From Vaudeville to YouTube
Let me get one thing off my chest before I go any further: there is so much material in Kliph Nesteroff’s The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy, that it’s not even funny — and I mean that in a good way.
So much information is packed into the book’s 425 pages that the scholarship detailing the history of comedy from vaudeville to the Internet is, quite simply, allencompassing.
So hat’s off to Nesteroff, himself a former standup comic, for this bravura exercise in research.
The Comedians performs a commendable service to pop culture by retrieving from showbiz oblivion every comic who did a “bit” in a 1920s vaudeville house, a 1960s comedy club or today’s talk shows.
Over the long comedic trajectory, it is fascinating how social and technological change transforms what is considered funny — and permissible.
Way back when, burlesque was considered risqué while vaudeville exuded what Nesteroff terms a “pathological sanctimony.”
Although both were very tame by contemporary standards, anyone who used “blue material” would be yanked off the stage by a long, fearsome hook.
Pushing the envelope has always been a hallmark of comedic progress and come- dy geniuses such as Lenny Bruce paid dearly for being on the cusp. A heroin addict, he overdosed as his career was tanking.
This book also clearly demonstrates the degree to which many funny people are seriously messed up: Johnny Carson’s pathological shyness, Jerry Lewis’ overbearing ego.
And all of them were joke kleptomaniacs — stealing one another’s material with nary a nod to the morality of what they were doing.
Take Shelley Berman, a great 1950s comedian, and TV’s iconic Bob Newhart. Going to work one night someone yells to Berman, “‘Hey, Shelley! There’s a guy who stole your act!’ When I finally saw Newhart, I was devastated.”
But, I guess, all’s fair in love, war and comedy. Or, as Lenny Bruce explains the Newhart heist, 1960s talk show hosts were “so desperate for a goy act their teeth hurt.” He correctly predicted Newhart would make more money than Berman, (Mort) Sahl and himself, combined.
The Comedians will require stamina from some readers but soldier on: The gossip and the dissing are delish.
Occasionally, it might have been interesting to linger on some of the truly seminal figures in American humour — Bob Hope, Lenny Bruce, Groucho Marx, David Letterman, etc. — but that’s quibbling.
It is fascinating how social and technological transformations change what is considered funny and permissible