THE FOUR GAG TYPES

Article written together with  Giedre Degutytė



In the biography of Jacques Tati (1999), David Bellos* distinguishes three different gag types. Either the joke derives from the comedian(s) or from the situation and the comedian is even unaware of it. Additionally, Jon Davison** proposes a fourth gag type, in which the world itself is a joke. The four types of gags are as follows:

Type A: The clown(s) know(s) it’s wrong;

Type B: One clown knows it’s wrong and the other doesn’t;

Type C: Only the audience knows what’s wrong;

Type D: The clown is right, but the world is wrong.

Example of type-A: Charlie Chaplin, ‘Nonsense Song’ in Modern Times (1936)

Charlie Chaplin’s Nonsense Song is a clear example of a type-A gag, which he used a lot. The type-A gag is the type where the clown is perfectly aware of the fact that what he does is wrong. Yet he does it on purpose, it’s his invention. Well, clearly, this song is Chaplin’s invention, he’s making it completely up, and he knows it. In fact, everyone knows it, but he gets away with it because it’s funny. In this type of gag the clown is actually quite clever and he laughs at himself too. The gag is quite clear: he has to go and perform to entertain the audience with a song that he doesn’t know. He tries to fulfil his duty by only dancing first, but this plan flops almost immediately. The girl gives him the advice to sing anything by making something up, which he then does in an astonishingly creative way. His nonsense language is not complete nonsense, but there are words that we can recognise and gestures that tell the whole story and make the audience able to follow. All of this leaves the audience to admire ‘his ingenuity and to laugh with him at the gullibility of the world,’ to quote Bellos. (1999: 178) It’s the type-A gag where the clown often plays with pretence and uses some kind of skill to save the situation.

Example of type-B: Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, ‘Why didn't you tell me you had two legs!?’ in Block-Heads (1938)

The premise of this scene is a typical example: one of them (Stan) profits from the mistake made by the other (Ollie) about something (Stan having lost his leg). As Bellos notes, ‘type-B gags set one character above the other.’ (1999: 173) Thus, at least two characters interact in a way that one’s error in taking something for something else is revealed at some point to the other one (compared to the distance in type-C). In our case, Ollie finds Stan sitting in a wheelchair with one leg folded under him, which sets Ollie up to make a wrong assumption. Only when Ollie finally sees Stan walking the gag ends. Hence, who knows both what and when can determine the length of the gag as well as the potential to reverse the roles. What is interesting about this scene is that Stan, who has superior knowledge of having two legs, is not necessarily more knowledgeable than Ollie. With innocent naivety and without any intentions to mislead, Stan lets his friend to wheel and carry him to the car. The division of their roles is clear: Ollie acts as if he is the ‘wise’ guy who knows and takes the lead, whereas Stan acts as the ‘dumb’ guy, unaware of Ollie’s error. While this dynamic relationship is characteristic of the double act of Laurel & Hardy, other variations are possible as well in the construction of this gag. It is essential, however, that characters relate to wrongness following the tension of knowing/not knowing rather than pretence (compared to type-A).

Example of type-C: Jacques Tati, ‘Side walk scene’ in Mon oncle (1958)

In this gag type the joke doesn’t come from the clown but from the situation and the clown himself/herself never finds out, only the audience does. Or, as you could put it as well: the joke comes from clown author rather than performer. An example of this is the side walk scene in Mon oncle. This scene takes place in the neighbourhood where Monsieur Hulot lives. His nephew and some other kids are playing pranks on the people passing by. Their game consists of one of the boys whistling in order to make the person look to the side to figure out where the sound is coming from. On the other hand, the boys' plan is to make them bump into the lamppost. The first time it was successful, the second time it wasn’t. Then we see Hulot approaching from afar, not knowing what’s going on. The third time ends in a discussion between the boys and we see that Hulot is closer, but because of the hills, he still doesn’t see them. Now it’s the nephew's turn, he successfully makes the lady hit the pole. Hulot arrives shortly after, not having seen what happened. What he sees is the lady looking up in his direction, in his experience, with the intention to greet him. While, in fact, she looked up to see who played this prank on her. The boys have bowed down to hide, so she doesn’t see them, but he is standing there tall, taking his hat off in order to greet her... But he doesn’t understand what she’s getting angry about and walks off with his nephew, whom he had been searching for. He’ll never find out what happened, only we know. Tati himself said that his gag type, in contrast to Chaplin’s type, ‘was a much more respectful and realistic understanding of life’(1999: 178). To compare, A and D-types are different from B and C: in the former, the world is more absurd and in the latter – it's quite easy to imagine similar situations occurring in real life too. Type-C, however, differs from type-B in a sense that in type-C, characters don’t really interact among themselves, they rather pass each other by. (1999: 173) 

Example of type-D: Buster Keaton’s ‘A House Falls’ and ‘Walking in the Rain’ in Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) 

  

What if instead of the clown(s) being wrong (like in A, B, and C), it’s the world that is wrong and clown(s) are right? Keaton, one of the most prolific type-D creators, offers numerous versions of the world, which is ‘realistic’ yet re-engineered to resemble a fantasy rather than reality. However, in the world, where the façade of the entire house falls or mud-puddles exist in the middle of roads, ‘Keaton the agent is nothing less than the plaything of fortune, never the responsible agent,’ as Silverstein notes.*** (1973: 284) In the falling house scene, he is ‘fortunate’ to appear in the ‘right’ place at the ‘right’ time, whereas in the walking in the rain scene – ‘unfortunate’ to step on that exact spot where the mud-puddle is. In both instances, he acknowledges, even if for a moment, the unlikeliness of such events, yet accepts the unthinkable and carries on. In these scenes, Keaton’s character is an oblivious victim who ‘finds’ himself in these situations rather than causing them. Nonetheless, there is nothing unusual or wrong about Keaton’s character other than taking absurdity as a norm. In D-type gags, either oblivious and thus passive or perfectly knowledgeable and actively engaging with the world, the clown never obstructs or initiates the wrong but acts upon it to reveal the comic. 

 
On the count of four, 
                                  one, two, three, four –

                                                                       What's your favourite gag type? 

Do you prefer the world to be more absurd or more realistic, characters to interact or rather to pass by? Do you have the same preference in watching, writing and performing? Do you observe (or maybe even imagine) gags occurring in mundane situations? Which gag type is best fitted to which purpose in your clown life, and why? 

p.s. Examples we have chosen to explain the main principles of different gag types are quite basic in terms of what gag construction offers in general, but they make the mechanism clear and this article will allow us to refer to the system easily later when we elaborate on its other aspects more extensively in the future.

* Jacques Tati: His Life & Art by David Bellos (1999)

** Jon Davison introduced type-D gag on the 7th of March 2019, in one of the classes of a 6-week course Clowning in Cinema at Hackney Picturehouse, London.

*** ‘Editor’s Introduction’ in Buster Keaton's Gags by Sylvain Du Pasquier, edited and translated by Norman Silverstein (1973)