Vanity Fair has an extensive oral history of Friends, in which they talk to the folks responsible for the show about its entire life. They didn't talk to the whole case — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and Matthew Perry are absent — but it's a pretty fascinating look at one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. Here's Matt LeBlanc on developing Joey as a character: There was a conversation I had early on, when the show was just starting to take shape, and I remember standing back and being as objective as I could about Joey and thinking, This thing could go a long time. Does [...]
Ren and Stimpy turns 20 years old this summer, and I kicked off celebrations by watching one of my favorite episodes, Space Madness.
It opens in Ren and Stimpy’s trailer, where the duo is getting ready to watch Stimpy’s “favorite live action drama,” Commander Höek and Stimpy. Stimpy grabs his anti-gravity chewing gum and his “genuine super elastic time shorts,” and we get a unique shot from behind as the pair tunes in to the beginning of the show. From the outset, the episode toys with our sense of the real and the fictional, conflating our world with the cartoon world. It’s a hallmark trick of creator John Kricfalusi, [...]
Shakespeare might bore you to tears, but believe it or not, Puck from Midsummer Night’s Dream was one of the funniest characters of his time. Doozies like, “Cupid is a knavish lad, thus to make poor females mad,” were as funny to them as Borat’s naked hotel chase is to us.
Good humor, like good produce, seems to have an expiration date. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t feel fresh. After all, who wants to bite into a plum that tastes like a tennis ball? It seems strange; isn’t funny always funny? Drama is pretty ageless, but jokes about knickers are not. Why doesn’t comedy last forever?
