9781422287071

10

COMEDY & COMEDIANS

The word “slapstick” started out because early comedians actually used sticks as part of their skits. The sticks were made of two slats, so that when the sticks struck some- thing, they made a big noise as the slats slapped against each other. To the audience, it sounded as though the sticks were doing a lot of damage, when they actually weren’t. This nineteenth-century painting shows a harlequin (or clown) holding a “slap stick.”