Keith&Co.
Contributor
I read an Eric Idle novel once, where he described the mechanics of the basic comedy team
The Red Nosed Clown is the idiot, the fool, the person who delivers most of the punchlines. He's vulgar or at least earthy. He can be stupid or sly, but he's jolly. Usually fat, so we know he's jolly and we can laugh at him.
He gets laughs by playing off the White Faced Clown. This is the straight man. He's the victim of the Red Nosed Clown's antics. He can be pompous or prissy, but he's formal. He's the skinny bean, serious, possibly frail looking.
NO one laughs if you hit a 9-year old girl in a wheelchair with a pie in the face. Everyone laughs if you hit a banker, if you can decrease his poise.
Trump complains about how the News Media treat him, but the fact is, they haven't changed. They report his every act, his every vulgarity, his every idiocy, same as they have for the last two years. And Trump hasn't changed.
He was, at first, the only clown to get out of the Republican Clown Car and get sustainable laughs, treating the competition as his straight men.
He went on to use Hillary as his White Faced Clown. His whole campaign was largely 'Hillary is worse.'
But he hasn't shifted mode. He's still delivering the same vulgarities, idiocies, self-centered self-important ego juggling acts... But there's no one person to play off of. The media just keeps looking at him without anyone acting as his straight-man to make the jokes work.
Maybe they should let Melania divorce him, and give the nation the spectacle of a bitter, angry, hard-fought divorce?
The Red Nosed Clown is the idiot, the fool, the person who delivers most of the punchlines. He's vulgar or at least earthy. He can be stupid or sly, but he's jolly. Usually fat, so we know he's jolly and we can laugh at him.
He gets laughs by playing off the White Faced Clown. This is the straight man. He's the victim of the Red Nosed Clown's antics. He can be pompous or prissy, but he's formal. He's the skinny bean, serious, possibly frail looking.
NO one laughs if you hit a 9-year old girl in a wheelchair with a pie in the face. Everyone laughs if you hit a banker, if you can decrease his poise.
Trump complains about how the News Media treat him, but the fact is, they haven't changed. They report his every act, his every vulgarity, his every idiocy, same as they have for the last two years. And Trump hasn't changed.
He was, at first, the only clown to get out of the Republican Clown Car and get sustainable laughs, treating the competition as his straight men.
He went on to use Hillary as his White Faced Clown. His whole campaign was largely 'Hillary is worse.'
But he hasn't shifted mode. He's still delivering the same vulgarities, idiocies, self-centered self-important ego juggling acts... But there's no one person to play off of. The media just keeps looking at him without anyone acting as his straight-man to make the jokes work.
Maybe they should let Melania divorce him, and give the nation the spectacle of a bitter, angry, hard-fought divorce?