Subj : Re: a "show about nothing
To   : August Abolins
From : Dennis Katsonis
Date : Wed Jun 17 2020 10:50:00

Subject: Re: a "show about nothing"?

-=> August Abolins wrote to Dennis Katsonis <=-

 AA> Hello Dennis!

 AA> ** On Friday 11.09.20 - 09:33, Dennis Katsonis wrote to August Abolins:

 DK> I watched a film adaptation of Waiting for Godot, and it was boring.  Two
 DK> people on the side of a road talking.  Yet for some reason, I watched to
 DK> the end...

 AA> Yeah.. I vaguely remember hearing about that one. The book was
 AA> an assignment in English class. The teacher had a few students
 AA> act it out in front of class - I was the donkey.  I refused to
 AA> commit to writing the essay/study assignment.   Hence, the
 AA> film probably did not appeal to me 20+ years later.


 DK> Seinfeld still had jokes, and didn't rely too heavily on character
 DK> quirks, which more contemporary comedies such as Modern Family tend to
 DK> do.

 AA> Seinfeld *did* have its share of reliance of character quirks:
 AA> Kramer - the way he would slide into the apartment to announce
 AA> himself and other physical acting, his gibberish and weird
 AA> sayings; George - a bit neurotic and slow witted?; Elaine -
 AA> gets angry easily; Newman - petty, vindictive and the way
 AA> everyone would acknowledge him by saying his name slowy when
 AA> he showed up.  Well, you get the idea.

Most sitcoms did that, but the point was it also had jokes, funny premises, and
the quirks seemed more natural.  I tried watching Modern Family, and my
impression was that it was just people ACTING like they had quirks.  With
Kramer, that was just how
Kramer was, but when I watched Modern Family, the characters would mug in front
of the camera as if they were forcing themselves to be quirky in order to be
funny.  People tend to do this a lot now, just randomly speak funny or make
funny gestures to be
'random', but they are 'playing' a role.  It's not them.  They were playing
quirky characters, they weren't actually quirky characters.

Big Bang theory was another where they tried to put quirks in, but it kind of
felt forced.  At least to me.  

People seem to do this a lot, they act out quirks to try to be funny, but its
not them, its them acting out what they think a quirky person is.


.... So easy, a child could do it. Child sold separately.
--- MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.29

.