South 12th

“Mr. Simon was a forefather of situation comedy writers, and his scripts for stage and screen were embraced by actors like Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. But sitcoms have given way to reality shows like “American Idol,” one-liners to the sardonic humor of “The Office,” and the heavily plotted comedy of Mr. Simon’s film “California Suite” to the animated wit of “Up” and the fratty banter of “The Hangover,” two of the summer’s biggest hits.”

From Sunday’s article in The New York Times about Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs closing on Broadway so quickly.

I realize it’s just a tossed-off line, not meant to be a serious diagnosis of the state of American comedy, but I still find it to be a strange statement nonetheless. I suppose I can see where ”sardonic humor” has replaced “one-liners” (though I’m not sure Jack Donaghy and Liz Lemon would agree), but I’m not sure how “animated wit” might have replaced “heavily plotted comedy”; I mean, wasn’t Up about as traditional a piece of heartstring-tugging comic narrative cinema as one could imagine? It even starred Ed Asner, who’s actually acted in a Neil Simon production! The road from The Goodbye Girl to Up is not a long one.

Comedy, like any form of popular art, is a continuum — there’s never clean breaks from the past. For example, can it be said that Woody Allen’s neurotic brand of sophisticated urban comedy made Bob Hope’s schtickier brand of self-deprecating comedy obsolete? I guess so, but that statement is negated by the fact that Woody Allen stole a ton from Bob Hope, a fact Allen happily admits. That doesn’t take anything away from Hope or Allen.

I think it’s too pat to say “audiences don’t like that scripted stuff anymore — they prefer fratty banter.” The reality is always more complex, and it’s a lot more interesting to poke and see where those fault lines have formed, and just how these changes in taste have manifested themselves. 

Questions for discussion:

1. Who are the transitional figures between Felix & Oscar and Harold & Kumar?  
2. If Walter Matthau were still alive, would he ever be cast as Will Ferrell’s father? Zach Galifinakis’s? Why does it make sense that he might have appeared in a cameo on 30 Rock, and not on The Office?
3. What does Chevy Chase’s presence in the new comedy show Community suggest?
4. Should Neil Simon begin writing videos for Funny or Die? Should Robert Redford start appearing in them?
5. What will future generations make of Cougartown’s slow, inevitable transformation into a Larry Gelbart sitcom?

“Don’t worry. ‘05 was a heady year before we realized we needed discipline. At least it’s not about the sins perpetrated in, for and by Brooklyn.”

That’s Nate on Whitney Terrell’s 2005 novel King of Kings County. He’d sent me an idle text message one evening wondering if I’d read it, and I texted back enthusiastically that I had, and had really liked it. He was less enthusiastic: “The Magnificent Gatsbys” was his somewhat sniffy reply. I always feel like a jerk when I like new fiction Nate doesn’t like, so I sent back a more muted “well, it was OK” sort of reply. The conciliatory text above was Nate’s response, which is indeed a fair point; at least we could agree on that. The novel was set in a fictionalized mid-century Johnson County, Kansas, where the wealthy western suburbs of Kansas City are located.

When did we — or when did I specifically — realize we needed “discipline”, or at least become fed up with writers who charged themselves with tackling sin in, of and for the 718 area code? For me, it was the exact moment I finished reading Jonathan Lethem’s 2003 novel The Fortress of Solitude, which remains to this day one of my very least favorite books. I happened to actually be in the middle of a personally unpleasant Brooklyn vacation the week I finished it, and it occurred to me I could have literally thrown the stupid book right into the Gowanus Canal if I’d wanted.

But I have never advocated the destruction of books, and to do so would have been just another insignificant addition to the litany of literary sins committed in and against Brooklyn. Much too petty. So I let it be and, having failed to bring another book with me on the trip, stewed in bitter silence on the flight back to Minneapolis. It was a heady year, alright!