Posted on 03/09/2016 12:42:53 PM PST by Kaslin
Was Jackie Gleason a narcissist? Gleason was a wonderful comedian at a time of genuinely funny comedy in America. In the classic television series "The Honeymooners", Gleason (as Ralph) and his no-nonsense wife (Alice) played off each other in funny and innocent ways -- with none of the sadistic cruelty peddled by our late-night comics. Jackie “The Great One” Gleason played a boastful egomaniacal bus driver, who got his comeuppance from Alice at the end of every single show.
Boastful men who get their just rewards for big audience laughs have been a comedy staple for centuries. Moliere’s The Bourgeois Gentleman is a very funny early modern play that still works for us because the Gentleman is a proud fool who gets suckered over and over again by a pompous scholar, using big and impressive words. Cervantes’ Don Quixote is another famous example. Mark Twain used the boastful dunderhead motif for the two con men in Tom Sawyer, a phony Duke and an even phonier Dauphin.
Jack Benny used the same gag over and over again, and managed to make it seem new for decades. Laurel and Hardy used it. Charlie Chaplin did it in The Great Dictator.
It’s the ancient tale of hubris and nemesis. It’s the biter bit. It’s pride before a fall. And every boaster needs a trickster to set him up. The vaudeville pratfall is a pure physical comedy gag, but the idea is still the same. The more pompous the character, the bigger the pratfall.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Hell isn’t going to freeze over.
Breaking with FR tradition, I actually read the whole article :-) and he makes an interesting case for a possibility. If Trump indeed were to become more Presidential in style, that would indeed seal the deal for enough to get him elected. I just wonder if he has it in him. We shall see...
I lol'd ... :)
Trump is a lot more presidential than some folks think.
His comments last night were textbook brilliant.
He took one of his biggest problems right now, the so-called “fraud” case and blew it right out of the water.
Instead of ducking it, he actually said he plans to start the business back up as soon as the case is behind him.
He took all the negatives Romney tried to pile on him and proved one by one Romney was wrong. One the stakes he may have been wrong, but that’s not unusual for a CEO to think he has something lined up, and yet it isn’t. It happens to the best of us at times.
So in response to you thoughts here, watch Trump more. Watch the whole presentation, not just the clips cut out to make him look bad.
This guy has a lot more on the ball than people try to make us think he does.
I am waiting for the first kid to give another kid a bloody nose and say he did it because he wants to be like Trump.
Politics aside - Trump should get accolades for pretty much getting this far as a front runner as an amateur. Every other candidate still standing has done this before and been around politics their whole adult lives.
I saw a cartoon a few years ago that showed two astronauts on the moon.
One is kneeling down over a woman lying on the moon and says, “It’s Alice Kramden”!
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