slapstick

/slap"stik'/, n.

1. broad comedy characterized by boisterous action, as the throwing of pies in actors' faces, mugging, and obvious farcical situations and jokes.

2. a stick or lath used by harlequins, clowns, etc., as in pantomime, for striking other performers, esp. a combination of laths that make a loud, clapping noise without hurting the person struck.

adj.

3. using, or marked by the use of, broad farce and horseplay: a slapstick motion picture.

[1895-1900, Amer.; SLAP¹ + STICK¹]

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Comedy characterized by broad humour, absurd situations, and vigorous, often violent action.

It took its name from a paddlelike device, probably introduced by 16th-century commedia dell'arte troupes, that produced a resounding whack when one comic actor used it to strike another. Slapstick comedy became popular in 19th-century music halls and vaudeville theatres and was carried into the 20th century by silent-movie comedians such as Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops and later by Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and the Three Stooges.

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▪ comedy

      a type of physical comedy characterized by broad humour, absurd situations, and vigorous, usually violent action. The slapstick comic, more than a mere funnyman or buffoon, must often be an acrobat, a stunt performer, and something of a magician—a master of uninhibited action and perfect timing.

      Outrageous make-believe violence has always been a key attraction of slapstick comedy, and, fittingly, the form took its name from one of its favourite weapons. A slapstick was originally a harmless paddle composed of two pieces of wood that slapped together to produce a resounding whack when the paddle struck someone. The slapstick seems to have first come into use in the 16th century, when Harlequin, one of the principal characters of the Italian commedia dell'arte, used it on the posteriors of his comic victims.

      The rough-and-tumble of slapstick has been a part of low comedy and farce since ancient times, having been a prominent feature of Greek and Roman mime, in which bald-pated, heavily padded clowns exchanged quips and beatings to the delight of the audience.

      The Renaissance produced the athletic zanies of the commedia dell'arte and even rougher clowns, such as the hunch-backed, hook-nosed, wife-beating Pulcinella, who survives today as the Punch of children's puppet shows.

      Slapstick reached another zenith in the English and American music halls and vaudeville theatres of the late 19th century; such English stars as George Formby and Gracie Fields carried its popularity well into the 20th century. Motion pictures provided even greater opportunities for visual gags, and comedians Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops introduced such classic routines as the mad chase scene and pie throwing, often made doubly hilarious by speeding up the camera action. Their example was followed in sound films by Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and the Three Stooges (Three Stooges, the), whose stage careers predated their films and whose films were frequently revived beginning in the 1960s and were affectionately imitated by modern comedy directors. The best of the slapstick comedians may be said to have turned low humour into high art.

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