Comedy & Laughter

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, an American sitcom TV series which aired between 1990-1996. The series features lots of comedy by using slapstick and real life references to generate laughter from its audience. The series is based on a teen, Will Smith moving to his aunts and uncles house Bel Air Hollywood from the 'hood' in Philadelphia, being from a ghetto its an obvious point that Will will not fit in with his 'posh' relatives, milking the lifestyles of Will and The Banks family and that begins to fuel the comedy within the show.

The show achieves comedy from the use of repeating slapstick within its episodes, from throwing Will's friend Jazz threw the air out the front door, too Carlton's iconic dance moves in the series. The clear lack of Will Smith's acting skills adds to the comedy of the show as he exaggerated some things and made them more loud and bold. It uses the weight of Uncle Phil to generate humour as he is an overweight man, constantly using his love of food to generate laughter from the audience and to provide excuses and quick witty responses. In some cases it uses physical acting to bring humour to the show such as dancing and miming.

Jazz gets thrown from the Banks' home

The show generates comedy from real life references "ah man i'm sleeping with the presidents, must be what Marilyn Monroe felt like" referencing back to the relationship between JFK and Marilyn Monroe. The show uses a lot of black history references within the show to add comedy to the situation at the current time, with the cast being mostly black this makes it more comedic to the audience and attracts more people towards the humour of the show. The show managed to achieve humour through this use of race and class, it gave the shows slapstick an edge to it which hadn't been done before. In a episode where the cast appear in court, it uses the police's attitudes towards blacks to create laughter, Jazz when told to raise a hand to take an oath, raises both hands up in a mock surrender, after Uncle Phil tells him to lower his hands he then goes on to say "no way, dudes got a gun. Next thing you know I've got six warning shots in my back".

The series is full of comedy, with slapstick, real life situations, insults and mocking. The show creates a great feeling of humour and its use of slapstick isn't over used but used just enough to add a nice effect to the show.