Reader Mail from Graham Gales – Plus My Response!

(Note: The above image is not Graham Gales. I just included it for the hell of it.)

It’s a very exciting day here at Only Good Movies, as we’ve received our first piece of mail from a reader. Granted, it’s not as sycophantic as I would’ve hoped for, but such are the perils of the Internet. The email is from Graham Gales, and it’s regarding an article I wrote over at our main site entitled “10 Best Roles by Stand-Up Comics Turned Actors.” Let’s see what good ‘ol Graham has to say, and then I’ll make my reply.

He writes…

I question the inclusion of Peter Sellers in this list …

Peter Sellers only did stand-up comedy for a very short time at the start of his career. Few people would know of this, and I doubt that anyone would think of him as a stand-up comedian.

The rest of your list is stand-up comedians who moved onto film later in their career.

For the vast majority of Sellers’ career, he was a comic actor/ performer, like most of the great British comedians.

The inclusion of Sellers here is like listing John Wayne’s performance in “The Searchers”, for example, as the best ever by a singing cowboy star. (Wayne did have a couple of singing parts in some of his cowboy shorts.)

Graham

unabomber

First off, I’d like to thank Graham for having the energy to sit down and type this email. While he disagrees with one of my selections, he doesn’t curse or carry on. I’ll also give him bonus points for not using “u” instead of “you,” or some other bastardization of the English language. Pay attention kiddies, as this is the way to lodge a complaint. Respectful and to the point.

As for his actual point of contention, it’s certainly not without its merit. The period that Sellers acted as a stand-up comic was brief indeed, and the comparison to John Wayne in his singing cowboy phase is spot on. So why did I insist on including Sellers on the list despite this fact? Allow me to explain.

First off, the list is called “10 Best Roles by Stand-Up Comics Turned Actors.” In my own addled mind, I defined a stand-up comic as anyone who ever dabbled in that brand of comedy, no matter for how long. I didn’t get the sense that Eric Bana ever made much money doing stand-up, but I still included him on the list. I certainly could’ve drawn the line at comics who plied their trade for years, but I would’ve been cutting out a number of interesting options. For that reason, I decided to be as liberal as possible in my definition of a “stand-up comic.”

Eddie Murphy would’ve made a decent substitute if I’d decided to remove Sellers from the list, but I frankly thought the Brit of a Thousand Faces was a genius, and so I always look for opportunities to work him onto a list. I also thought our readers might find it interesting to know that both he and Bana spent time–no matter how short–up on a stage trying to make people laugh.

In conclusion, Graham is right. The addition of Sellers to this list is really stretching it. I humbly concede that fact, and I beg the forgiveness of my readership. I only hope we can put this dark period behind us and move towards the future.

Graham, thanks again for writing, as it is truly appreciated. I hope you’ll write me again in the future, and I invite everyone else to do the same. If we get enough correspondence, maybe this reader mail segment will become a regular part of the OGM universe.

Until next time,

Shane

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Reader Mail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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