CAROL BURNETT AND JERRY LEWIS

Wow and Double Wow! Take a look at this sketch (above) from the old Carol Burnett Show. It starts out a little slow, but stay with it...it gets better. Jerry's great in it!


  
Here's Carol (above) as William Shattner. This video isn't as good as the one at the top with Jerry but it contains some great ideas. That's the problem with TV...you can have a terrific idea but you hardly ever get the time to get it right.

I'm guessing that the scene where the two girls push each other's breasts up and down was built around funny,  padded bras that were meant to stay in place in whatever direction they were pushed in. The gag didn't come off because the bras wouldn't work.



Here's Carol as Charo's mother. Haw!




And finally, Burnett's spoof of the film, "Born to Be Bad." Nice, eh?

PIERRE ETAIX: GENIUS

American readers won't recognize the name Pierre Etaix. TOO BAD! The man was one of the greatest of all French filmmakers and exerted a big influence on American comedy people like Jerry Lewis and Ernie Kovacs.  But don't take my word for it: watch his Academy Award winning short "Happy Anniversary" (above), co-written (with Jean-Claude Carriere), directed and performed by Etaix. If you make film for a living, you'll find a lot to study here.

Unfortunately the YouTube copies of the two films I'm talking about suck and give a false impression of the pace and atmosphere in the story. Etaix's films suffer more than most from reduction and bad sound. Be sure to watch them as large as you can.



See what you think of this clip (above) from his 1965 feature called "Yo-Yo." The precision, the way lighting and staging enhance the humor, the way one gag morphs into another, the way sound effects are used...it's a textbook of technique.

Once again, watch the film in the largest size possible.

Etaix (above) is still very much alive, and age hasn't hurt him a bit, not in the face anyway. In his retirement years Etaix (above) has one of the kindest faces I've seen.

Here's Etaix with his good friend, Jerry Lewis. There's some similarity in the best of their films. You have to wonder, who influenced who?  My guess is that Etaix influenced Jerry which, if it's true, doesn't diminish Jerry a bit. Even Shakespeare had influences.

BTW: Many thanks to Steve Worth for introducing me to these films! If you live in LA and would like to see good prints of these this weekend then contact The Creative League via Steve's site: http://animationresources.org/

IDEAS FOR STUDENT FILMS

This is a post for animation students. If you're taking a summer course that requires you to make a short pencil test film, then you could do worse than to start with a story like the ones you see here. I'm not suggesting that you swipe these ....they're just for inspiration. See what you think.

Here's (above) a great idea performed by comedienne, Lotus Weinstock. It's in a YouTube video called "How to Use Body Signals a Man Can't Resist." The video wouldn't embed, so you'll have to use this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXTDSGv4J8w&feature=related


Here's (above) the classic elevator sequence from "The Errand Boy." Something like this would look great in animation.


More Jerry (above). This hat routine is one of John K's favorites.


Still more Jerry (above).  Nice, huh?


Joke books are a good place to find visual gags. I can picture this gag (below) in animation:

"How did the blind kid burn the side of his face?

He answered the iron."

"How did he burn the other side?

They called back."