Mel Brooks, ZAZ!, and staying grounded

I just got the DVD of Police Squad!, a phenomenal (although extremely short-lived) series that was the progenitor of the Naked Gun movies. It was done by the team of Jim Abrahams, and David and Jerry Zucker. These are the people that brought you Airplane!, Top Secret!, Hot Shots! and a bunch of zaniest, most joked-packed movies since Mel Brooks. And while both Zucker Abrahams Zucker  (ZAZ!) collective and Mel Brooks jammed their films with sight-gags, puns, and broad physical bits, the tone of their movies were very different. 


Mel Brooks came from the vaudeville-y Borscht Belt tradition. The ZAZ guys were Baby-Boomer smart asses. Brooks made sure everyone knew the joke, and everything was sold extremely hard. He was not afraid of directly addressing the audience and playing with meta-games (like the entirety of the ending of Blazing Saddles). His actors would mug, grimace and use a comedic cadence during dialoge.  Even when playing it straight, Brooks had things done in a "funny" way. Listen to the "Abbey Normal" talk in this clip from Young Frankenstein. It has the same rhythm and burn of an Abbott and Costello bit.

Or, to put it into sharp relief, Rick Moranis's outsized reactions in the Who's On First homage in Spaceballs:

 Though this feels weird to say, ZAZ played it much cooler. They would let jokes fly by, and it was up the audience to catch them all. A favorite of their go-to gags was playing punny name games (it pops up in a bunch of their works). One of the most complex is from the first episode of Police Squad. Like the above clip, it's almost exactly Who's On First but they never tip their hands.

ZAZ mined a lot of funny from making sure that no matter how insane the world they created was, no matter how absurd the characters were, the people in it never ever let on. This was what gave Leslie Nielsen his second career. He was phenomenal of underselling every line, making jokes not sound like jokes and (for me at least) making it even funnier.


Like:

Or:

As this might pertain to improv, well, don't ever be jokey like either Brooks or ZAZ. But if you end up in a ridiculous world, play it more like ZAZ than Brooks.  Being arch and winky can work in scripted comedy because you can tightly control how much you give to your audience.


When you go jokey or slip into comedic patter you subvert the reality of the scene. Once the audience sniffs out that you're "being funny" or setting up a joke, you've just given your scene an expiration date. Now you have to get to the expected punchline and get out. You have mortally wounded your ability to explore. 


When you're improvising act as best as you can. The more grounding and gravatas you bring, the better.