Comic timing

History

The use of comic timing can be seen in the plays of the ancient Greeks. Aristophanes indicated brief pauses in his works in order to cause laughter. William Shakespeare also used comic timing in plays. Cleopatra's interjections during Mark Antony's speech in Act 1 Scene 2 of Antony and Cleopatra, shift a serious scene to a comic one. George Bernard Shaw continued the use of comic timing. In his 1894 play Arms and the Man, Shaw uses it near the end of Act 2 through Nicola's losses of composure.

While the use of comic timing became more used on stage, by the mid-20th century, comic timing became used for comedy film, television and stand-up comedy. In movies, comedians such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton used it in their comedic performances through timing in films like One A.M., The Lucky Dog, and The Playhouse respectively. In television, Lucille Ball used comic timing in her show I Love Lucy. For example, in the episode "Lucy Does a TV Commercial" Ball acts out an advertisement within a fake television set, but ruins the illusion by a timed break of the TV's fourth wall. In stand-up, George Carlin's routine "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" uses comedic timing through the difference between the delivery of the first 6 words and the 7th. Rowan Atkinson's routine "No One Called Jones" used comic timing in his list of students' names to reveal multiple double entendres.