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Vaudeville's Impact On The Evolutio Comedy

769 Words4 Pages

Vaudeville Vaudeville rose to prominence in America from the 1880’s until the 1920’s. A vaudeville show is composed of different acts or segments such as animal acts, magic acts, singing acts, and comedy acts. However, there is much more meaning behind vaudeville than the types of acts it is made up of. Vaudeville encompassed originality, creativity, and rebellion. The shows served as an avenue to introduce things that were not commonly seen by audiences. Eva Tanguay for example, portrayed herself as primitive, a concept opposite to female societal norms at the time. Another example was Frank Fay, who originated improvised interactions with the audience. Vaudeville also exhibits transcendence, while many claim its fame ended in the late …show more content…

Vaudeville’s impact is still felt in today’s comedy, film, television, and radio; however, the primary focus will be to analyze and understand the elements of vaudeville present in today’s comedy and vaudeville’s impact on the …show more content…

The stand-up routines today have evolved a lot from the structure used in vaudeville comedy acts. Stand-up routines are much more storytelling, something which was introduced during the vaudeville era. In addition, the jokes are spaced apart so there is rhythm and good timing which allows for the audience to have consistent amusement over the course of the show. Sarah Silverman’s stand-up is an example of how today’s comedy has evolved from vaudeville. Also, “crowd working” and improv have evolved exponentially from their origins in vaudeville. Both where introduces during the vaudeville era and have now become important and widespread aspects of comedy today. Today’s comedy has evolved in many ways due to the people who were apart of vaudeville and continued on in cinema, radio, and comedy. Bob Hope, who performed comedy during the vaudeville era, became one of the first people who worked with writers to create new material. Saturday Night Live exemplifies an evolution of the work of Bob Hope tenfold with head writers, and upwards of twenty writers working on different

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The use of a vaudeville tune, a type of entertainment featuring a mixture of specialty acts such as burlesque comedy song and dance, recalls Sherlock Jr to be an early cinematic comedy. By using a vaudeville tune the director of the film, Buster Keaton, guaranteed for his audience to always be laughing. Keaton also uses continuity in his film to

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