The ways in which Dads Army exploits its medium to create and circle humour Essay Example for Free

The ways in which Dads Army exploits its medium to create and circle humour Essay Dads Army is a situation comedy set in a small, desolate town during the Second World War. Dads army is based on a unit of a home guard. The town is called Walmington-On-Sea. The show, directed by David Croft and Jimmy Perry, was broadcasted from 1908 to1977. It was shown weekly. The show is mainly about a platoon. This platoon consists of a group of men who set up a local defence unit. The platoon is lead by George Mainwaring. Dads Army is an early sitcom. If we watch carefully we can see that it is rooted in many antecedent genres notably Theatre and Radio. Radio donates the voices and how they differ in different situations. These changes are usually the quickness, tone and volume. We can see this when Mainwaring emphasis what he says. He seems to speak like a machine gun firing. The words are fired out loud and quickly and sometimes letters are missed off outstandingly vowels and syllables. Theatre offer many different tricks used since before Shakespeare, which mainly are set pieces. Dads Army takes many different scenes from Shakespeare. A fine example of this is in a later episode of Dads Army. It was taken from Shakespeares Twelfth Night when Malvolio is being watched. Dads army replaces Malvolio with Mainwaring. We can also realise that the Platoon always mess the jobs they are given up. This adds to the comedy in a clownish sort of way. Maybe because we notice that Mainwaring is always trying to keep the military ethic, idea and dignity which is usually demolished because of his uniform being messed up. This clown acting is used in every episode of Dads Army. There are many examples of these, most of them being continual gags (happens in nearly episode) outstandingly Pike always getting wet and Mainwaring being ridiculed due to the state of his uniform. The acting in Dads Army is mostly to create humour but the words that are spoken can be used for humour or to send a message across to the audience such as if they were posh or not. The way the character speaks allows us to discover more about them e.g. if they had special accents or catch phrases. But this could happen in any other sitcom. What separates Dads Army from every other sitcom at the time was that it describes the actors character in great depth. We can learn many things from the characters as the programme is episodic, which is another thing which is donated by radio. This means, unlike a soap opera, that there are no cliff hangers. This also lets us to discover the personalitys of the characters in depth and allows character development e.g. Pike is very sensitive. This also allows room for catch phrases e.g. you stupid boy! There is more ways in which humour is created and circled though. There are many other reasons how Dads Army exploits its medium to create and circle humour. The camera works always adds effect in these situation comedies. We can see this clearly in Dads Army. In episode 59 Things that go bump in the night we can see this happening. First we have the scene in which once again Pike gets wet as the door was shut by Fraser on him. The camera moved between the characters involved but the shots were only seconds long. This creates the comedy as you just get a glance at the face expressions. These are called reaction shots. This is why Dads Army differs from theatre. Here we can see the look on the characters face before and after the incident. This is one of the main ways in which Dads Army exploits its medium. Secondly, when the house owner arrives home the camera shows two second shots of the Platoon and the owner of the house. We never actually see the face of the owner until the lights in the bedroom are switched on. This makes it seem more like a horror film which in the end turns to humour. Do create the humour the camera uses panning such as zooming into characters, close ups and reaction shots. Technology has also effected how Dads Army is created. At the time the latest technology was used to create the opening credits which were cleverly produced to make the audience know that the programme is a comedy right from the start. They did this by using a military operations map with different flags on it. This is emphasised by the chase music in the background. What is hard not to notice is the canned laughter. This is used to circle the comedy just displayed on the screen. It is used in every episode. This can sometimes influence the audience in many different ways.