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There are no great physical comedians any more.
This isn’t to say that physical presence isn’t a part of today’s comedy: it is. It’s impossible, for instance, to think of Louis C.K.’s humor without imagining his bear-like girth along with it. It’s difficult to think of laughing at Kristen Wiig without also thinking of her tiny frame (and of the wild gesticulations she is capable of). And Melissa McCarthy’s body is as much a part of her humor as her mouth or her mind. But this isn’t really the same as making your body do funny things, an art neglected of late. We have our Steve Martins and Jim Carreys, but they and other comedians of their type tend to follow a trajectory that leads them away from their slapstick roots, toward more subdued romantic comedy, even realistic drama.
Pure physical comedy once ruled the roost. If you want proof of this, you can find no better example of it than the work of Harold Lloyd, whose 1923 classic Safety Last! was released last week on DVD and Blu-Ray by Criterion.

The kind of laughing you do during this film, and in fact the laughing you do during most comic films of the silent era, is more pure and often more whole-hearted than the kind of laughing you might do during contemporary comedies.