Comedy Style
His signature sketch is the "Sledge-O-Matic", a large wooden mallet that Gallagher uses to smash a variety of objects, most famously, watermelons. In addition to the Sledge-O-Matic, Gallagher's act features a variety of props, including a large trampoline designed to look like a couch.
While the Sledge-O-Matic act is an example of physical prop comedy, the act itself (and even its name) is a parody of ads for the Ronco Veg-O-Matic, a kitchen appliance that was heavily advertised on American television from the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Gallagher also uses word play in his act, pointing out the eccentricities of the English language.
In recent years, Gallagher's act has included a few jokes widely considered to be racist, homophobic, and xenophobic. In January, 2011, Gallagher walked out of comedian Marc Maron's WTF podcast when Maron continued to ask Gallagher about the allegations, after Gallagher explained it was five jokes he had heard on the street, out of a 2–3 hour show. Gallagher accused Maron of "taking the other side of everything" he said in the interview.
Read more about this topic: Gallagher (comedian)
Famous quotes containing the words comedy and/or style:
“It is comedy which typifies, where it is tragedy which individualizes; where tragedy observes the nice distinctions between man and man, comedy stresses those broad resemblances which make it difficult to tell people apart.”
—Harry Levin (b. 1912)
“All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter.... For me “style” is matter.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)