shimp scrampi wrote:Many ( if not most all ) comedy series have specific characters that are either mostly/completely in or out of relative "reality."
Not only is JB a part of both worlds, i think ALL of the primary characters are....maybe DD to the least extent (?), but even he is often just thinking about his contract, how funny JB is acting, his song,etc...
Interesting point. Mary seems to be the least surreal or prone to "way out" behavior though. The thing about Dennis is that his nutso behavior is totally directed at Jack and Jack alone. It's a great comic premise, but it also has the effect (just speaking for myself here, imho) of making Dennis somewhat less believable - compare Dennis with Gracie Allen - she's totally, utterly convincing and sincere in her screwy world view - with Dennis you get the underlying sense that he might not be so stupid, he's just doing stuff to bother Jack.
You could make a similar statement about a lot of the characters' traits. They seem to be directed at Jack. I don't picture Frank Nelson being anywhere near as sarcastic to anyone as he is to Jack. Mary's wisecracks are invariably directed toward Jack.
I read an article (I think somewhere other than here) yesterday that spoke of the fact that Jack wasn't afraid to let others get the laughs in his show. But take a look at where the laughs are directed. I'd be willing to guess that an overwhelming majority of them are directed in some way at the Jack's character. So while others may have gotten the laughs, the humor was mainly directed towards Jack and his foibles.
And boy was that character crafted. He was vain, but not so vain as to be unlikable. He was a tightwad. (As a kid I remember kids saying the following: "Want a nickel? Go suck a pickle. Want a penny? Go see Jack Benny.) But he wasn't exactly scroogeline in his miserliness. He wanted to do nice things for people...as long as it didn't cost him all that much. The list of these characteristics goes on, but the point is that a lot of the jokes were directed at that.
Since the characters were mainly seen in relation to Jack, it's hard to gauge what they were "really like" if they were to deal with anyone else, but I always got the feeling that most of their actions were in response to the Jack character and that if they existed in some kind of context other than the show, they'd react much differently.
I have no idea if I've made myself clear.
, despite some really nice observations from Maxwell there, which I generally agree with (Jack being the brunt of all of the craziness from everyone).
I guess I got a little confused with my quoting! Many thanks for that phrase, shimp scrampi! (And Maxwell, thanks for having the good taste to quote shimp!)