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When I was on the road with Ringling Brothers public relation via t.v., radio or print media was a part of the job for all the performers especially the clowns. But if we were in a market that had a large Latino population I could figure to be very busy with p.r. s. Because we were clowns the interviews were generally light fluff but they were always fun especially for the Spanish speaking community because they have a great love for circus and for the broad physical comedy of circus clowns. In the Latino p.r.s they would sometimes give you free reign to do almost anything and give you plenty of time to do it too. In other markets the clowns might get some interview time but on many occasions were there simply as background color. There was a noticeable difference in the way each group viewed clowning. It's interesting to note the contrasting ways two cultures relate to clowning.

When I was growing up I enjoyed the plethora of comedy programs on the Mexican stations not to mention the brilliant film comedy of Cantiflas, Resortes and Tin Tan to name a few. There were many variety shows on the American stations as well that featured broad physical humor such as the Carol Burnett Show and Laugh In. In film you still had many of the comedians who had started their careers in vaudeville and burlesque but as the sixties and seventies gave way to the eighties there were fewer and fewer shows and films that favored physical comedy. The trend was more toward verbal humor. There were exceptions along the way. Saturday Night Live, Three's Company, Third Rock from the Sun, Seinfeld, and in film there were spoofs like the Airplane series, Naked Gun and the wonderfully cartoon-ish Jim Carrey. Few and far between, I say! The Simpsons, though fine masters of physical comedy, don't count because they are cartoons.

In recent years there has been an attempt to add more physical comedy into film and t.v. inspired mostly , I think, by the box office success of Jim Carrey but not necessarily for the love of slapstick. There have been quite a few "spoof" movies in the last few years and the comedy has been laughable but in the wrong way. Some of the current mainstream comedy stars who dabble in physical comedy often rely on cheap bits like wedgies, running into walls or glass doors, attack costumed animal characters or are attacked by a variety of small, furry animals who, nine times out of ten, go for the groin. And often their humor is mean spirited in nature.

I could go on but my point is that through the passing years physical comedy never waned in the Latin American world. Tune in to most any hispanic t.v. station and your bound to find plenty of physical comedy on any given day. Comedy styles like most anything else is cyclical. Perhaps in a few years there will be another Golden Age of Comedy here to rival the last century's. If the population growth of Hispanics in this country continues on it's upward trend perhaps that coming Golden Age will have to be referred to as "La Epoca Dorada de Comedia". Buenas noches, amigos.