Saturday, November 19, 2011

Funniest Cartoon

My Fellow Comedists,

This week marks the 83rd anniversary of the release of Steamboat Willie, the first animated cartoon with sound. From the beginning, the medium was seen as a good one for comedy because the sort of slapstick gags we saw coming out of Vaudeville and into the early silents with masters like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and then into the talkies with Laurel and Hardy could be ramped up to be even more absurd. Eyeballs could bulge out of heads, people would not get hit with boards but anvils, you could do anything to your characters and not have to worry about the next thirty seconds much less the next performance. But the humor slowly became more linguistic and the comedy more sophisticated.

So, the question is the high water mark. What is the funniest cartoon -- both series and individual episode -- ever?

Live, love, and laugh,

Irreverend Steve