Chain of Fools Trivia Quiz

Answer: Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin's classic Tramp character was not an idiot. He was always quite wily as were many of the great silent comic. With the limitations of an absence of sound, this character is more of a clown than a fool. However, in "The Great Dictator" (1940), the brilliance of Mr Chaplin came to the fore. In the first half, Mr Chaplin played an unnamed Jewish barber, somewhat like the tramp/fool character but for the rest of the movie, he played Adenoid Hynkel, an absolutely brilliant parody of Adolf Hitler. Hynkel was total idiot and a fool in the most conventional way. In 1938 Mr Chaplin had figured out Hitler before the rest of the world had, as at that time the British and the Americans were still hoping for appeasement with Hitler. Yet Chaplin set out to ridicule him (war was actually underway by the time the movie was released). This was his first talkie, and it is is one of the most effective anti-war movies ever made. Mr Chaplin received his one and only Oscar nomination for his portrayal of this fool.

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF THE FOOL I - From Shakespeare to Disney:
The Fool is one character archetype that appears in many Shakespearean plays and nearly every Disney movie. Think of characters like: Bottom, Puck, the Iguana in "Tangled", Jiminy Cricket in "Pinocchio". The use of the Fool can transform storytelling as the Fool is a link to the audience - you will nearly always see the scene unfold through the Fool's eyes. The Fool gives deeper understanding of the workings of the plots, as the fool is a universal presence in both historical and contemporary storytelling.

Answer: Steve Martin

"The Jerk" (1980) was a Carl Reiner directed comedy farce that featured Steve Martin in his first starring role. The movie told the story of Navin (Martin) who had been adopted by an African-American family of sharecroppers. He was naive about his adoption until he realised he couldn't dance at all, unlike every other member of his family.

The movie is a series of vignettes where Navin tries to make a success of his own life outside of his adopted family but fails both miserably and hilariously. In the end his adoptive family rescue him and take him home where he could then dance with "perfect rhythm" and is at peace with himself.

Answer: Ellen DeGeneres

Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres is the comic relief character in the animated Pixar movie "Finding Nemo" (2003) and is meant to offset the uptight and over protective role of Marlin, Nemo's father (Albert Brooks). Dory, a Blue Tang fish suffers from short term memory loss which is an (hilarious) tragic deficit when she helps look for the missing Nemo.
Director Andrew Stanton comments on the audio for the "Finding Nemo" DVD, that originally Dory was going to be a male, but when Stanton saw an episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", hearing Ms DeGeneres' voice, he decided to change Dory to a female fish and subsequently cast her in the role. Dory was one of the reasons the movie was such a success and as a result she was rewarded with her own feature length movie, "Finding Dory" in 2016.

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF THE FOOL II - More than a clown and an idiot:
The fool is not usually just a clown or an idiot. They always seem to be a sidekick sort of character. Disney achieves this by making the fool smaller than main characters. The fool becomes a cricket or a talking monkey or meerkat. In "A Midsummer Night's Dream" the fool is actually Bottom and becomes an actual ass in the second act. In the contemporary setting, the fool might just be a klutz such as Ben Stiller in nearly every movie he has been in.

Answer: Steve Carell

Steve Carell was Brick Tamland in "Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy" (2004). This fool made a megastar out of Steve Carell. Before this 2004 movie Steve Carell was a well-respected but undervalued comedic actor. Up to that point he was best known for a small role in "Bruce Almighty", and as a correspondent on "The Daily Show".

But as Brick Tamland, Mr Carell's career never looked back again. Brick (whom people like, by his own admission, because "he's polite, and rarely late") is possibly the stupidest character in this quiz: most fools are dumb, but only Brick is someone that you ponder how they could function in an every day setting in this world.

As this movie is a farce, you can suspend reality and revel in Mr Carell devising one of the most inspired fools in contemporary times. Brick says the wrong thing at the wrong time at all times.

In a movie with a very high gag count, Brick's has some of the best belly laughs.

Answer: Lisa Kudrow

Los Angeles ditzy 28 year old Valley-Girl stereotypes Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michelle (Lisa Kudrow) have been best friends since childhood. Invited back to their 10 year high school reunion, the two decided they had not achieved much so they borrowed a flash car and pretended to have invented post-it notes. The results were hilarious and the movie was a surprise box office hit despite the release date being delayed three times as the studio was dubious about its chances of being successful. The two leads have no insight into who they are and there are no 'reveals' in the movie - here are two characters who are not too bright and happily play clowning fools and pretend to be nothing more.

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF THE FOOL III: Sidekicks and Masks.
The fool is the archetype sidekick. Think the Lone Ranger and his sidekick Tonto ("Tonto" literally translates as "a dumb person", "moron", or "fool"). In the contemporary movie though, it is common to employ the fool as the main character. Ashton Kutcher, Adam Sandler, Jim Carey, and Will Ferrell are fools in nearly every movie in which they are cast.
The fool is usually male with a few exceptions. Dory in "Finding Nemo" has been discussed but think of Melissa McCarthy's character, Megan, in "Bridesmaids" (and you wondered why Megan dressed as a man for nearly all of that movie?) In Shakespearean-era plays, Fools often wore masks. In animated films, they literally are a mask. A good example is the Iguana in "Tangled".

Answer: Jeff Daniels

In "Dumb & Dumber" (1994) by the Farrelly Brothers, the two leads Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) are nothing but idiots. Whilst Mr Carrey is expected to play "dumb" funny, it's Mr Daniels, known as a dramatic actor and usually a sidekick, who was the secret weapon. Carrey at his silliest still projects some intelligence, but Daniels' character looks stone-cold dead behind his eyes. He gets the best gags.

THE FUNCTION OF THE FOOL IN STORYLINES: Comic relief.
The most obvious role, the fool provides is comic relief by being given the freedom to cross cultural norms. An example is the Fool in "King Lear", "Marry, here's grace and a codpiece; that's a wise man and a fool", he says, accurately explaining the difference.
Fools can cross these norms easily by being free to express more of their emotions than is normally allowed. For example, Will Ferrell plays Buddy in "Elf" He says "I love you" to his father in a public setting despite it not being culturally acceptable. However as he is completely innocent, he can get away with it.

Answer: Sandra Bullock

"All About Steve" (2009) is not Sandra Bullock's best work. She showed her flair for comedy with the "Miss Congeniality" movies but her character there was intelligent but placed in unfamiliar surroundings. In this movie she played a timid girl who went on a blind date with Steve, a cameraman, decided he was a good thing and effectively stalked him. The script gave Miss Bullock no room for maneuver and the material either made her character an idiot or a pathetic sad sack with an undisclosed mental disorder. Mary had no capacity to become a fool. Miss Bullock won a Razzie award for Worst Actress for the role in 2009 but the very next day she received a Best actress Oscar for "The Blind Side" (2009), a movie that wisely displayed Miss Bullock's comedic potential.


THE FUNCTION OF THE FOOL IN STORYLINES: Characterisation
Fools accurately characterise every character who they encounter. Almost cliched now but still holding true, the only test of character is how you treat those who are beneath you.

In plays and subsequently movies, this interaction signals to the audience the nature of characters we are not yet familiar with. The character is a decent person if they treat the fool well or indeed almost as a contemporary, as Rapunzel treats the Iguana in "Tangled". Lear is incompetent but he is not a bad person as evidenced by his fair treatment of his fool (Indeed, the fool stays loyal to Lear to the point where Fool is the only friend he has). Any person (character) is of poor character if they treat a fool as a means for their own ends. Witness hows Jafar treats Iago in "Aladdin".

Often, a bad guy who is pretending to be good will reveal their true character by mistreating the fool...

Answer: George Clooney

George Clooney played Ulysses Everett McGill in "O Brother Where Art Thou" (2000), a surrogate-type of Homer's "Odyssey". Film-makers Joel and Ethan Coen often make fools the main character: Nicolas Cage in "Raising Arizona" and Tim Robbins in "The Hudsucker Proxy" as well as Steve Buscemi in "The Big Lebowski" and Brad Pitt in "Burn After Reading".
None of the three chain gang runaways that the movie concentrates on, (the other two are played by John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson), are in any way bright, but Clooney's Ulysses Everett McGill is the dumbest of the three. (Does a serious actor need to play a fool to be considered serious?) With his matinee idol looks, Mr Clooney channels the spirits of Clark Gable and Cary Grant at their silliest

THE FUNCTION OF THE FOOL IN STORY LINES: Conscience.
One of the fool's primary functions is to act as the hero's conscience. The best example is Jiminy Cricket in "Pinocchio". "Remember, Pinocchio, be a good boy, and always let your conscience be your guide." Not all fools are perhaps as self-evident as Mr Cricket.
As the fool is already outside the mainstream, they have absolute freedom to always speak the truth, and always get away with it as their witty repartee is seen as entertainment in the first instance. However, he is fully cognisant that it is his humour that allows him to speak the truth. Oscar Wilde, never short of a quotable quote said, "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." Thereby succinctly but inadvertently summarising the job description of the fool.

Answer: Leslie Nielsen

In Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker's "Airplane" movies the brilliance of the comedy was to cast serious actors such as Robert Stack, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, and Lloyd Bridges in key comedic roles. Leslie Nielsen as Dr. Rumack was particularly good, so much so that ZAZ produced three "Naked Gun" movies with Mr Nielsen as the bumbling Detective Frank Drebin in the central role. Frank was a very successful police officer. However he seemed to solve all crimes accidently, often causing mayhem, destruction and havoc in the process, all of which he was oblivious.

THE FUNCTION OF THE FOOL IN STORYLINES: An Invitation to Re-examine Ourselves.
The fool nearly always acts to challenge the audience to experience the kind of innocence, carefree-ness and joy we had when we were children. In essence, everyone is a fool, but we all wear masks. The fool, through both actions and speech dares us to take off our masks and live free. J. Phillip Newell says in "Shakespeare and the Human Mystery":
"The fool is calling us to be truly ourselves and points out the falseness of what we have become. He is not, however, over and against his hearers. Rather he invites them to discover the fool within themselves. In "All's Well That Ends Well", when Paroles says that he has found the fool, the Clown replies, 'Did you find me in yourself, sir?'

Answer: Kevin Kline

Some of the funniest movies contain a very stupid person who thinks that they're very smart. Such a paradox is the very essence of Otto in "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988). In a cast rich with comic talent, Kevin Kline outshone his peers in an absolute top rate performance as a fool. Mr Kline earned, unusually for someone in a broad comedy, a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Scriptwriter John Cleese wrote the role specifically for Kevin Kline despite Mr Kline's reputation as a "serious actor".

The role of the Fool appears to have been somewhat lost in movies if this quiz selection is any indication. The 'inverse' wisdom of the Fool appears to be traded off for a quick laugh generated by idiots. The box office does not mind - all the movies in this quiz were commercially successful with the exception of "All About Steve".

Hopefully, this quiz has highlighted differences between idiot fools (clowns) and "true" fools. Honourable mentions that could have been included in this quiz included Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump", Ben Stiller in just about any movie he appeared in, Peter Sellers in "Being There" or any of the "Pink Panther" movies, Zach Galifianakis in "The Hangover", Bill Murray in "Caddyshack", Rowan Atkinson in "Bean", Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in "Step Brothers" and Woody Allen in any of his early movies but in particular "Take The Money & Run".