Kramer-Mulligan

If we are going to theorize that Michael Ricards is doing Richard Mulligan as Kramer, we might as realize that everyone who does physical comedy is either doing Jackie Gleason or Art Carney.

In article , [email] wrote:

This is a great thread of discussion. I'll bet we'll credit all the way back to Mack Sennett's films by Jan. 21. Perhaps then we can talk about wierd people from old books.

Only if we think, for some strange reason, that physical comedy started with the advent of television. I never saw Jackie Gleason or Art Carney trip over the davenport for a laugh the way Dick van Dyke did...how do you explain that? This theory would also have us believe that everyone is completely unoriginal, except for Carney and Gleason. Now I hold a certain amount of respect for both of those guys for innovating television situations, but they are hardley original outside of that context. You can find Kramden/Norton gags as far back as Shakespeare...Ovid, perhaps. But I think that Gleason and Carnie gleaned most of their stuff from vaudeville...but since that was before t.v., t.v. made them seem really original, the same way it made Ronald Ragean seem presidential. Gleason's genius facade quickly eroded when Smokey and the Bandit came out. And what kind of a mastermind does a sequal. Not even Burt Reynolds was that stupid.

In a previous article, [email] () says:

I wouldn't go that far, but, watching "Soap" reruns on the comedy network, I have to say there's more than a slight resemblence to the way they play their characters (of course, Kramer's never killed anyone and married their widow - as far as we know, anyway :)

My point is the Gleason-Carney comment was that speculation about one character doing another is an exercise is futility.

[email] wrote:

Gotcha. It's pretty hard to pick up metaphors, illusions, and sarcasm in these electronic forums sometimes.