Anger Management

As vastly different as we all are, there are a few things that each member of the human race have in common.  Excluding the fact that we all require oxygen to sustain life, probably the most common trait shared is that we all are endowed with a wide range of emotions.  While we are able to both experience and control these to varying degrees, all six or so billion of us know what it is like to feel happiness, sadness, fear, love, hate, empathy, jealousy, and loneliness.    And let us not forget the emotion that (at least in the last two or three generations) has become the most prevalent of all – ANGER!!!!!

In fact, anger has become such a staple of our fabric that we also endow our fictional characters with varying degrees of it as well.  This is especially true of television characters as they are portrayed in sitcoms.

Of all forms of comedy, the one which usually elicits the most frequent and loudest laughs is watching the misery/misfortune of others. 

In keeping with this line of thinking, and seeing as how it is now well into the baseball season, this long-suffering Cub fan thought it would be fun to take a look at some of the greatest examples of how someone getting downright mad can be funny as hell.

Of course, in order for someone to blow his top, there must be at least one buffoon who provides the vehicle for the eruption.  This is nothing new…long before TV ever was thought of Stan Laurel and Lou Costello were tormenting Oliver Hardy and Bud Abbott respectively into a lather until the final eruption, usually but not always climaxing with violence (another form of entertainment). 

Just as in reality, these practitioners of the made for TV boil-over do it in degrees.  Here are some of my faves:

SHORT/NO FUSE

These guys fly off the handle at the drop of a hat:

          Frank Costanza (Seinfeld)

          Ralph Kramden (Honeymooners)

          Skipper (Gilligan’s Island) 

TIME DELAYED EXPLOSION

These characters exhibited a modicum of self control, but it didn’t take much for the inevitable:

          Chief (Get Smart)

          Sgt. Carter (Gomer Pyle)

          Fred Flintstone (The Flintstones)

MASTERS OF THE SLOW BURN

The best of the best.  These poor souls were tormented beyond all human endurance, you could literally watch as the heat rose in their faces.  Giving it all they had to avoid letting their tormentors get the best of them.  But in the end, it was a lost cause.  The most fun to watch, by the way:

          Oliver Douglas (Green Acres)

          Mr. Mooney (The Lucy Show)