I am conducting visual research in to examples of slapstick comedy to get ideas for the type of actions and animations my character will be involved with, and one such source is One Foot in the Grave. Again, not the obvious choice for slapstick comedy but this particular clip gives a great example of it.
In this clip, Victor is sitting in his chair and he attempts to answer the phone:
At the start you are vaguely introduced to the idea that a dog is missing. 40 seconds in to the clip the phone rings and Victor is sitting in his chair. He can hear it ringing, and reaches down behind the chair without looking because he knows the phone is there. Again, without looking he pulls a small dog up to his face and says his phone number in to it "4291". Then, he suddenly realises with a big, exaggerated shocked look and pulling back of the head he stares at the dog and the canned laughter explodes over the top.
My animation:
I could concoct a similar scenario in my animation involving my character trying to grab an item and actually grabbing something unexpected or shocking.
