Aristophanes

...ask the reader to imagine a dramatic combination of the slapstick of The Three Stooges, the song and dance of a Broadway musical, the verbal wit of W. S. Gilbert or of a television show like Frasier, the exuberance of Mardi Gras, the open-ended plot line of the Simpsons, the parody of a Mel Brooks' movie, the political satire of Doonesbury, the outrageous sexuality of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien wrapped up in the format of a Monty Python movie. Ian Storey (Canada's Trent University) about Old Comedy of Aristophanes

The comedy writer Aristophanes

Aristophanes () (c. 446 BC - c. 385 BC) was a Greek comic poet. He wrote at least 30 (54 to some) plays, 11 of which still survive, and his plays are the only surviving examples of Greek Old Comedy. The comedies of the Athenian playwright Aristophanes are a bit like our cabaret, full of jokes about actuality and politicians (especially Cleon), and parodies of contemporary literature (Euripides and Herodotus are among Aristophanes' victims). The jokes are not very subtle. Usually, someone comes up with a crazy plan (a private peace treaty, curing the blindness of the god of wealth...), and after some complications there is a happy ending with a nice dinner. In The Clouds, the philosopher Socrates is radicalized. In ), second prize in Lenea.