Clever use of the medium

[johnbasalla]

An episode of "The George Burns and Gracie Allen" show from 1956 I recently saw was not only very funny, but quite clever as well.
Along with George breaking the "4th wall", which was a standard thing to do, in these later episodes George has a magic TV that let's him
see and hear what the other characters are saying. That was a clever addition to the show. At the end of the episode, George
says that they couldn't come up with an ending. The picture slowly gets smaller and smaller until it's gone. Very cool! Additionally,
my favorite character on "The Burns and Allen Show" is Harry Von Zell. In this episode he's got the funniest site gag.
Von Zell's been forced to climb a ladder and clean the second story windows. Ronnie Burns and one of his college friends see him and ask
what he's doing there. Figuring they can't hear him through the window, he goes to open the window, but that causes the ladder, with
him on it, to fall! He lands in a flower bed below. The gag was done very well.

 

[LKellerIII]

That breaking down of the "fourth wall" was ground-breaking, but TV was a new medium and all kinds of things were being tried. You could probably find a few movies and radio shows that did the same, but I believe George Burns was the first in TV. He repeated the experiment in the 60s with Wendy and Me, but Connie Stevens sex-appeal didn't make a good substitute for Gracie's special blend of wackiness.

I recall that in the 80s,Moonlighting started to break down the fourth wall during their last (or second to last) season, and it was called ground-breaking and clever by critics. But to me, it just ruined the suspense of the show,which was a detective show after all, within a-comedy format; and became a disruptive gimmick that didn't work.