• CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    78
    ·
    11 months ago

    I mean, isnt this a thing in comedy, where you can make the jokes of the one being funny have more impact by contrasting them with a super serious character? Scrooge is already a normally quite serious character, and the muppets are known for their antics, so leaving the comedy to them and acting serious makes a lot of sense.

    • Omnificer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      56
      ·
      11 months ago

      Yea, the term is a “straight man” although this is slightly different in that the straight man is usually allowed to acknowledge the antics of the comedic characters, where-as Michael Caine treats the comedy as done straight.

      I guess it would be a sub-category of straight man though, not a different thing to itself.

      • TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        60
        ·
        11 months ago

        Fans of Brooklyn 99 will recognize Captain Holt as the straight man in the show, which is made hilarious since he is a gay man. He is the gay straight man.

        RIP Andre Braugher

        • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          11 months ago

          Even in season One he was more about being funny because of how “not comedic” he was. And that went out the window fairly fast and he was just as zany as everyone else. Ironically, in a lot of the earlier episodes, Peralta served the role of “the straight man” because the ambient level was so absurd.

          A better Braugher example may be House where he mostly existed for House to bounce off of

          • cmhickman358@thelemmy.club
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            11 months ago

            Which is funny in itself because in previous Hugh Laurie roles, such as Blackadder and A Bit of Fry and Laurie, he was the funny guy to Atkinson and Fry’s straight men