When we're not pondering where great comedic movies have gone in general, we might spend some time reflecting on a particular type of comedy that seems to be lost to history. I’m referring to the fast-talking quick wit who plays or preys upon the dullard, the completely ignorant straight man.
The dullard was the foil for the comedic hero there to simply provide an outlet for his (almost always a guy’s) delivery. Today these subjects of the joke would be akin to what the kids call NPCs or Non-Player Character referring to computer-generated/controlled players in video games. Hence, the title of the post.
To be clear this isn’t just when one character is making fun of another. While excellent when in rare form such as from fast-talking Rodney Dangerfield, what I have in mind is not pure put-down humor. In this more subtle art form the dominating character delivering the comedic punch does so stealthily without the subject character generally ever catching on. It is almost as if the funny man is directly speaking to the audience. At the very least he is speaking to the other characters in the scene who are in the know while distracting or misleading the target. He is basically saying or demonstrating, “You’re a fool!”, without ever coming right out and saying so.
As a device this comedy served often to move the plot along, but nearly as often it was there for the singular purpose of delivering laughs. It was a major comedy focus in many movies and almost always present to one degree or another.
Why did this fall out of fashion? Is it just one more example of comedy being killed by wokeness? After all, the form definitely has a lesser intellect being picked on by someone smarter—hence, offending the progressive's oppressor versus oppressed sensitivity.
Television never seemed to have this outside of a few limited exceptions, which stands to reason. It wouldn’t make a very compelling series to see a recurring character who was always the subject of the joke. It seems that sarcasm was the TV cousin of this as it allowed to equally strong characters to tradeoff when one was the foil. I think this sarcasm device was easily overplayed as it seems an entire generation of writers couldn’t get past it as the only comedic lever to pull.
One of the best examples where this did occur in television was in the show Community, which struggled despite its genius. Male character lead Joel McHale often went to this comedic style. Ironically (see below), the inability for Chevy Chase to do the same might have been a contributing factor to his frustrations offset and eventual, ugly separation from the show.
This lost art of comedic movies was exemplified at its peak in the late 70s through early 90s. I believe the tradition began from Vaudeville translated into the movies of the Marx Brothers and others. Groucho's every scene with Margaret Dumont is nearly one version of this after another. All his others are are just great put-down jokes. But Dumont seems to never catch on. And scenes with just the Marx Brothers having dialogues are back and fourths of this fast-talking jive when they sometimes deliver it upon themselves even when they all are mute.
While this was very common in the prior periods with many great performances, there were an elite a few who really mastered this time and again. Chevy Chase is perhaps the quintessential of these. Interestingly, Chase was able to be a grand master while also maintaining his authentic lovable klutz persona (Fletch, Fletch Lives, Vacation, ...). Vince Vaughan was perhaps the last master of this art even if the shtick was more implied (Swingers, him along with Owen Wilson in Wedding Crashers, and his trademark rants are an extension of this).
I don’t know if there are any potential great practitioners of the craft today. Although, it's hard to know how much of it is gone simply because they don't make them like that anymore.
Here are some additional examples: Eddie Murphy, Dan Ackroyd (including where the entire movie The Couch Trip was this motif in conman form), Dana Carvey (another whole-movie, conman example), Cleavon Little (where in Blazing Saddles basically the entirety of the townspeople where the dullards), ... The list could go on and on.
I miss the era of great comedies and this style for sure.