knew that his illness prevented him from reaching his goal, he left life itself. The world of comedy lost a true genius.
I do wonder how far back this goes, when he started noticing. Because it would seem it goes back as far as the advent of Python. Pompous people float around through the decades pretending to be different but it seems they stay the same. They lost their sense of humor or maybe they never had it? That's what I try to pick apart to no avail. Bad things happen to all of us but we can't lose our ability to laugh at it. That's just a miserable existence.
Well said!
As Mel Brooks said “I didn’t get a harrumph out of that guy”
I’ve been watching you and the pythons were most of my life! I could not agree more about humor being unavailable to pompous people.
and by the way, I've discovered it is never a good idea to crack a joke with a customs agent...
Here's a good one, a cartoon but I can't post images in comments, so, literally:
Pompous woman with nose in the air:
"Democrats were sent by GOD!
Groucho, looking her straight in the eye:
Why? Was he out of locusts?
here's the cartoon: https://drive.proton.me/urls/BVPCQWFS0C#Bu9qrbhUEbpo
Today 7/3/1776 In History: Thomas Jefferson glanced at his calendar and said:
"Oh Shit! Isn't that paper due tomorrow?"
I love your reflection about pomposity being the antithesis of good humour! I was very fortunate to count the fantastic Tony Hancock as a friend and we spoke at length about his philosophy of comedy. He was focused on expressing the absurdity of being human. In the ever striving effort to reach the heart of his goal, he gradually paired down his surrounding team. Kenneth Williams had to go because his marvellously funny voices were too easy to get laughs but were somewhat cruel. Bill Kerr then was finished because his character was slow witted, which also allowed the audience to mock him. He then parted company with his friend Sid James, because the comedic relationship was fixed into a pattern of the spiv and the victim. Finally he left his script writers Simpson and Galton, because they were consistently writing his character into a fixed working class role and he needed to explore the pomposity and the aspirations of people at any echelon of society. Simpson and Galton went on to take the Sid/Tony characters and created Steptoe and Son in their image. Unfortunately, Tony lived only for his work, was self-destructive and, when he knew that his illness prevented him from reaching his goal, he left life itself. The world of comedy lost a true genius.
So true. Can you imagine Donald Trump enjoying a laugh you at his own expense? How about Elon Musk?
I do wonder how far back this goes, when he started noticing. Because it would seem it goes back as far as the advent of Python. Pompous people float around through the decades pretending to be different but it seems they stay the same. They lost their sense of humor or maybe they never had it? That's what I try to pick apart to no avail. Bad things happen to all of us but we can't lose our ability to laugh at it. That's just a miserable existence.