In the course of networks’ promotion of comedies, either by their own written words or with those supplied by critics, two common descriptions always give us pause:
1) Hilarious, as in, “A hilarious addition to ABC’s weeknight lineup, raves the Minneapolis Star!” And, 2) contagious, as in “The laughter is contagious!”
Too often shows that promise hilarity and/or contagious laughter simply don’t merit a passing grade in the only test of TV comedy that truly counts: You, alone in a room, watching.
There is no higher comedic standard to aspire to than to elicit laughter from a viewer who is watching alone. It’s what distinguishes funny from everything less than that.
We’re of a mind that genuine, unfettered laughter can only be emitted by a person who is completely alone with the endeavor. Add one more person to the room and peer pressure, social pressure – conscious and unconscious – contaminates the purity.
It happens in movie houses, comedy clubs, Vegas revues and anywhere a TV sitcom is being viewed by more than one person.
But it happens most – andworst – in live theater. Broadway theater is home to the most nonsensical and phony (and expensive) laughter in show business.
Minimally amusing cracks or dialogue will bring an audible response – laughter – from live theater audiences because there are people in those audiences who feel obligated to let both the actors and the other people in the audience know that they “get it.”
And then, as if responding to a mating call, others in that audience will laugh, just to let those people who laughed first know that they “get it,” too.
And thus, what’s described as hilarious or contagious laughter is actually obligatory laughter. The only thing legitimately laughable is this “Dance of the Patrons,” an audience stuck in and sticking to this same pattern of laughing at almost nothing in order to prove to others that they understand that a joke was just told.
Several years ago, I blew what otherwise would have been a pile of good vice money to take the family to see “Mamma Mia!” on Broadway. My two daughters were in their teens and they enjoyed Abba’s music, or at least they got used to it, perhaps because their old man for years kept that “Abba Gold” tape in the car.
And we’d heard from friends – hardcore theatergoers – that the music in “Mamma Mia!” is great. Beyond that, they said, the show is, “Hilarious; the place was rolling!”
Uh-oh.
The music was, in fact, fabulous. The plot, designed less as a preface than as an excuse to sing the next Abba hit, was so thin that it was starving. And the humor – mostly quick hits – was so contrived and vacant as to barely be worthy of a grin, let alone any noise that approached laughter.
And yet, as foretold, the audience shook with laughter. No one, it seemed clear, wanted anyone else in the joint to think that they didn’t get it.
In fact, the loudest and most sustained laughter came during a bit when a woman, in search of something that could serve as a make-believe microphone, reached into her luggage and produced a sexual stimulation device, which she then sang into (what a nice touch for a show that was supposed to be a family affair).
And the audience slowly, and then fully became unglued with laughter. Hey, they got it!
That’s why certain TV comedies, even upon watching them a fourth or fifth time, pass the single-viewer funny test. “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons” make us laugh with no one else in the house, let alone in the room. Among newer shows, NBC’s “The Office” meets that real-deal standard, as well.
Funny, if it’s to be declared the real thing, must be a one-on-one thing.