Comedy of the everyday

If you have spent any considerable time reading this blog, first, you have my sympathy. Second, you know that I have been slowly introducing my daughters (age 7 and 11) to great cinema. I am horrified that they will be trapped like their peers, with an opinion of visual entertainment informed entirely by The Disney Channel and NickToons. There is a wonderful world of movies, I tell them, and then I let them see for themselves.
Last night, I introduced them to the genius of Harold Lloyd.
Charlie Chaplin had his tramp character and Buster Keaton had great physical strength and the deadest of deadpan looks.
Lloyd had... well... what did he have, exactly?
As the girls laughed their heads off at Lloyd in "I Do," in which he attempts to calm a baby while a toddler runs amok and in "Number Please," in which he attempts to win back a girl from a rival, Lloyd acts like the guy next door.
Lloyd's comedy, I decided, was the comedy of the EVERYMAN.
He places himself in situations and then works his way through them as we all might. Then, in his "climbing comedies" such as "Never Weaken" or "Safety Last," Lloyd places his EVERYMAN character in extreme situations, but approaches these obstacles in the same, everyday manner of his other films.
I'm probably over-analyzing (after two cups of coffee on a Sunday morning). The girls certainly couldn't care less about the philosophical approach of Harold Lloyd's comedic genius. They just howled when Lloyd -- in the backseat of a rollercoaster -- unwittingly collected all the hats (and even a toupee) blown off from the passengers in the front cars.
It was funny. It was classic. It was everyday.