History Of Comedies

By Oli Searle

Visual Humour was the main concept used in

1800 comedies.

Either Slapstick of Burlesque was a common form of visual humour.

In Burlesque they would use certain music to make us laugh at the unfortunate person who was probably getting injured in some way.

Late 1800’s

The industry was mainly focussed on producing

short silent films.

However a variety of sounded aided comedies began to emerge, with the use of sound effects and occasional dialogue.

Charlie Chaplin was famous in the 1900’s for his silent comedies, although he never used dialogue in his films, he did include sound effects in some of his films during the 1930’s.

Early 1900’s

Towards the end of the 1950’s a darker humour had

emerged, in the form of black comedies. These were comedies based around finding humour from even the most hopeless situation.

In 1970 black comedies started to become more popular, with so films being transferred to TV for TV series, such as M*A*S*H.

Also in Britain various comedies were spin offs from TV series in the early 1970’s.

Mid 1900’s

1980 was a time of popular comedies, many of

which are still popular now!

Honey I Shrunk The Kids and Ferris Buellers Day Off were both produced in the late 1900’s and are still watched now.

Late 1900’s

The emergence of Romantic Comedies, also

known as Rom-Coms.

Also the introduction of ‘gross out’ comedy, that aims itself at teenagers and includes embarrassing and often disturbing situations that shock the audience.

Classic examples of this are; When Harry Met Sally, American Pie and The Inbetweeners.

Early 2000’s

Comedy through the Years

1895

Maam, May We Go Out

Comedy through the Years

1936

Modern Times

Comedy through the Years

1970

M*A*S*H

Comedy through the Years

1989

Honey I Shrunk The Kids

Comedy through the Years

1991

American Pie

Comedy through the Years

2011

The Inbetweeners Movie