Analogous to the way the actor playing Agent Stone accepts not the demand to surrender, but accepts the premise that he is held hostage, at gunpoint, and called Agent Stone—what might be an example of such acceptance in polite debate?
Off the top of my head, Prince, arguably one of the greatest guitarists in pop music once demurred on another of the greatest guitarists in pop music Jimmy Page:
“Jimmy Page was cool”...”but he couldn’t keep a sequence without John Bonham behind him. He went from one to four without stopping at two and three.”
How could one “yes, and...” this premise? As I see it there are two propositions asserted here: 1. “Jimmy page was cool”, 2. Jimmy page couldn’t keep a sequence, therefore John Bonham’s drumming covered for him
The actor playing Agent Stone doesn’t need to acquiesce to the surrender [1] presumably in some fictional dialogue with Prince, I don’t need to accept either of his propositions about Jimmy Page… but what form would “yes, and...” take on in this imaginary dialogue?
I contend that would be boring improv anyway. Comedy and Drama thrive on obstacles. It’s boring if Odysseus goes straight home. This is particularly so in improv. Hence you need your improv partner to put up obstacles. These offers afford comical ways of resolving them.
Surrendering is the boring option. In the same way that if the Dr. Skull character were a sleazy salesman and tries to sell Agent Stone a Time share, and he said “sure, I’ll buy it”—there’s no comedy—he needs to resist, and the efforts to cajole, deceive, and convince is where the comedy comes from.
Rik Mayal and Alexei Sayle illustrated this brilliantly in their parody of Monty Python’s Cheese Shop sketch which is an exception that proves the rule—Sayle conflating with a minister of Silly Walks asks “is this a cheese shop?”, and Mayal in the Palin/Wenselydale role simply replies “no sir”. Sayle breaks the fourth wall: ”Well, that’s that sketch knackered then, in’nt?” The original sketch requires Palin to presage the sycophantic replies of contemporary LLMs, by stringing John Cleese’s character along without ever admitting that there isn’t any actual cheese in the store.
I the subversion funny? Of course. But wouldn’t make for good improv as it’s all over in like 7 seconds.
Analogous to the way the actor playing Agent Stone accepts not the demand to surrender, but accepts the premise that he is held hostage, at gunpoint, and called Agent Stone—what might be an example of such acceptance in polite debate?
Off the top of my head, Prince, arguably one of the greatest guitarists in pop music once demurred on another of the greatest guitarists in pop music Jimmy Page:
How could one “yes, and...” this premise? As I see it there are two propositions asserted here: 1. “Jimmy page was cool”, 2. Jimmy page couldn’t keep a sequence, therefore John Bonham’s drumming covered for him
The actor playing Agent Stone doesn’t need to acquiesce to the surrender [1] presumably in some fictional dialogue with Prince, I don’t need to accept either of his propositions about Jimmy Page… but what form would “yes, and...” take on in this imaginary dialogue?
I contend that would be boring improv anyway. Comedy and Drama thrive on obstacles. It’s boring if Odysseus goes straight home. This is particularly so in improv. Hence you need your improv partner to put up obstacles. These offers afford comical ways of resolving them.
Surrendering is the boring option. In the same way that if the Dr. Skull character were a sleazy salesman and tries to sell Agent Stone a Time share, and he said “sure, I’ll buy it”—there’s no comedy—he needs to resist, and the efforts to cajole, deceive, and convince is where the comedy comes from.
Rik Mayal and Alexei Sayle illustrated this brilliantly in their parody of Monty Python’s Cheese Shop sketch which is an exception that proves the rule—Sayle conflating with a minister of Silly Walks asks “is this a cheese shop?”, and Mayal in the Palin/Wenselydale role simply replies “no sir”. Sayle breaks the fourth wall:
”Well, that’s that sketch knackered then, in’nt?”
The original sketch requires Palin to presage the sycophantic replies of contemporary LLMs, by stringing John Cleese’s character along without ever admitting that there isn’t any actual cheese in the store.
I the subversion funny? Of course. But wouldn’t make for good improv as it’s all over in like 7 seconds.