Popular Film and Television Comedy, First Edition Popular Fictions Series Steve Neale and Frank Krutnik Paperback © 1990 ISBN: 0-415-04692-0 Publication Status: In Print Readership: Students and teachers of film, television and radio studies, broadcast media and popular culture Steve Neale and Frank Krutnik take as their starting point the remarkable diversity of comedy's forms and modes - feature-length narratives, sketches and shorts, sit-com and variety, slapstick and romance. Relating this diversity to the variety of comedy's basic conventions - from happy endings to the presence of gags and the involvement of humour and laughter - they seek both to explain the nature of these forms and conventions and to relate them to their institutional contexts. They propose that all forms and modes of the comic involve deviations from aesthetic and cultural conventions and norms, and, to demonstrate this, they discuss a wide range of programmes and films, from IBlackadder to Bringing up Baby, from City Limits to Blind Date, from the Roadrunner cartoons to IBless this House and The Two Ronnies. Comedies looked at in particular detail include: the classic slapstick films of Keaton, Lloyd, and Chaplin; Hollywood's 'screwball' comedies of the 1930s and 1940s; Monty ython, Hancock, and Steptoe and Son. The authors also relate their discussion to radio comedy. Selected Reviews: `Few books have been written about comedy, and this one sets out to redress the balance, defining comedy and trying to understand what makes a particular comedy popular. From sitcoms to stand-up, all types of comedy come under scrutiny by Neale and Krutnik.' - Press and Journal Published in English , First Published in the EU May 1990 Size: 304 pages, Dimensions: 216x138mm 5.5x8.5 inches

Comments/queries: Webmaster@tcf.ua.edu. Sponsors: The University of Alabama, the Division of Student Affairs, the College of Communication, and the Department of Telecommunication and Film. Last revised: January 25, 1997. Founded: October 24, 1994. Copyright © 1994-1997. All rights reserved.