Double act
[4][5] The tradition is also present in the US with acts like Wheeler and Woolsey, Abbott and Costello, Gallagher and Shean, Burns and Allen, and Lyons and Yosco.
[6] Humor is often derived from the uneven relationship between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin, and profession but drastically different in terms of personality or behavior; each one serves as a foil to the other.
The model for the modern double act began in the British music halls and the American vaudeville scene of the late 19th century.
A dynamic soon developed in which the straight man was a more integral part of the act, setting up jokes for the comic to deliver a punch line.
Laurel could loosely be described as the comic, though the pair were one of the first not to fit the mold in the way that many double acts do, with both taking a fairly equal share of the laughs.
They were one of the few silent acts who made a successful transition to spoken word pictures in the 1930s, showing themselves to be equally adept at verbal wordplay.
In 1940s America the double act remained a cinema draw, developing into the "buddy movie" genre, with Abbott and Costello making the transition from stage to screen and the first of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's Road to... series in 1940.
The genre has continued to exist in cinema while making a successful transition to radio and later TV via The Smothers Brothers and Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.
A series of black-and-white films based on Don Camillo and Peppone characters created by the Italian writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi were made between 1952 and 1965.
These were French-Italian coproductions, and starred Fernandel as the Italian priest Don Camillo and Gino Cervi as Giuseppe 'Peppone' Bottazzi, the Communist Mayor of their rural town.
[15] Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the traditional formula was shunned by The Two Ronnies, who completely dispensed with the need for a straight man, and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, two Oxbridge-educated comedians who used the double act to deliver satire and edgy comedy.
Although Mike and Bernie Winters's popularity declined, The Two Ronnies' success grew while Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sporadically produced acclaimed work, in particular, their controversial recordings as Derek and Clive from 1976 to 1978.
In the wake of Not the Nine O'Clock News, The Young Ones and the breakthrough onto television of "alternative comedy" came French and Saunders; Fry and Laurie; Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson; Hale and Pace; and Smith and Jones.
The early 1990s saw comedy become "the new rock and roll"[7] in Britain and this was inherent in the work of Newman and Baddiel and Punt and Dennis on The Mary Whitehouse Experience.
Newman and Baddiel, in particular, symbolized this rock and roll attitude by playing the biggest ever British comedy gig at Wembley Arena.
They simultaneously used very bizarre, idiosyncratic humour and traditional double act staples (in later years they became increasingly reliant on violent slapstick).
Most of the most successful double acts in the early 2000s take their inspiration from the odder strain of double-act comedy spearheaded by Reeves and Mortimer.
Other British acts such as The Two Ronnies, Hale and Pace, Vic and Bob, French and Saunders, Mitchell and Webb, Fry and Laurie, Ant & Dec, Punt and Dennis, Lee and Herring, Armstrong and Miller, Peacock and Gamble and Dick and Dom display the role of "comic" and "straight man" in a less obvious, largely interchangeable way or are dispensed with altogether.
This dominance was accentuated by the difference in height between the two, and the speed of Cook's mind, which meant that he could ad lib and force Moore to corpse in a Pete and Dud dialogue, leaving him helpless to respond.
Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson combined their success in sitcoms (The Young Ones) and as a double act (The Dangerous Brothers) in 1991 when they created Bottom.
Mayall and Edmonson have said Bottom aimed to be more than just a series of toilet gags—it was meant to be a cruder cousin to plays like Waiting for Godot about the pointlessness of life.
Other popular double acts in British sitcoms include complex relationships involving status and superiority themes: in Dad's Army, the social climbing envy of Captain George Mainwaring, to his right-hand man (Sergeant Arthur Wilson) who is of higher status than him; and in Red Dwarf, the working class everyman Dave Lister to the middle class but socially-awkward Arnold Rimmer.
In recent years, double acts as sitcoms appear to have gone full circle, as illustrated by the cult success of The Mighty Boosh.
In the United States and Canada, the tradition was more popular in the earlier part of the 20th century with vaudeville-derived acts such as Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, Jackie Gleason and Art Carney, Wheeler & Woolsey, and Lyons and Yosco and continuing into the television age with Martin and Lewis, Kenan & Kel, Bob and Ray, the Smothers Brothers, Wayne and Shuster, Allen and Rossi, Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber, Rowan and Martin, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, the Wayans Brothers, Stewie Griffin and Brian Griffin from Family Guy and Shawn and Gus in Psych.
The series I Love Lucy was known for its double acts, and Lucille Ball served as foil to both her husband Desi Arnaz and to Vivian Vance.
More recently, the model has been largely supplanted by that of the "buddy movie" genre, which has introduced several notable comedy partnerships not formally billed as a single "act" in the traditional manner.
The earliest example of such a team may have been Bob Hope and Bing Crosby; later examples include Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, David Spade and Chris Farley and child stars Drake Bell and Josh Peck.
Based on the gag-man/straight-man concept, "Stoner" duos like Cheech & Chong, Jay & Silent Bob, and Harold & Kumar have also proven quite popular with audiences.
In Italy the tradition was more popular in the late part of the 20th century with Battaglia & Miseferi, Cochi e Renato, Ficarra e Picone, Fichi d'India, Gigi e Andrea, Katia & Valeria, Lillo & Greg, Pio e Amedeo, and Ric e Gian.
During WWII Tran and Helle appeared in a number of short films to deter Germans from actions detrimental to Germany's war effort or security.
