Talk:Straight man (disambiguation)

N/s

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, like the Two Ronnies, cannot be classified as straight man and buffoon like the others in this list. In a famous sketch involving the double act where Pete plays a psychiatrist and Dud his patient, Pete is very much the straight man and Dud the buffoon. In fact, I consider Peter Cook to assume the straight-man role in the majority of their routines.

-- Nicander

Fictional vs. non-fictional

Interesting that Chandler from Friends shows up under the fictional characters list, but Gary Sandy of WKRP is on the real people list. I suggest that if an actor plays the straight man in more than one role, s/he be listed on the main list. Otherwise, list the character on the fictional list. This would place Chandler, Mindy McConnell and Andy Travis on the character list. Does this make sense? -Freekee 06:07, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Let's fix this semantic dilution

Hey hey, aren't we getting into semantic dilution? I mean, this straight man article actually is a subarticle about the larger phenomena of the double act/comedy duo. See, what's important is the paradox of the dumb/smart partnership. In some very special cases --like with the Three Stooges-- it could be said that it is still a comedy duo, just with an extra player. However the group is still very limited.

The situation with Jane from 3rd Rock or Chandler from friends is out of control, firstly, they aren't really straight, they have their own quirks (specially Chandler), then, in a situation with 6 main characters plus special guests... where is the comedy duo?

I suggest we restrict this list to only those in a smart/dumb partnership, and move the rest to an article titled List of comic foil charactes?

If no one complains in a week I'm making the changes... --Requiem18th 01:54, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. I wasn't aware of the connection to the double act entry. Odd, though that the comic foil idea is barely touched upon.

I agree that duos should be separated from groups, but I'm not sure they should be split into different pages. It really is the same job, whether the actor is the foil for one person or several. Where it breaks down is the level of goofiness portrayed by the supposedly "straight" man. (Quirks do not make someone "the dumb one.") Where do you draw the line? Strictly speaking, I'd only include about six of these duos. In practice, I'd like to see the list a little more inclusive, to give people a more examples so that they have a better chance of being familiar with them, and understand what this is all about. Personally, I'd like to see this page expanded, with short descriptions of each person/duo, instead of simply a bulleted list.

Can we call it Comic foil and do a redirect from this one, keeping them on the same page in separate lists? And what about the straight man characters with no actors? Do we still include them on their own list(s)? Call it a list of "other characters of interest, who play the role of a comic foil"?

--Freekee 05:09, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, when I first arrived at this article (Revision as of 15:53, 27 August 2005 [1]) to add "Viruta and Capulina" the article was exclusively about comedy duos, the straight men of comedy duos.

But I wonder, shouldn't we list the dumb/werid/quirky ones too? Is there an special term for them? Shouldn't the list of straight and d/w/q men (and women) be merged into a single couples list?.-- Requiem the 18^th_(email) 02:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

If there's a specific term for them, there should be an entry. And it sounds like you're asking whether there should be a list of comedy duos on the comedy dous page. Hmm, I wonder if there should be a category. --Freekee 04:05, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Well I moved the duos to the double act page (and made some edits, go check) and created a redirect from here. I guess whe should create a comic foil page now, but i'm letting this for someone with more interestin the subject so I left out the entries below, let's see how this works...

• Allan Jones - straight man of the Marx Brothers in Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races
• Gary Sandy - straight man to most of the cast of WKRP in Cincinnati
• Jane Curtin - comic foil to the aliens on 3rd Rock from the Sun and very often on Saturday Night Live
• Margaret Dumont - comic foil of the Marx Brothers, especially Groucho

Animated characters:

• Brian Griffin - Family Guy
• Chandler Bing - Friends

Looks pretty good, except there are still three groups on there - The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers and the Rat Pack. - Freekee 16:36, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I realize so but I can't move myself to delete those entries, firstly I didn't know a hack about the rat pack. And the Three Stooges... they may be three but two of them are so alike, ohhh well i guess you're right would you move them to the comic foil page?

Never mind I'll do it my self... --Requiem the 18^th_(email) 03:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Straight man (stock character) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 01:16, 2 March 2018 (UTC)