Word: slapstickers
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...Monty Python re-run, and the process of a previously inconceivable disenchantment first set in right then and there. What had sounded on the stereo like an irrepressible source of path-breaking humor came off on the screen as just so many English misfits with a limited talent for slapstick antics and an occasional one-liner...
...chooses such work is Lee Lorenz, cartoon editor of The New Yorker. In Now Look What You've Done (Pantheon; unpaged; $7.95), Lorenz employs little of Saxon's architectural draftsmanship or Price's mirth-shaking slapstick. But in the right mood, he can quote anything out of context for hilarious effect. Outside the witch's gingerbread house a sign reads: THIS STRUCTURE WILL BE TORN DOWN AND REPLACED BY A NEW 44-STORY COOKIE. The back of Santa Claus' sleigh bears the bumper stickers REGISTER COMMUNISTS, NOT FIREARMS...
...formats. Unlike the Norman Lear sitcoms on CBS, ABC's shows do not pretend to deal with topical issues, and their premises are brazenly retrograde. Happy Days copies Dobie Gillis; Three's Company recalls Petticoat Junction and Love That Bob. Laverne and Shirley's slapstick antics- usually built around wild schemes to earn money or meet men-are often indistinguishable from the adventures of Lucy and Ethel on I Love Lucy...
...Semi-Tough falls short of the goal line. Ritchie packs his scenes with slapstick asides, including Korov the place-kicker whose only lines are in Russian; these are cruder than Altman but at times exhilaratingly funny. But Ritchie still doesn't know how to use actors--he should hope six-foot eight, 275-pound Doug Atkinson, the prototype for Jenkins' defensive end T.J. Lambert, doesn't see this movie. Ritchie's biggest mistake might have been firing Ring Lardner Jr. as the scenarist. Lardner's credits include M.A.S.H. and he probably genetically knows more about pro athletes than Ritchie. Kristofferson...
Director Deborah Solomon must have realized the difficulty of accenting the humor in such a negative show, for she emphasizes the comic elements in the script to the fullest. The slapstick antics of the background performers both relieve the tension generated by the dialogue up front and provide surprises in a somewhat repetitive plot. In fact, the flexibility of the chorus, which portrays everything from kindergarten students to factory machines to members of Parliament, is one of the show's strongest assets. The chorus members work well both together and separately to provide the necessary setting and vocal background...