She did a quick triple take, a common comic trick of hers.
There was one comic trick he couldn't master, however: he could not shift his West Country burr, and put on the "toff" accent required for many skits.
Time, as ever, has played its comic trick, and all I can do is adapt the words of Captain Von Trapp and his lovely governess: somewhere in our youth or childhood, we must have seen something good.
In the 1988 Alan Moore graphic novel The Killing Joke, considered the closest thing to a Joker origins story in Batman canon, it's revealed that the grinning supervillain may once have been a downtrodden standup comic tricked into masquerading as a two-bit hoodlum known as the Red Hood.
His stage performances over the next two years did not garner him the kind of success he had experienced under the management of his father, and the role of pre-eminent Clown in London productions soon fell to Jean-Baptiste Dubois, a versatile French acrobat, horseman, singer and strongman, with a formidable repertoire of comic tricks.
Maybe the languid heat of it all made the atmosphere just a little subdued; maybe it was because the ship-in-a-bottle didn't dance or sing or perform comic tricks like the interactive One and Other – but the atmosphere seemed a little subdued this morning.
The other Marx brothers -- Harpo, Chico and Zeppo -- are up to their comic tricks, including the classic mirror routine that "I Love Lucy" re-created in the 1950's.
One of a comic's best tricks, of course, is to pass off as spontaneous something that is actually well-rehearsed.
The videos are more important than ever to the marketing of bands, label executives say, with directors constantly looking for some trick — a comic idea, a clever bit of storytelling, a dose of sexual titillation or a shocking image — to attract attention and persuade millions of people to watch the video repeatedly.
(10) John passed a comic to Bill.
