I have been pondering the role of the idiot (the fool, the dumb guy, the wet behind the ears new guy, etc) in comedy a fair bit lately, and just recently, some of it came into focus for me, so I thought I would share the results of my pondering with you, my loyal readers.

First off, we have to rough out a definition. A Comedy Idiot need not be an actual mentally handicapped person. They might just be a fish out of water, a country boy in the big city (Perfect Strangers) or a city boy in the country for the first time (Green Acres), a big time executive forced to live with their redneck family, and so forth. Or they could be a character who is not precisely stupid, but an airhead (like Phoebe on Friends), an eccentric (Kramer on Friends), or just plain shallow (Cat on Red Dwarf, though he may also be just plain dumb. )

So instead, we shall define the Comedy Idiot simply as any character who, for whatever reason, has a childlike simplicity to their view of the world, unsophisticated, yet accessible.

What is most important, in fact, is that whatever their putative problem or personality, they are fulfill their role(s) as Comedy Idiots, which can be any or all of the following :

1. The Idiot as Buffoon. This is the simplest, most common, and most broadly and widely appealing role of The Idiot. This is The Idiot simply as a person who does stupid things. often resulting in their own personal injury. A great deal of what is commonly referred to as “slapstick” in comedy circles fall under this role. Even small children understand this comedy.
2. The Idiot as Fool. One small step up in sophistication is The Idiot as someone who says stupid things. It might not seem like there’s a very large distinction to make between the saying of stupid things and the doing of stupid things, but it’s a very important step, because it is only via this step that the more intellectual layers of The Comedy Idiot are unlocked. As simply The Fool, The Idiot merely says things anyone of standard intelligence will recognize as incorrect. This type of comedy appeals to children just a little bit older, who have enough verbal intelligence and knowledge of the world to recognize the flaws in what people say.
3. The Idiot as Savant This is the beginning of The Satirical Idiot. In this role, the Idiot is used to make acute observations about the world from the point of view of someone who lacks the faculties of a fully functional and informed person and so simply describes and reacts to things as they appear, often cutting through a lot of complex obfuscation that hides the truth from the more ‘normal’ people around them. The use of The Idiot in this way is often mixed in with the other, simpler roles, in order to keep the satirical “even an idiot like X can see… ” edge sharp. Homer Simpson is a perfect example of this. The Comedy Savant Idiot also opens the door for the next level…
4. The Idiot As Innocent A very powerful role for the idiot, of whatever stripe, is to retain, along with a childlike intellect or outlook, a child’s innocence, and hence operate as a sort of child substitute to act as the inner child lost in the adult world in all of us. We feel for the idiot, and even identify with them in some level, precisely because we all retain the child within.
5. The Idiot as Conscience Closely related to The Innocent Idiot is the Idiot as Conscience. Because of their childlike point of view, the Comedy Idiot has the uncomplicated morality of a child, and can therefore function as constant reminder to the more sophisticated characters of what it was like before they had to make moral compromises, and even guide them back to their real morality after losing their way in the confusion of adulthood. Forrest Gump (as portrayed by Tom Hanks in the movie of the same name) is a perfect example of this. The Conscience Idiot can, just like a child, shame those around them into right action simply by refusing to accept (or understand) the moral grey areas in which we, perhaps, hide our less worthy actions.
6. The Idiot as Plot Operator In this role, writers (often bad ones) use the Idiot to move the plot along. If you have written yourself into a corner and the only way the plot can continue is if one of your characters does something extremely stupid, well, guess who that will be? Not a terribly noble use of The Idiot, but it beats the alternative, otherwise stupid characters doing stupid things for no reason that makes a lick of sense.

In all these roles, the Comedy Idiot is also fulfilling the basic role of any comedic character, and that is to be a source for the unexpected. Indeed, part of why the Comedy Idiot is such a solid bedrock of all functioning comedy series is that there is no basic character type with so many angles from which to insert something completely unexpected into the dialogue precisely because their point of view is very unusual, but because it is nevertheless comprehensible (as opposed to someone who simply spoke nonsense), it can operate at the lightning fast speed of comedy.

Those, then, are my recent observations about the role of The Idiot in comedy. It is a rich and complex subject, however, so this article might well be updated and expanded in the future.

Stay tuned to this channel, comedy fans!