The Chemistry of Comedy Triangles

Posted by Leslie C. Halpern Jun 2, 2008

The Three Stooges. Three Amigos. Three Men and a Baby. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Even the four Marx Brothers reduced their comedy team to three.

Three seems to be the magic number for comedy teams. In the classic movie Airplane! (1980), Captain Oveur and co-pilots Roger Murdock and Victor Basta sit around the cockpit misunderstanding directions from the control tower. Confusion about the words “over,” “roger,” and “vector” wouldn’t have been as funny with just two crew members, and might have lost its humor had the cockpit been filled with four or more pilots.

Take note that the directors of Airplane! come in a set of three: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker.

One of my favorite movies, the romantic comedy The Princess Bride successfully incorporates the love triangle (Westley, Princess Buttercup, and Prince Humperdinck) and the comedy triangle (Vizzini the schemer, Inigo the swordsman, and Fezzik the giant). These three would-be criminals play off the others’ physical and intellectual attributes for laughs.

Tiny Vizzini pushes around the giant; slow-witted Fezzik sometimes outsmarts Vizzini; physically adept Inigo allows Vizzini to plan his assaults; and despite his aggressiveness, Inigo reveals a gentle sweetness toward Fezzik. These relationships between the three characters provide the perfect balance for relationship dynamics.

Films from every genre take advantage of the chemistry of the comedy triangle: Mad Money (three novice women bank robbers), Superbad (three high school boys on an adventure), and the Harry Potter series (Harry, Hermione, and Ron) are among them.

Of course, many exceptions exist to the rule of three, but the comedy triangle creates a delicate balancing act where no one character stays at the top for long because competing strengths from the other two constantly threaten to upset the triangle.