Word: schtick
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...cheap laughs at every turn. Example: Jeff, the cutely self-aware nincompoop, doesn't want to betray his boss's confidence, so he tells the whole story to Dawn by disguising it, ineptly, as a "hypothetical" case, a ruse she sees through in about five seconds. Pure sitcom schtick - like too much in Lonergan's work...
...winds up sounding just like herself. Her spectacular debut album, Baduizm (1997), blended hip-hop realism with soul-sister mysticism. Now, with her new CD, Mama's Gun (Motown), Badu faces a dilemma. Will she get so caught up in her own arresting persona that it devolves into schtick? Or, in the bit of real estate she's staked out, does she have as-yet-unrevealed alleys and avenues to explore...
Blasphemy just ain't what it used to be. On television every week one WWF wrestler head-butts his opponents in the crotch and then makes the sign of the cross. "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" offers schtick featuring an actor dressed up as Jesus Christ. And the pint-sized, helium-voiced denizens of "South Park" frequently meet up with Christ himself, whether he be hosting a cable-access show or taking on the devil in a wrestling match. These days it seems that an artist/entertainer would have to go pretty far ("Piss Christ," anyone?) before...
...matter that the vice president lacked Clinton's musk; that he was a flustered understudy pushed into the limelight when the star's run had ended. The right could fluff Gore up to satanic status, for nearly the same reason late-night comics could turn his stiffness into schtick. In a business less interested in issues than in personalities, one group of entertainers needed somebody to laugh at; the other group needed somebody to be furious at. The impulse had as much to do with showbiz as with politics. When the post-election fray was joined by Jesse Jackson (whom...
...with an audience-participation routine before the first guest spot - he'd play Stump the Band, or sit at the piano and invent a song from words suggested by the audience. He did "remotes" from outside the theater: the Man on the Street interviews that later became treasured schtick with his own comedy troupe of Louis Nye ("Hi-ho, Steverino!"), Don Knotts ("No!"), Bill Dana ("My name, "Jose Jimenez"), Dayton Allen ("Why not?") and Tom Poston (an eloquently vague "_______"). One famous night, when disappointed by the flat response to his monologue, Allen went into the audience, started a conga line...