Like jazz, America gave birth, perfected, and has sole ownership of the art form. Do you see Russia, Japan, France, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, The Balkin, The Far and Near East, The Greeks, The Turks, churning out great visual gags in the early part of the 20th Century? Hell, no! Can you see any of those countries perfecting the pie in the face, slipping on a banana peel, the quick agile verbal quips?
Only America could produce Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, The Keystone Cops, Herald Lloyd, The Three Stooges, The Marx Bros., The Ritz Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and Charlie Chaplin, who had to wait to come to America to perfect the Tramp and his inventive comedy...It's in the American ethos, of expanding and exploring new ways of expression without the centuries-old tradition of stiff decorum that made the creation of slapstick, vaudeville, and the Broadway musical, a true American art form