Alphonse and Gaston is an American comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper , featuring a bumbling pair of Frenchmen with a penchant for politeness. Their "'After you, Alphonse. Alphonse is short and grotesque; Gaston is tall and grotesque. The premise is that both are extremely polite, constantly bowing and deferring to each other. Neither can ever do anything or go anywhere because each insists on letting the other precede him. Though never a daily or even weekly feature, Alphonse and Gaston appeared on Sundays for several years. In addition to Hearst collections and licensed products, it was adapted into a stage play and several comedy shorts.

The straight man is a stock character in a comedy performance, especially a double act , sketch comedy , or farce. Whatever direct contribution to the comedy a straight man provides usually comes in the form of a deadpan. A straight man with no direct comedic role has historically been known as a stooge. Typically he is expected to feed the funny man lines that he can respond to for laughs and is hence sometimes known as a feed , while seeking no acclamation for himself.

The s were an incredibly active and transitional decade for comedy. A new comedy boom began , thanks in part to Netflix throwing unprecedented amounts of cash toward producing hundreds of new stand-up specials every year. The rise of social media made possible a new generation of comedians who released funny videos and bits directly to fans, while online comedy outlets like Seeso struggled — and in more cases than not, failed — to stay afloat. The spec instantly went viral and eventually landed Domineau, a freelance joke writer at the time, a job on Family Guy.