Start with one of the most overworked comedy subjects there is: airplane humor.
He got laughs with one of his newer comedy subjects: creationist "intelligent design" versus evolution.
It's a revealing self-portrait, grimly borne out by a first half in which the primetime king ticks the boxes of all the most predictable observational comedy subjects, and gives them artificial life.
An article in film journal The Moving Picture World written by an unnamed journalist opined that the fact that the films only totaled up to 990 feet and yet had "three strong comedy subjects on the same reel" was notable.
"Good Gossip" (1992) opens with the situation-comedy subject of singles' dating, but mysteriously evolves into a charming meditation on desire and love.
Whole new areas of social-comedy subject matter arose in this magazine: the life of the Jewish community, the fauna of bars, the managerial class and its flavour, the lighter side of the well-kept woman, commercialized sports, the imagined life of colonies or races of antisocial beings, and what might be termed the comedy of the upwardly mobile.
McDermott made his reputation with his Improbable Theatre company, producing work that is known for having an improvisational element, sometimes involving puppetry, comedy, unlikely subject matter and a heightened theatricality.
Transparent's first season was one of the surprise delights of last year, a smart, sad and complex comedy whose subject matter – the coming out of a transgender woman, Maura, to her children – felt almost spookily timely.
Of course, scatological, shock-value comedy is subject to the law of diminishing returns.
This is a clever double-entendre, since the movie is very much a homemade family project as well as a clever, intricate comedy whose subject is vanity.
In BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD (Michael di Capua/Hyperion, $15.95; all ages), a dark comedy, his subject is domestic road rage, or what can happen inside the caldron of the family car, a fitting topic for the summer holidays or any season, really, and his point of departure is that timeworn threat: IF YOU DON'T STOP THAT NOW YOU'LL END UP ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD! Yes, well.
