The Comedy Stylings of Charles Grodin

Posted on May 28, 2021

by Eric P

Seems like it wasn’t too long ago that this blog was waxing rhapsodic over the performance of the newly late Yaphet Kotto in the classic film Midnight Run. Now another of that movie’s stars, the cunningly pesky Charles Grodin, has also passed. Either there’s a Midnight Run curse, or the movie just came out a long time ago.

(Spoiler: it just came out a long time ago.)

Like Kotto, Grodin was easy to underappreciate. His film career was pocked with some films that were underwhelming placeholders: studio projects where he was slotted into the role of nebbishy loser or nebbishy villain, or both – the 1976 King Kong; The Incredible Shrinking Woman. Even recent newspaper obituaries spend too much time dwelling on his paycheck-cashing work as the beleaguered suburban patriarch in the big-sloppy-dog Beethoven comedies.

But consider the sublimely underplayed comedy of Grodin’s fugitive accountant in Midnight Run, deftly irritating Robert DeNiro with questions about his diet and his career and his experiences with farm animals, quietly hilarious until he shades imperceptibly into quietly heartbreaking. Or his sublimely overplayed performance as Miss Piggy’s would-be suitor in The Great Muppet Caper, where he becomes one of the only human actors ever to steal a scene from his felt-and-foam-rubber costars. Watch him in that movie and you really believe a man can fall in love with a pig while spilling ketchup all over his cummerbund.

If you watch some of Grodin’s talk show appearances online, you realize that his everyman looks cloaked a truly spiky and weird artistic sensibility. Which lends credence to my theory that his performance in Beethoven as Man Annoyed by Pet was so over-the-top hair-trigger apoplectic because it was a deliberately self-aware avant-garde experiment in performance art. But any Grodin performance is worth watching; pick any of these movies at random and treat yourself.

Rosemary’s Baby

Cover of The Great Muppet Caper Cover of The Great Muppet Caper

The Great Muppet Caper

Cover of Midnight Run Cover of Midnight Run

Midnight Run

Cover of Dave Cover of Dave

Dave

Cover of While We’re Young Cover of While We’re Young

While We’re Young

hoopla
Cover of The Comedian Cover of The Comedian

The Comedian

An Imperfect Murder
hoopla

In addition, Grodin was one of the rare comic actors whose humor also translated to the page – his books are diverting distillations of his absurdist vision and unfettered sense of candor.

It Would Be So Nice If You Weren’t Here: My Journey Through Show Business

How I Get Through Life

Cover of I Like it Better When You’re Funny Cover of I Like it Better When You’re Funny

I Like it Better When You’re Funny

Cover of If I Only Knew Then… Cover of If I Only Knew Then…

If I Only Knew Then…

Book on CD
Cover of How I Got to Be Whoever it is I Am Cover of How I Got to Be Whoever it is I Am

How I Got to Be Whoever it is I Am

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