Key and Peele and Gender

This clip from the first episode of Key and Peele presents an interesting way to talk about gender and comedy.

Two Scenes of Spectator Address

Here is the opening sequence of Fatty & Mabel Adrift:




Here is the movie queue scene from Annie Hall:

Anchorman Fight Scene

This fight scene (and its aftermath) may be an example of "narrative enclosures" characteristic of current Comedian Comedies as described by Drake (citing Seidman).
 


In Anchorman, I think there is also a broader cultural referencing going on, beyond that of the individual performers. For example, another narrative enclosure might be this impromptu harmonizing:

Anchorman is thus providing broader pleasures of "retro" comedy, where there is pleasure in laughing at 70s music as well as network news (not to mention fashion and hair styles).

Duck Soup as Anarchic Comedy

In the clip below, we see one of the first scenes with Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly, engaged in conversation with the aristocratic Mrs. Teasdale played by Margaret Dumont. To describe this clip as a conversation is misleading...it's more like a string of jokes with Mrs. Teasdale setting up Firefly's wisecracks. Still, it advances the narrative (or what excuse there is for one) because it establishes Mrs. Teasdale's romantic availability, as well as the ridiculousness (danger?) of Firefly as leader of the country.





Essentially, throughout the film there are comic disruptions to the narrative, which serve almost as separate comic performances to highlight the Marx Bros. The narrative strings together these "bits", leading to a climactic shootout with a nonsensical (and therefore appropriate) ending. Musicals were another genre that shares characteristics with the anarchic comedy in the sense that separate "numbers" are linked together by narrative. Duck Soup has its own brand of "anarchic musical" segment, seen here:

Diplomaniacs