That chocolate factory episode of "I Love Lucy" is funny because the "belt" - the thing that moves, and transports the chocolate candies to where the workers are, so they can wrap them up - starts going too fast.
The candies are zipping in, and Lucy and her friend Ethel don't have enough time to wrap them properly, so they get frantic, and start trying to get rid of the candies - they eat some of them, hide some of them in their clothes and under their hats...
It's very silly - in real life, why would you speed up the assembly line and cause all that waste? (Someone in management would surely get grouchy over such a move.)
But in a comedy show, you don't have to worry about wasting product, because you're not really making product - you're making entertainment. And when things speed up and go too fast, it becomes funny.
There's a scene in the second Sex And The City movie where the ladies - Carrie Bradshaw, Charlotte York Goldenblatt, Samantha Jones, and Miranda Hobbes - get kicked out of a luxury hotel in the Middle East (don't ask) and they have to get their stuff packed and get out in a certain time frame. They are running back and forth in their hotel rooms, trying to pack, and pretty soon they just start throwing items into bags.
It's funny because it's frantic, and desperate, and - not real....
There's another iconic assembly-line scene in a 1960s situation comedy - Bewitched - where Samantha Stephens' Uncle Arthur and her cousin Serena temporarily lose their magical powers and so they decide they need to get jobs.
They get jobs making frozen desserts involving bananas, nuts, and chocolate syrup. Like in the "I Love Lucy" episode, the assembly-line "belt" starts going too fast, and Serena and Uncle Arthur go crazy trying to keep up.
Serena: "Oh! OH! They're speeding up!"
It's very similar to the "I Love Lucy" assembly line scene. With a little sexual harassment thrown in.
When the belt speeds up, Uncle Arthur stops finishing the banana-nuts-chocolate syrup dessert and putting it in the freezer, and starts just throwing the individual ingredients into the freezer - (as if they're going to assemble themselves in there! - LOL).
Uncle Arthur is played by the actor Paul Lynde (1926 - 1982). God, nobody is funnier than him. It's his delivery of the lines....
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment