Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan is a well-written play highlighting the journey of Dr. Fredrick Frankenstein as he finds his true self in his family home in the village of Transylvania. Throughout the musical, we see the doctor transform from this stiff shell of a man into this brilliant man whom realizes there is more to life than just having all the knowledge in the world with no true happiness. I find the musical to be very fulfilling because at the beginning of the musical you can see all of the main characters unhappy and feeling incomplete, but by the end of show you can see that everyone’s issues are resolved as peace is being resolved. Looking at Aristophane’s The Frog, we see that the play has many similarities …show more content…
Both pieces use sexual, over the top, and mostly common sense comedic pieces. In Young Frankenstein, you can see this reoccurring theme of the characters, or their actions, being over sexualized to bring comedy to a scene. My personal favorite examples of these types of moments is the scene with Dr. Frederick Frankenstein and Inga on the cart. Here we see Inga unknowingly and innocently seduce the good doctor. This was hilarious because she was so nonchalant and giddy about it and life doesn’t happen like this way. She woos the doctor into wanting her, seemingly without knowing this, and he becomes deeply infatuated with her till the point that they are together at the end of the musical. Also, the scene where Elizabeth Benning and The Monster are romantic after Elizabeth protests against it and she ends up madly in love, is so unreal that the audience must love it. What I find to be the most mind boggling part of this bit is simple. Here we have this woman raped by this man and she falls in love with her rapist. Now in society that would not be funny, but for the purposes of the musical in, which it was presented as a comedic bit with fireworks and music, this bit was funny. In The Frog, there are also sexual comedy. The bit that captured my attention was when Xanthias is suddenly eager to enter the club, for lack of a better term, because there are dancing girls in the building. This is so typical …show more content…
In Young Frankenstein, we see Dr. Fredrick Frankenstein refuses to have his name pronounced like it is for the rest of his family. By doing this, I believe he thinks he is distancing himself from the line of work that his family does and the accusations that come with the name. At the end of the musical, we can see that he has embraced his family name and continues the family practice in a new way that benefits people instead of frightening them. In The Frogs, we see that Dionysus and Xanthias fright over who is going to be Hercules because of all of the respect that he receives. But we the two are faced with someone who wishes to harm Hercules, they are battling to return to their true selves in order to evade punishment. Also, the identity of who the greatest poet between Aeschylus and Euripides is very important in the play. It is so important that Dionysus has spent this whole play trying to get to them in hades. The identity that these men fight over, if decided, will bring the realm peace. In The Looney Tunes, we see the struggle for identity plaguing many scenarios. The scenario I see the most is where two characters are fighting for the dominance. For instance, the Road Runner and the Tasmanian Devil often have this war of who can outsmart the other. The winner is usually the Road Runner, which sparks the need for an ongoing battle of the wits between the two characters. So as you