Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Bob Newhart

I have said that humor does not hold up over time very well. Film festivals will be attended by those who smile slightly at Buster Keaton or Laurel and Hardy. Men from my generation enjoy quoting occasional Three Stooges lines, but watching the actual films is tedious. Charlie Chaplin holds up for some reason. Audiences will still laugh out loud, or be touched by his everyman pathos. 

If you watch Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons, you will find the Chuck Jones episodes are still funny - the others, less regularly so.

I think the following still works, better than other comedians of the 60s. Of course, I'm old, and maybe it doesn't much work for 20 year olds. Newhart's sitcom gigs may have been even funnier. He had a remarkable ability to look around a room as if he was the last normal person on earth, trying to make sense of those around him who had seemingly become deranged.


No comments:

Post a Comment