Please support Greatest Films and This Banner Sponsor by Clicking Here. Comedies are light-hearted dramas, designed to amuse and provoke laughter. The comedy genre exaggerates the situation, the language, action, and characters.
Comedies observe the deficiencies, foibles, and frustrations of life, providing merriment.
The term slapstick was taken from the wooden sticks that clowns slapped together to promote audience applause. Cartoons are the quintessential form of slapstick, i.e., the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, and others. Slapstick evolved and was reborn in the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. Deadpan was exemplified by the expression-less face of stoic comic hero Buster Keaton. Verbal comedy was classically typified by the cruel verbal wit of W. C. Fields, the sexual innuendo of Mae West, or the verbal absurdity of dialogues in the Marx Brothers films, or later by the self-effacing, thoughtful humor of Woody Allen.