COMEDY on the MOON

Countdown to our funny future in Outer Space...

IT IS NOW exactly fifty years since Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, and his “one small step” on the lunar surface back on July 20th 1969 has gone down as one of the most momentous events in human history. But whilst no-one decries the brilliant feats of science, engineering and sheer bravery that took those astronauts on their million-mile space adventure half a century ago, it is perhaps now time to admit that the Apollo 11 mission wasn’t very funny.

Over the course of the entire eight-day voyage through space to visit our nearest planetary neighbour, not a single memorable gag was cracked by the three Apollo 11 astronauts or any of the 200-strong Mission Control team back in Houston. Even the crew’s splash landing 900 miles southwest of Hawaii wasn’t played for laughs, with the straight-faced spacemen missing every single opportunity to deliver side-splitting one-liners while being winched out of the rolling North Pacific and onto the deck of the SS Hornet.

What a wasted chance. You can bet your moonboots that if any of today’s top TV comedians, such as Sarah Millican, Phill Jupitus or Michael McIntyre, had been crewing the iconic mission back in 1969, not only would Apollo 11 have been a voyage of inter-galactic discovery, it would also have been a laugh a minute.

Just think of the hilarious gags that big-boned comic Jo Brand could have woven out of a weightless walk across the lunar surface. Or the slapstick mayhem that knockabout funnyman Lee Evans could have wrought whilst capering about in the Sea of Tranquility, sweating like a pig in a spacesuit that was two sizes too small for him. And late madcap Hitler-impressions comedian Freddie Starr would certainly have had the Mission Control scientists splitting their sides at their computer consoles as he cavorted about the lunar surface with swastikas drawn on the legs of his spacesuit.

With plans now well advanced for NASA astronauts to re-visit the moon within the next decade, let’s take a look at what preparations are underway to make 21st century lunar missions much more of a laugh-fest than their dismal, po-faced 1960s predecessors.

ANYONE who’s been to see a Whitehall farce in a West End theatre will tell you that a man’s trousers falling down is one of the funniest things on earth. But would it also be one of the funniest things on the moon? Scientists warn that the force of gravity on the lunar surface is just one sixth of that on our home planet, meaning that once an astronaut’s braces snapped, it would take his spacesuit strides up to five seconds to slowly drift to the ground, revealing his bare legs and the suspenders holding his socks up. The joke would be telegraphed a light year in advance, and not even a fellow crewmember playing a descending note on a helmet-bound swannee whistle could make such a gag even slightly amusing.

For this reason, NASA boffins are hard at work developing a pair of vertically elasticated spacesuit trousers with a spring-loaded strap running down from the waistband to the astronaut’s socks. As soon as the astronaut’s braces give, his trick strides will be briskly yanked down with six times the force of lunar gravity, mirroring the descent of their earth-bound counterparts and thus guaranteeing a proper slapstick guffaw from the millions watching on TV.

EVERYBODY remembers Basil Fawlty’s gourmet night roadside meltdown, when he hilariously attacked his conked-out Austin 1100 with a branch. But the arid atmosphere of the moon supports no vegetation of any kind, meaning than an astronaut would have nothing to hand with which to launch a similar attack should his Lunar Rover unexpectedly break down during an exploratory mission across its desolate, crater-pocked surface.

Of course, the astronauts could take a suitable branch with them when they blast off from earth, but then the audience would see it and the gag would be ruined. Just like in Fawlty Towers back in the seventies, the joke relies on the spaceman frustratedly running off camera and returning, branch in hand, seconds later.

NASA intend to get round the problem by blasting a selection of suitable branches up to various locations around the moon well in advance. When their Lunar Rover conks out, future astronauts can be confident that, lying in a lunar crater nearby, they will immediately be able to lay their hands on just the piece of leafy, bonnet-bashing foliage they need to get a proper belly laugh from their frustrated antics.

ALOT of the most popular comedians on earth practice so-called “observational comedy”, where the seemingly inocuous, commonplace aspects of everyday life are milked for their humorous elements. Have you ever noticed how all footballers wear tight shirts? Why do women always go to the toilet in large groups? Grown men who go trainspotting…. what’s all that about? Down here on earth, there is a literally limitless amount of “gear” from which a stand-up can draw his inspiration, and which his audience will immediately recognise.

But only 12 people have ever been on the moon, and of them, only 4 are still alive. Any witty observations that a lunarbound Michael McIntyre might make about craters, moondust and spacesuit coathangers would have a vanishingly small audience chuckling along. For this reason, NASA intend to ditch any observational routines and concentrate on recruiting fast-talking, wise-cracking double acts in the style of Hale and Pace, Cannon and Ball or Little and Large, to crew future moon missions.

ASK any stand-up what the essence of comedy is, and they’ll tell you… “Timing.” Even the best joke can be killed stone dead if the punchline is delivered slightly too quickly or slowly. And with a future moon-based double-act’s radio signals taking the thick end of eight seconds to criss-cross the void between the moon’s surface and their earthbound audience, timing gags could become a real problem for comedians.

Fast-paced crosstalk routines of the sort made famous by the Two Ronnies, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and Mike and Bernie Winters, would be almost impossible to perform on the lunar surface. Punchlines would have to be delivered before the set-up, and then the gagsters would have to leave a sixteen second silence before the next line, so they weren’t talking over the audience laughter.

WHEN asked to name their favourite TV comedy moment, absolutely everybody in the UK willl answer without hesitation: that bit in Only Fools and Horses where Delboy fell through the bar that they’re always going on about on the telly. But woe betide any comic who attempted a similar rib-tickler on the moon’s surface. Exiting backwards from the lunar lander without realising that his astronaut colleague had removed the ladder, for instance, would be fraught with problems.

On earth, the resultant pratfall would have the audience splitting their sides with laughter. But up on the moon, it would be the joke - not the astronaut - that would fall flat. The moment he nonchalantly stepped into the gravity-free vacuum of space, he would simply float about like a balloon, leaving the audience stony faced and unamused.

Happily, NASA boffins have come up with a solution: tiny, upward-facing thrusters mounted on each side of the spaceman’s helmet will blast him downwards to land arse-first on the lunar surface. It will be one small step for man, one giant leap for comedy.

EVER since the custard pie was invented, it has been a staple of the slapstick comic’s toolbox. Seeing one of these sloppy, paper plate-borne desserts getting pushed squarely into the face of an officious victim provides any comic with a guaranteed laugh at the climax of their comedy routine. And the aftermath, as the victim slowly wipes custard from his eyes before giving the audience an exasperated look, gets even bigger guffaws from the audience.

But up in the airless vacuum of space, such tried and tested knockabout routines would barely raise a titter. A pie pushed onto the mirrored front of a spacesuit helmet would have just a tiny fraction of the comedy value of its timeworn terrestrial counterpart, leaving the millions watching history being made stony faced and unamused.

Sadly, the challenge of updating this comedy staple to the space age has proved too much even for the boffins at NASA. Although high-tech experiments involving inhelmet custard sprayers and remote servo-driven devices to wipe the astronauts’ eyes were successful, Mission Control eggheads concluded that they simply lacked the comic appeal of their traditional, tried and tested earthbound slapstick counterparts.

Next Week - We look at the future of improv comedy in the Marianas Oceanic Trench, 20,000 leagues beneath the sea.