Make 'Em Laugh
"Make 'Em Laugh" is a song first featured in the 1952 MGM musical film Singin' in the Rain, energetically performed by Donald O'Connor. Written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the screen writers of the movie, the song is closely based on Cole Porter's "Be a Clown" from the 1948 MGM musical film The Pirate, in which it was sung by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland.[1]
O'Connor's performance for "Make 'Em Laugh" is noted for its extreme physical difficulty, featuring dozens of jumps, pratfalls, and two backflips. Hollywood legend states that O'Connor, though only 27 years old at the time but a chain-smoker, was bedridden for several days after filming the sequence. This high degree of difficulty has made the original routine a tour de force in physical comedy.
"Make 'Em' Laugh" is listed at #49 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.
Song structure
Songwriter and MGM "Freed unit" producer Arthur Freed used his own library of songs written with Nacio Herb Brown as the basis for the musical film Singin' in the Rain. Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green recall that before shooting had started, they had "painfully wedged into the script as a cheering-up song" for Donald O'Connor the Freed/Brown song "The Wedding of the Painted Dolls",[2] but during filming, Freed realized that O'Connor needed a better number, but could not find anything suitable for his character within his collection.
Co-director Stanley Donen referenced the Cole Porter song "Be a Clown" from the film The Pirate, and further suggested that Freed and Brown compose a song using this as their inspiration, but in the end the screenwriters, Comden and Green, wrote the song. Donen recalls, "It was 100% plagiarism."[1] Both music and lyrics of "Make 'Em Laugh" bear almost exact similarities in form and style to "Be a Clown".[3] Although Cole Porter could have, he never sued for copyright infringement.[4][5]
In popular culture
- "Make 'Em Laugh" was performed by Tim Curry, Kathy Najimy, and Mara Wilson at the 67th Annual Academy Awards in 1995.
- The song was featured in the Disney video, Mickey's Fun Songs: Let's Go to the Circus, albeit with altered lyrics, among visuals of performing clowns at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
- A parody of this song was featured on the "Peterotica" episode of the TV series Family Guy (season 4, episode 24, first broadcast on April 23, 2006). It was sung by Glenn Quagmire while visiting a sex shop with Peter, Cleveland, and Joe.
- The song title was used for a six-hour documentary, Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America, which aired on PBS in January 2009.[6]
- The song was performed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Saturday Night Live on November 21, 2009.
- It was also performed by Will Schuester (played by Matthew Morrison) on the Glee episode "The Substitute", first broadcast on November 16, 2010.[7]
- "Make 'Em Laugh" had a rendition in Minionese in the 2015 movie Minions, .
See also
References
- Adams, Cecil (June 4, 1976) "The Straight Dope: Aren't the show tunes "Be a Clown" and "Make 'Em Laugh" suspiciously similar?" Chicago Reader
- Comden, Betty and Green, Adolf (1972) "Introduction" to Singin' in the Rain (screenplay), pp.8-9. Reprinted in 2002 as The story Behind Singin' in the Rain: Now It Can be Told, included in the liner notes of the Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Deluxe Edition) Singin' in the Rain double CD by Rhino Entertainment and Turner Classic Movies.
- Funcage. "Top 5 Examples of Plagiarism". 5. Singin' in the Rain.
- Song Facts. Donald O'Connor. "Make 'Em Laugh". 1952.
- "Be A Clown" and "Make 'Em Laugh:" Comic Timing, Rhythm, and Donald O'Connor's Face. Westover, Jonas. "Sounding Funny: Music, Sound, and Comedy Cinema" Ed. Mark Evans, Ed. London: Equinox, 2016. Pg 122-47
- "Make 'Em Laugh". PBS. 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
- "Glee - "The Substitute"". Cultural Learnings. 2010-11-16.