It has been said that there are just two types of comic characters: a crazy person in a normal world and a normal person in a crazy world. But America has developed a unique set of comic characters that appear and reappear in different forms throughout our history. Here's a few. If you know of any others, please contribute to the list.

The Con Man: The first of these was Simon Suggs, developed in the Middle 1800's. He was a fast-talking, sly salesman who cheated people out of their money or goods, but the most appreciated humor came when he himself was tricked.

The Foreigner: The immigrant who usually speaks with an accent that creates a comic effect; he or she doesn't understand the American way of doing things and falls into troubles because of it. A lot of early writing using this character is nearly unreadable, since the writers tried to duplicate the accent. (Try to read the original version of "Tales of Uncle Remus" for an example.) Some more modern examples include Chico Marx (who played an Italian and delivered the famous line "Everybody knows…there is no Sanity Clause.") Yakov Smirnoff cashed in on this. But this character s rare now, since it has become politically incorrect to mock those who are different this way.

The Rube: AKA the country bumpkin, the dolt, the redneck, etc. Ben Franklin's Poor Richard is one of the original incarnations of this character. He appears again as Mortimer Snerd (one of 'Edgar Bergen's 'dummies') and Jeff Foxworthy makes frequent reference to this character.

The Windbag: Northrop Frye describes this type of character as lacking self-knowledge and there fore speaking of his greatness rather than proving it with great deeds. W.C. Fields played him to perfection.

The Dumb Blonde: (With apologies to the blonde ladies in class) This character has two incarnations: the truly dumb blonde (who really doesn't know anything, e.g. Jessica Simpson who said she thought Chicken of the Sea was chicken [not tuna]) and the blonde who is dumb :like a fox. In other words, she cashes in on the expectation that she's dumb, e.g. "Legally Blonde."

The Buffoon: In "Seinfeld" this character is Kramer; by merely entering the room he gets a laugh. His actions are exaggerated, like those of a circus clown.