COUNTING AND COMEDY. I posted here about how Jim Dale learned to count his pauses in years of working in British music halls. There was a count that would make a joke work and over time audience reactions would tell you what the right count was for each joke. Jana Prikryl had an article in the New York Review of Books (June 9) about Buster Keaton, and Buster Keaton had similar training and experience. Keaton had a salary in the family’s vaudeville act at the age of 4 and was the headliner of the Three Keatons at 5. When he was 7 or 8, one of the routines involved his father giving him a kick in the pants. Keaton reminisced: Now a strange thing developed.” An immediate “ouch”— no laughs. No reaction at all—no laughs. His father taught him to count to ten slowly and then scream—huge laughs. Keaton’s theory of why this worked was; “Audiences love The Slow Thinker.”
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