Every story has a cast of characters that we follow and watch and come to love… but what about the background characters? The nameless masses who rarely get our attention? This column examines my favorite background characters who deserve a moment in the spotlight.
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The Show:
‘The Lenny Henry Christmas Show’
The Character:
A random audience member
The Scene:
Why He Deserves A Moment In The Spotlight
It’s spooky season once again, and what better way to mark the occasion than with this terrifying live action parody of Wallace and Gromit from 1995’s ‘The Lenny Henry Christmas Show’? The lovable, charming duos of Wallace and Gromit have gone from England’s most lovable couple into inter-dimensional abominations wearing skinned flesh in an attempt to blend in with humanity and their canine companions. It’s so grotesque, so horrifying, that at 0:51 in the clip, you can just faintly hear someone in the audience groaning, ‘Oh god…’ I don’t know who this man is or anything about him – and he’s not even a background character, per se – but he sums up the audience’s feelings so perfectly that he becomes the best thing about this sketch, stealing the show from the two things that will haunt my nightmares forever more.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Video
Why it’s great
When reading fantasy stories, you’ve probably thought, ‘how would this go if these characters had guns?’ Who hasn’t dreamed of Gimli mowing down Uruk-hai with an M-60, Jon Snow cutting down white walkers with a mini-gun, or, in a more recent version, what if Harry Potter gave up on magic and went after Voldermort and his followers with shotguns, submachine guns, and rocket launchers?
While the debate of, ‘would muggles with guns defeat wizards with magic‘ continues to this day, this video from 2010 shows that, initially, it’d be a pretty one-sided fight. I especially love how Ron is a fish out of water here: having used magic all his life, he now has to suddenly adapt to weapons he has no idea how to use, but adapts pretty quickly. After getting a taste of the awesome power of rockets, I doubt he’ll be going back to wands anytime soon, along with Harry.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Video
Why it’s great
The best comedy and parody sketches for films, tv shows, music, books, and video games can enhance our viewing of those things when we’re watching, reading, or playing them again, adding a little extra depth to the fictional world we’re visiting. Remember that cantina song from “A New Hope’? You know, the one played by Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes? Now, thanks to this sketch, every time I rewatch the movie, I’ll chuckle at how they turned a rejected song for fish sticks into one of the most famous bar music pieces ever composed.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The video:
Why it’s great:
Today’s video is a perfect example of how comedy can be used to make a point about the failings of society, corporations, or any other entity. In this instance, it’s how The Learning Channel, which used to show high-quality educational programming, has morphed into doing nothing but cheap reality shows that have almost nothing to do with education, AKA, Network Decay.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The video:
Why it’s great:
I can’t say why this is great without spoiling it: Make sure closed captioning is turned on and press play (Note that this video is not safe for work).
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Done?
What I adore about this video isn’t the clip itself, but the fact that whoever wrote the captions for for it decided to go nuts and turn the scene of Xenomorphs killing one of their own to escape a cell into them arguing about Five Nights at Freddy’s and eventually resorting to cursing in internet slang.
What makes these captions so bizzare is that Movie Clips is a company that legally hosts clips from movies and TV shows for fans to watch. Taking a scene and using wildly inaccurate subtitles conjures the image of a disgruntled employee deciding to have some fun behind his or her boss’ backs. I, for one, am glad that he or she did, as it takes a serious scene showcasing alien intelligence and remakes it as a comedy that turns the terrifying Xenomorph into cursing, slang-using aliens who hate the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise. Even better, it retroactively making it easy to imagine aliens in previous films being immature jerks saying, “Comin’ to kill ya, LOL,’ ‘Haha u ded,’ and the like whenever they kill someone, which adds a whole new layer of entertainment to this long-running franchise.
NOTE: The music video for this song features a child drawn in a stylistic manner repeatedly dying violent deaths.
When it came out in 2010, ‘Limbo’ quickly became one of the most famous independent video games ever created, quickly putting developer Playdead on the map. With it’s beautifully dark art style, bleak aesthetics, brutal violence, and haunting soundtrack, ‘Limbo’ is a masterpiece of grim video games… so, naturally, parodies starting coming our way, including this rather amusing song.
There’s only one lesson to learn from this video, but it’s a good one:
Be cautious when doing making light of real-life horrors
If you haven’t played ‘Limbo’, here are two videos to show you what kind of game it is:
When I initially started this article, I was going to write about how the use of an upbeat tune and comedic sound effects makes for comedy gold when contrasted with very dark media (which it does very well). After all, such a mix has worked before:
However, I then realized that while that combination of lighthearted fun and horrific suffering is funny for fictional stories, it doesn’t work as well when used in real life: A fun Reggie song about concentration camps in Nazi Germany would be rather… tasteless. So would a happy jazz tune about atrocities committed by ISIS to innocent people. It’s easy and fun to parody Jason Vorhees, Darth Vader, and the Alien and Predator, but when it comes to poking fun at torture, genocide, or the mutilation and murder of ordinary people, we walk a very dangerous line between making a point and being tasteless.
Now, nothing is off limits when it comes to comedy. Writers should be free to do dark comedy if they wish, on whatever subject they wish. But discretion is important: Doing a parody song about how millions can’t pay their bills, afford insulin, or even a place to live can be funny because it critiques society and makes a point. Doing a Reggie song about children having limbs hacked off because their parents couldn’t make daily quotas on a rubber plantation probably won’t have the same effect.
When audiences watch or read comedy, they want to laugh and get away from the horrors of the world, if only for a few minutes or even a few seconds. As writers, we have to be careful how we use horror to make them laugh. If we use the horrors of a fictional world, we have more leeway because those horrors don’t really exist. But if we use the evil that surrounds us in everyday life, we must be careful of the point we’re trying to make… unless we’re talking about people who push shopping carts in grocery stores at half a mile an hour and block isles so that no one can get past them. They’re fair game.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The video:
Why it’s great:
It takes one of the greatest film moments of the 1990’s and gives Alan Grant the voice of Patrick Starfish. That’s all you need to know.
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Okay, maybe a more detailed explanation is in order. I adore how taking the audio from an episode of Spongebob Squarepants changes the mood and feel of such an emotional scene by making it comedic. It’s probably a cosmic law that adding circus music to anything makes it funnier, no matter how dramatic, heartwarming, or awe-inspiring it is, a law I’d love to explore and see if it’s true or not. But until then, I’ll continue chuckling at Dr. Grant acting like an over-excited starfish.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The video:
Why it’s great:
Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re writing Hollywood’s next big film, the blockbuster that will finally earn you cinematic immortality and a big boost of friends on your Facebook page. But there’s problem: You’re writing a comedy, and you’re doing a big action scene of, say, soldiers attacking a fortress. The scene’s well-written, but it’s not funny, and nothing you do makes it work. What do you do?
Why not replace the soldiers with kids?
‘Mad Max Power Wheels’ is a near-perfect example of one of my favorite comedy tropes: Having children re-enact adult movies with a comedic bent. We expect to see little kids pretending to be police officers, paramedics, or firefighters when driving around in Power Wheels, not celebrating the release a of an R-rated post-apocalyptic movie by pretending to be hardened road warriors slaughtering each other for gazzoline gasoline. Yet, seeing that contrast between bloody death and ruin and innocent kids having lots of fun makes for comedy gold, and it only gets funnier the more mature, bloody, or gruesome said stories are.Captain Phillips, anyone?
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Scene
Why it’s great
I’ve written before about my love of Fish Out Of Water humor, which makes this scene from ‘UHF’ one of my favorites from the film. Not only do we have a giant, muscle-bound barbarian plucked out of the dark ages and in the modern era (the 1980’s), but he also has a job that’s one of the least suited for his particular skills.
While having people from different time periods dropped into the modern age is always great for comedy, extra humor can be gained when they get modern jobs that don’t always mesh with their talents and abilities. Even better is when they throw themselves into those jobs without hesitation, striving to do their best. When you combine that formula with the almost endless types of characters from history to choose from, you’ve got a formula for comedy gold.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Video
Why it’s great
Ah, the Noir film: A genre unafraid to portray the dark, seedy underbelly of humanity, a genre where hope dies in the drains, bloated and soaked with the rain of an uncaring sky… which means it’s a good idea to have an umbrella in hand.
Though it’s astonishingly short (5 seconds), ‘Soaking Vengeance’ features my favorite type of comedy: Fish out of water. In this case, it’s the hard-boiled guy heading out into the darkened night with a scowl on his face, and a bright, blue umbrella in hand. The contrasts between the dark tone, the childish umbrella, and the dramatic music makes a strong case for two storytelling points:
*Any dramatic character becomes hilarious when wielding something made for a child.
*The Noir genre can be a gold mine for parody, especially if their tough guys stay tough, no matter how ridiculous things get around them.
Imperfect Glass 