Well, that was half an hour well spent. I'd not seen that episode before, and enjoyed it no end. Having spent a while thinking about it, I suspect there's more in there to comment on than will fit into this reply - so I may well come back to blog about it in more detail in the future. Thank you so much for drawing it to my attention!
Before I watched the episode, I thought your question might have been about the 'song as straight man' effect - whereby the comedic content is entirely in the business that goes on around a song which the singers are delivering seriously. (At this point, I went off to try and find a youtube clip of Freestyle singing 'I'm in the mood for love' very sincerely, but in velcro suits which keep sticking them together. Alas, I could not find it - you'll have to imagine it from that description.)
But this is rather more a case of them hamming themselves, and to an extent the style, up. As I wrote about in my barbershop book, often this cultural impression of barbershop as inherently comedic, even (or especially) when it takes itself seriously, can be really quite problematic for barbershoppers. But I tend to feel in the I Love Lucy example, they are sending themselves up as much as anything - the style doesn't really get to be the butt of the joke, just its vehicle. As I say, though - more thinking to be done about this one!
Well, that was half an hour well spent. I'd not seen that episode before, and enjoyed it no end. Having spent a while thinking about it, I suspect there's more in there to comment on than will fit into this reply - so I may well come back to blog about it in more detail in the future. Thank you so much for drawing it to my attention!
Before I watched the episode, I thought your question might have been about the 'song as straight man' effect - whereby the comedic content is entirely in the business that goes on around a song which the singers are delivering seriously. (At this point, I went off to try and find a youtube clip of Freestyle singing 'I'm in the mood for love' very sincerely, but in velcro suits which keep sticking them together. Alas, I could not find it - you'll have to imagine it from that description.)
But this is rather more a case of them hamming themselves, and to an extent the style, up. As I wrote about in my barbershop book, often this cultural impression of barbershop as inherently comedic, even (or especially) when it takes itself seriously, can be really quite problematic for barbershoppers. But I tend to feel in the I Love Lucy example, they are sending themselves up as much as anything - the style doesn't really get to be the butt of the joke, just its vehicle. As I say, though - more thinking to be done about this one!