Word: clownish
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...know you, I know you," says the clownish John Styx, greeting an arrival at the gates of hell in Jacques Offenbach's comic opera Orpheus in the Underworld. "You do look familiar," replies the rubbery-faced Miss Public Opinion. He should; Styx is being played by Sid Caesar, 59, and Opinion by Imogene Coca, 73, stars from 1950 to 1954 of Your Show of Shows, a TV comedy classic. This week, in a rare appearance together, they will be reprising many of their best bits with some singing and much mugging in four performances of Orpheus at the Opera...
...examples. Even when the tube's businessmen do good, it is, in 94% of the cases, on a purely personal level, like helping a troubled employee. Rarely does it involve socially or economically productive behavior. Activities of businessmen who are central characters in shows are frequently negative, mostly clownish. Archie Bunker, who now owns a bar in Archie Bunker's Place, philosophizes that the best way to cut the crime rate in half is for every person to shoot one criminal; Dry Cleaning Mini-Tycoon George Jefferson of The Jeffersons emerges as an intellectual cipher, trapped in matriarchy...
...should be so sought after and imitated in a country where pop traditions are so hidebound. But Soviet rock so far is a feeble effort at cultural cross-fertilization, like the Rockettes doing a saber dance. Back in 1958, the great New Orleans rocker Huey ("Piano") Smith wrote a clownish cold war ditty that included the lines, "Like I said before, you can be certain/ You have rockin' behind that old Iron Curtain." Huey might be cheered to know now that it is there for sure and maybe for good. Even though he might not recognize it. Then again...
What concerns me most about the Abscam revelations [Feb. 18] is not so much that some of our elected representatives were caught scrambling to get their hands into the cookie jar. It is far more disturbing that I no longer feel a sense of shock at their clownish, unethical antics...
...Chance is sexless, affectless and guileless to a fault. His face shows no emotion except the beatific, innocent smile of a moron. His verbal repertoire consists only of mild pleasantries, polite chuckles and vague homilies about gardening. Sellers' gestures are so specific and consistent that Chance never becomes clownish or arch. He is convincing enough to make the film's fantastic premise credible; yet he manages to get every laugh...