February 6, 2010
Let Seth MacFarlane teach you theater technique!
Filed by Lance at 2:45 pm under General, Pop Culture, The Arts, The Media
Here’s a clip of the most recent episode of The Cleveland Show. The point here is not the relative merits of Family Guy or American Dad! versus this MacFarlane project, but this clip is a classic rule of three with a nice button at the end.
There’s the setup (fire alarm) and the payoff. Once is discovery, twice is repetition, and three times is a pattern. Look how each time the joke gets a little bigger:
- Football team
- Marching band (they’re playing!)
- Cast of The Biggest Loser
Once the audience has figured out the pattern (the third time), it’s time to quit. There are infinite ways to get out of this gag, but here, they wrap everything up with a button, which is Cleveland, Jr. running through unawares. The joke has been stretched further and further (1, 2, 3) and this time deflated (just one fat kid), and we know the joke is over without having to see anything else.
I promise you, if you look for it, you’ll see the rule of three in everyday life over and over and over until it gets just a little creepy.
Totally true, threes are everywhere! Take, for example, this little YouTube film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ipWpmV5ELA There are threes all throughout the film (three friends, three Italian movie directors, etc.); but also, there are three distinct ways this film relates to this post: 1) it’s about students at Cornell, which is where Lance went to school; 2) it’s animated; and 3) the film ends with people talking about “Star Wars,” which is probably what Seth MacFarlane does in his spare time.