The Sprinkler Sprinkled

Cinema's first comedy — and its first narrative gag. A gardener waters the lawn; a mischievous boy steps on the hose, stopping the flow; the gardener peers into the nozzle; the boy lifts his foot. The result is exactly what you'd expect, and it's been making people laugh for well over a century. In under a minute, the Lumière brothers proved that movies could do more than document reality — they could tell a joke with a setup and a punchline. Every slapstick comedian from Chaplin to the Three Stooges owes a debt to this little garden hose.