Rapid-Fire Comedy: Difference between revisions

This technique is an easy way to [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|get crap past the radar]], since the censors don't have enough time to notice the obscene joke among the dozens of other gags.

 

 

 

== Advertising ==

 

** Correction: ads for Old Spice. ''Period.''

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* [[Yonkoma]] comedy mangas in general. They usually have 1 joke every 4 frames at minimum.

* ''[[Puni Puni Poemi]]'' operates on this.

* ''[[Fireball]]''

* ''[[Kodomo no Omocha]]''

* Funimation's [[Gag Dub]] of ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'' is like this at times.

* ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'', though usually slower paced, falls under this trope sometimes. Especially in the beginning of the first episode when everyone is talking at once. You would have to watch it several times to get all the jokes.

 

* This trope was standard operating procedure for the [[Marx Brothers]], especially in their earlier (pre-''Night At The Opera'') films. Thus, and to a surprise to many people, this trope is Older Than ''[[Airplane!]]''.

** And by extension, the [[Homage]] ''[[Brain Donors]]'', produced by David and Jerry Zucker.

** [[Rule of Three|Written by Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker]].

* [[Mel Brooks]] is quite fond of this comedic technique; his genre parodies tend to consist of non-stop gags.

* ''Kentucky Fried Movie''

** [[Redundancy Department of Redundancy|Written and directed by Jim Abrahams.]]

* Most of Woody Allen's pre-Annie Hall output consisted of this.

** Definitely [[Truth in Television]], in fact, as that scene was completely ad libbed.

* ''[[Snatch]]'' combines really quick comedy with a really, really fast-paced plot.

* While the show itself has a fair number of gags (in both senses of the term), a live and boisterous audience turns ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'' into a breathless torrent of wisecracks.

* In-movie example: Andrew tries doing this in ''[[Bicentennial Man]]'', but he doesn't understand that humor is about delivery and so he simply recites a bunch of jokes one after the other without transitioning or even pausing between words and sentences.

 

* Given the existence of some of [[Oscar Wilde]]'s work, this trope is [[Older Than Radio]].

* It's difficult to find an entire page in any [[Discworld]] novel that doesn't have ''some'' sort of joke or snark.

** The title? No. The table of contents? Doesn't have one (most of the books aren't divided into conventional chapters). The cover? No...Oh! The pages that are left blank due to binding issues!

== Live Action TV ==

 

** Being made by [[Redundancy Department of Redundancy|Zucker/Arbahams/Zucker]]

* ''The Andy Milonakis Show''

* The stated intention of ''[[The Fast Show]]''. Some of the sketches were little more than "[[Catch Phrase]] and out". It worked.

* ''[[Most Extreme Elimination Challenge]]'' is a proponent of this trope. Between the [[Amusing Injuries]] happening on screen and the running commentary, it doesn't let up until you hit a commercial break.

** ''MXC'' actually has one up on other contenders; they do two jokes at once. The action is pure slapstick goodness, and the commentary is about equally funny. It's hard to catch everything.

** And has now spawned an Americanized show called ''Wipeout'' that follows the premise of MXC with new footage filmed specifically for it.

* ''[[Good News Week]]''. Both in Paul's monologues and in the games in general.

* [[The IT Crowd]]. The first act usually has a few laughs, things ramp up in Act 2, and by Act 3 you WILL be laughing non stop. This happens Every. Single. Episode.

'''Troy''': Yeah, but you're doing it with the speed and determination of the incomparable [[Robin Williams]]. }}

* ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' often got into this; understandable, since [[Robin Williams]] was the star. [[Word of God]] is that the scriptwriters would often simply write "[[Harpo Does Something Funny|Robin does something funny]]" for him to improvise something on the spot.

* ''[[Childrens Hospital]]'' has only an 11 minute running time, so it does its best to pack in as many jokes as possible.

 

== Music ==

 

 

 

== Radio ==

* ''[[The Goon Show]]''. Dear LORD, ''[[The Goon Show]]''.

** On at least one occasion they manage to keep a wild stream of jokes going until the first musical interlude (some seven or more minutes in) without even getting in-character let alone allowing any kind of plot to develop.

'''Waiter:''' I shouldn't bother, sir, he tastes worse than the steak. }}

 

* Ben Elton's stand-up act throughout the Eighties was based on this, [[Motor Mouth|motor mouthing]] the gags at twice normal speed. He later lamented the fact that he used up so much good material so quickly.

* Quite a few [[George Carlin]] routines, but "Modern Man" wins the prize for jokes/second ratio.

* Jimmy Carr, while he does slow down when he does audience interaction segments, none of his "regular" jokes last more than 15 seconds.

** [[Mitch Hedberg]] tends to work the same way.

== Tabletop Games ==

 

 

== Theatre ==

 

** Made howlingly funnier for most viewers without a special affinity to archaic language in the Reduced Shakespeare Company's ''The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)''.

 

 

* This trope is common in games in which Josh Mandel was involved:

** ''Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist''

** ''[[Space Quest]] VI''

** Pretty much all of [[Telltale Games|Telltale's]] games are like this, except ''CSI'', the darker parts of ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]]'' and maybe ''[[Wallace and Gromit]]''. The sheer amount of dialogue, descriptions, and [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]] makes every game loaded with jokes. A good example is the miscellaneous items in Stinky's in the second season of ''[[Sam and Max]]''. Not only does every item have its own humorous description, but for the first 3 episodes, the description changes each episode.

 

== Web Comics ==

 

* The further [[Hiimdaisy]] goes, the more jokes in a single issue there are. Case in point: [[Little Kuriboh|LittleKuriboh's]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY8ZnAqUdgU voiceover of Let's Destroy Shagohod] ([[Metal Gear]] spoilers alert).

 

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Loading Ready Run]]'' has two [http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/archive/bonus/date/desc?search=comedy+ so+ fast rapidfire] series.

* [[AMV Hell]] is a series of fan videos with a style of humor curiously similar to Robot Chicken (in spite of being created before Robot Chicken aired). Anime clips, no more than a minute long, are set to music or audio from a different source for comedic effect. It also lasts for more than an hour, and it's [[Better Than It Sounds]].

* All of [[Seanbaby]]'s writings are a cluster of connected jokes.

 

* ''[[Family Guy]]''

* Any cartoon produced by Jay Ward, especially ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]''.

* [[Tex Avery]] pioneered this in animation, starting with his work on ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' and then took it further at MGM. At [[Warner Bros]] the torch was carried by his acolyte Bob Clampett.

* [[Venture Brothers]]: A combination of this and obscure references ensures that you'll still be catching new jokes on your fourth, fifth, etc. time watching any given episode. Especially in later seasons.

* ''[[Drawn Together]]''

* ''[[Robot Chicken]]''

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' can sneak up on you like this.

* ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' is fond of this as well. There are many scenes where literally every line of dialogue is a punchline.

* [[Megas XLR]]

* The work of [[Aardman Animations]].

* Roughly 90 percent of the comedy in [[Archer]] follows this pattern.

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Rule of Funny]]