Creativity and wit were the death of funniness, as far as Pune was concerned; progress through the Guild ranks was ( and is ) achieved through hours of rote memorization of the seventy-three approved subclasses of pun, the listed pratfalls and the accepted jokes, which must go through a twenty-year approval process before they are passed by the Council of Fun.
42.
And so, his book of brief sketches, each of them vaguely focused on some autobiographical element _ Blount's relationship with his younger sister, his appearances on television talk shows, his experience of being taken for other people _ elaborates on the idea of funniness as a defense against melancholy and the lack of self-regard, as a substitute for self-pity.
43.
The critic Nicholas de Jongh wrote that Gielgud's personality was " such infinite, mischievous fun ", and Coward's biographer Cole Lesley recalled the pleasure of Gielgud's company, " the words tumbling out of his mouth in an avalanche, frequently having to wipe away his own tears of laughter at the funniness of the disasters he recounted, disasters always against himself ."
44.
In his review of the episode " The Philadelphia Inquirer " critic Ken Tucker commented " Seinfeld's brisk funniness prevents Chronicles from being a rip-off ", By contrast, John Voorhees of " The Seattle Times " commented that, though he thought the show was amusing, he considered " It's Garry Shandlings Show " to be better, and the " Houston Chronicle "'s Mike McDaniel referred to the pilot as " a not-as-good Garry Shandling-like show ".
45.
Frank Nugent of " The New York Times " wrote, "'Modern Times'has still the same old Charlie, the lovable little fellow whose hands and feet and prankish eyebrows can beat an irresistible tattoo upon an audience's funnybone or hold it still, taut beneath the spell of human tragedy . . . Time has not changed his genius . " " John Mosher of " The New Yorker " wrote that Chaplin " manufactures some superb laughs . . . In all, it's a rambling sketch, a little at loose ends at times, sometimes rather slight in effect, and now and then secure in its rich, old-fashioned funniness . " Burns Mantle called the film " another hilariously rowdy success ."
