Portal:Comedy

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The Comedy Portal

Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: In Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which engender dramatic irony, which provokes laughter.

Satire and political satire use comedy to portray people or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of their humor. Parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them.

Other forms of comedy include screwball comedy, which derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters, and black comedy, which is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways, which can often be taken as offensive by the subjects of the joke. A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper-class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love. (Full article...)

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Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 American comedy-drama, and the film directorial debut of the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The screenplay was written by first-time writer Michael Arndt. It stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin, and was produced by Big Beach Films on a budget of US$8 million. The film is a road movie about a family's trip to a children's beauty pageant, with a large portion focusing on events related to the family vehicle, a Volkswagen T2 Microbus. Filming began on June 6, 2005 and took place over 30 days in Arizona and Southern California. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2006, and its distribution rights were bought by Fox Searchlight Pictures for one of the biggest deals made in the history of the festival. The film had its limited release in the United States on July 26, 2006 and later expanded to a wider release starting on August 18, 2006. Little Miss Sunshine received generally positive reviews and had an international box office gross of $100.3 million. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two: Best Original Screenplay for Michael Arndt and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin. It also won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature, and received multiple other awards and nominations.

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Credit: A Kingdom for a Donkey

Fart lighting, also known as pyroflatulence or flatus ignition, is the practice of igniting the gases produced by human flatulence, often producing a flame of a blue hue, hence the act being known colloquially as a "blue angel", "blue dart", or in Australia, a "blue flame". The fact that flatus is flammable, and the actual combustion of it through this practice, gives rise to much humorous derivation.

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...that the six episodes of the Japanese original video animation series FLCL were produced by the FLCL Production Committee, which included Gainax, Production I.G, and Starchild Records?

... that Kay Cannon, a writer for 30 Rock, appeared in an episode of the series "Episode 209", as a Human Table?
... that the 1905 film The Misadventure of a French Gentleman Without Pants at the Zandvoort Beach is one of the oldest surviving Dutch fictional films?

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The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortunes.

— Bert Williams

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Malcolm Hardee (born Lewisham, London, January 5, 1950 – died Rotherhithe, London, January 31, 2005) was an English comedian, author, comedy club proprietor, compère, agent, manager and "amateur sensationalist". His high reputation among his peers rests on his outrageous publicity stunts and on the help and advice he gave to successful British alternative comedians early in their careers as "godfather to a generation of comic talent in the 1980s". Though an accomplished comic, Hardee was arguably more highly regarded as a 'character', a compère and talent-spotting booker at his own clubs, particularly The Tunnel Club in Greenwich, southeast London, which gave vital and early exposure to up-and-coming comedians during the early years of British alternative comedy. In its obituary, The Times of London opined that "throughout his life he maintained a fearlessness and an indifference to consequences" and one journalist claimed: "To say that he has no shame, is to drastically exaggerate the amount of shame that he has". In a publicity quote printed in Hardee's autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake, Arthur Smith wrote that Hardee had "led his life as though for the perfect autobiography and now he has paid himself the compliment of writing it."

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... that a revival of the comedy series Lizzie McGuire was ordered in 2019, but canceled mid-production after Disney deemed it not family-friendly enough?
... that the music minister, seminary student, and pageant contestant Leah Boyd became an Internet celebrity due to her comedic and satirical commentary on Twitter?
... that Topol, who won a Golden Globe for his performance as Tevye in the 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof, played the role in shows and revivals about 3,500 times?
... that a story titled "The Adventures of Mr. Stupidhead in Russia" may have influenced the Soviet silent comedy film The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks?
... that when Luna Park opened in 1906, the first program included "comedy sheep"?
... that the racially themed time-travel comedy Timewasters was developed under the working title Black to the Future?

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Comedy

Terms: Black comedy • Comedian • Comedy club • Comedy of manners • Convention (norm) • Irony • Komos • Parody • Political satire • Race humor • Restoration comedy • Satire • Screwball comedy • Surreal humour • Taboo • Toilet humor

Comedy genres: Bouffon • Comedy film • Anarchic comedy film • Gross-out film • Parody film • Romantic comedy film • Screwball comedy film • Slapstick film • Comic novel • Dramedy • Improvisational comedy • Musical comedy • Stand-up comedy • Alternative comedy • Impressionist (entertainment) • One-liner joke • Comedy genres • Sketch comedy • Television comedy • Radio comedy • Situation comedy • Tragicomedy

History of theatre: Ancient Greek comedy • Ancient Roman comedy • Burlesque • Citizen comedy • Clown • Comedy of humours • Comedy of manners • Comedy of menace • Comédie larmoyante • Commedia dell'arte • Face • Jester • Restoration comedy • Shakespearean comedy • Dadaist/Surrealist • Theatre of the absurd

Comedy events and awards: British Comedy Awards • Canadian Comedy Awards • Cat Laughs Comedy Festival • Edinburgh Festival Fringe • Just for laughs • Halloween Howls Comedy Festival • Melbourne International Comedy Festival • New York Underground Comedy Festival

Lists: List of comedians • List of British comedians • List of Canadian comedians • List of Finnish comedians • List of German language comedians • List of Italian comedians • List of Mexican comedians • List of Puerto Rican comedians • List of Indian comedians • List of British TV shows remade for the American market • List of comedies • List of New York Improv comedians

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