Is great comedy easier than great drama?

"Mike & Molly," 9:30 p.m. Mondays on CBS. A sleeper. Billy Gardell, Swoosie Kurtz and an absolutely hilarious Katy Mixon ("Eastbound and Down").

 

There are so few comedies out that can sustain a full 90-120 minutes.

Most of them are good for the first 2/3 or 3/4 then fall flat. Wedding Crashers is the perfect example.

 

I think it's harder to write comedy, but harder to act in a drama. There are exceptions to both of those rules, of course.

 

Comedy - especially film comedy - is harder to write, harder to direct and harder to perform than drama.

 

Cheap Comedy is easy. It's easy to make sex, dick and fart jokes. See Two and Half Men.

Great Comedy is hard.
Like Seinfeld. I can't imagine the work and genius that went into many of those episodes. Or Andy Griffith Show, which 60 years later and without sex jokes, still makes me laugh.

 

Larry David is a comedic genius. He see's funny things that most miss on first pass.

 

Seinfeld is actually a perfect example of what I was talking about. I had it in mind as I wrote my post.

It was brilliantly written and one of the best comedies in TV history, but there wasn't a great "actor" among the cast.

 

There were at least three great comic actors in the regular cast.

(And this illustrates another truth about comedy - it's much harder in every respect than drama, but no one takes it seriously.)

 

Great people, and a better script. The scary thing about it is that among the leads, Murray's the weak link. Rodney steals the picture, but among the others, excepting Fletch, it was Chase's best work.

 

Both are exceedingly hard to do well. That being said, making someone laugh is easier -- if you debase yourself. You can also do that in drama. To me, the best films can make you laugh, cry and feel something in ways no film has done before. I can think of nary a well-made drama that did not include at least one moment of true humor -- and vice versa.

 

Jason Alexander pulled off a pretty damn good Larry David. If you watch the DVD commentaries, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss says things like, "That is SO Larry David." Costanza was basically Larry David, and he killed it and is famous for it. It became even more impressive when Curb came on TV and then you realize that LD really DOES act like that.