As I noted earlier, the comedy manages to bring forth incongruity so as to provoke laughter, but with greater ebullience than one gets from the bleak humor of the irony. For this reason the mythos of comedy is attuned to stories that are, for lack of a better term, more “life affirming.”
BLONDIE (1938)— Few comics-critics praise the form of the situation comedy, and those that mention it at all choose to dismiss even its most excellent expressions as “middlebrow” or some such drivel. The Chic Young comic strip was one of the first and best modern formulations of the familiar “clever wife/stupid husband” trope, which as I mentioned here sometimes edged into mythopoeic territory. The first BLONDIE film begat about twenty more in the series, but the end scene of the first film—in which Blondie has to explain to a peeved judge t
hat her husband is just a big dumb child— perfectly captures Marshall McLuhan’s analysis of the strip’s motif of “mothering-wedlock.”
FINAL URUSEI— While ONLY YOU, the first animated film of Rumiko Takahashi’s URUSEI YATSURA, would make a better introduction to the zany Takahashiverse, FINAL is noteworthy for
translating the last stories of the manga series (not yet translated into English). Understanding all the slapstick gags does require some prior acquaintance with URUSEI’s huge supporting cast, but the key story—the “love is hell” relationship of schmuck Ataru with alien princess Lum— shows great psychological acuity even while po
rtraying that hell as “devoutly to be wished.”
THE MASK (1994)—The original stories published by Dark Horse have more of the irony’s darkness, but the Jim Carrey film is a pure slapstick romp, in which nerd Stanley Ipkiss gains a magical mask that allows him to express his id in any idiosyncratic way he pleases, including the everynerd dream of making it with Cameron Diaz.
THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1991)—This one might make the list just on the strength of the
opening scene, translating Charles Addams’ famous “Christmas carolers” cartoon. It must be admitted that the cartoons provided less of the template for Sonnenfeld’s film than the “altogether ookie” 1960s TV show, but Sonnenfeld makes the family even ookier than before, particularly in upgrading the character of Wednesday Addams from an oddball little girl to a budding young Sadean tormentor.
POPEYE MEETS SINBAD THE SAILOR (1935)—The enormous popularity of the Popeye cartoon shorts from the Fleischer Studios birthed three “long cart
oons,” which I understand sometimes played as second features in some theaters. Popeye’s battle with Sinbad (played by perennial antagonist Bluto) is a great comic send-up of the adventure-mythos, best exemplified by the scene with an awe-inspiring roc that Popeye reduces to a turkey dinner.
BLONDIE (1938)— Few comics-critics praise the form of the situation comedy, and those that mention it at all choose to dismiss even its most excellent expressions as “middlebrow” or some such drivel. The Chic Young comic strip was one of the first and best modern formulations of the familiar “clever wife/stupid husband” trope, which as I mentioned here sometimes edged into mythopoeic territory. The first BLONDIE film begat about twenty more in the series, but the end scene of the first film—in which Blondie has to explain to a peeved judge t
hat her husband is just a big dumb child— perfectly captures Marshall McLuhan’s analysis of the strip’s motif of “mothering-wedlock.”FINAL URUSEI— While ONLY YOU, the first animated film of Rumiko Takahashi’s URUSEI YATSURA, would make a better introduction to the zany Takahashiverse, FINAL is noteworthy for
translating the last stories of the manga series (not yet translated into English). Understanding all the slapstick gags does require some prior acquaintance with URUSEI’s huge supporting cast, but the key story—the “love is hell” relationship of schmuck Ataru with alien princess Lum— shows great psychological acuity even while po
rtraying that hell as “devoutly to be wished.”THE MASK (1994)—The original stories published by Dark Horse have more of the irony’s darkness, but the Jim Carrey film is a pure slapstick romp, in which nerd Stanley Ipkiss gains a magical mask that allows him to express his id in any idiosyncratic way he pleases, including the everynerd dream of making it with Cameron Diaz.
THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1991)—This one might make the list just on the strength of the
opening scene, translating Charles Addams’ famous “Christmas carolers” cartoon. It must be admitted that the cartoons provided less of the template for Sonnenfeld’s film than the “altogether ookie” 1960s TV show, but Sonnenfeld makes the family even ookier than before, particularly in upgrading the character of Wednesday Addams from an oddball little girl to a budding young Sadean tormentor.POPEYE MEETS SINBAD THE SAILOR (1935)—The enormous popularity of the Popeye cartoon shorts from the Fleischer Studios birthed three “long cart
oons,” which I understand sometimes played as second features in some theaters. Popeye’s battle with Sinbad (played by perennial antagonist Bluto) is a great comic send-up of the adventure-mythos, best exemplified by the scene with an awe-inspiring roc that Popeye reduces to a turkey dinner.
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