Is great comedy easier than great drama?

Making someone laugh is not necessarily great comedy, just as making someone cry is not necessarily great drama.

I think the difference at which one is it easier to be mediocre and still entertaining.
The answer to that is probably comedy, and that's the disparity in industry awards.
Mediocre-to-bad comedy can be extremely successful, but it doesn't usually garner a lot of prestigious recognition.
There's not much good-to-great comedy because the tier below is so easy and lucrative.

There's more good drama, and it gets more prestige.
For every 'Seinfeld,' there are thousands of 'Friends' and 'Two and a Half Men' raking in profits.

 

That doesn't make him a great actor. Has he ever been great, or even good, in another role? I guess he played a decent asshole in "Pretty Woman," but I really can't think of him being good in any other role I've ever seen him in.

 

I think a TV sitcom has to be the most difficult. Anyone can be funny. But to be funny and be as funny as you can for between 21 and 22 minutes (no more, no less) 20 or so times a year?
Stand-ups can work their material over, use the same stuff, throw out what doesn't work as they tour the country.
Movies can go anywhere between 90 and 105 minutes (mostly) and tweak a movie based on how test audiences react.

The easiest form though, I think, is the comedy-drama. Not funny enough to be a straight comedy, not important or serious enough to be considered drama.

 

A TV actor is not a movie actor, and vice versa.

 

Glenn Close. Will Ferrell. Homer Simpson.

And that's just off the top of my head.

 

Clint Eastwood. Steve McQueen. James Garner. George Clooney. Johnny Depp. Dustin Hoffman.

There are literally hundreds of actors who move quite comfortably between film and television.

 

Great sex, dick and fart jokes are difficult, otherwise there would be hundreds of movies funnier than Blazing Saddles.

 

Hundreds? Stretching it...

 

Used to be you would see more TV actors "move up" to movies ("comfortably" being kind of a nebulous word) Bruce Willis, Demi Moore (soaps), Morgan Freeman (Electric Company), Leo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Anniston....
I think you see a lot more back and forth now - especially cable shows which are pretty much just a three or four month shoot similar to a movie. The writing on TV is better than you see in movies these days as well.

 

Hardly. You just don't know the history of either medium.

 

You should've seen Gloria Swanson's turn on the "Beverly Hillbillies."

 

Other academy award winners who started in TV: Denzel, Nolte, robin williams, michael douglas, sandra Bullock (working girl), hilary swank, halle berry, helen hunt, goldie hawn, jodie foster, cher (the variety show), sally field, timothy hutton, george burns, melissa leo, Mo'nique, Jennifer hudson, marisa tomei, geena davis.
I'll leave out the foreign-born winners who may have appeared on TV in their home countries and the Redfords, Hackmans, Duvalls etc. who appeared on anthologies like Playhouse 90 or Twilight Zone.
And I'm sure I'm missing a few more - the ones I listed were just the winners, I'm sure there are a few more among the nominees like Travolta, Bill Murray and queen latifah.