History of Comedy enlightens with humour
NEW YORK — One of the great things about comedy is, it demands so little effort to enjoy. Grins and guffaws can seem to issue directly from a tickled funny bone.
On the other hand, prolonged analysis of humour can kill the joke.
But not always, as CNN demonstrates with The History of Comedy, a docuseries that keeps the funny in the fundamentals of the comedy it probes.
Including among its executive producers Sean Hayes (who boasts such comedy credits as the hit sitcom Will & Grace), the series’ eight weekly hours burst with information as well as laughter. It’s like a college course, if college weren’t just smart but also really funny.
The series starts with a bang Thursday at 10 p.m. with “F---ing Funny” (it’s CNN blanking out those three letters), an episode that gets a little naughty.
Yes, George Carlin and Lenny Bruce get much-deserved credit as the episode traces the evolution of risqué humour and recalls the risks and retribution that plagued the groundbreaking humorists who flouted social standards in the name of free speech.
They were going for more than giggles.
“I’m searching for an answer,” says Bruce, the oft-oppressed, of tjailed shock comic — “as Billy Graham is.”
Much of Bruce’s act a halfcentury ago was thought to break the rules. But on the contrary, his mission was to change them.
“‘Off limits’ is not a permanent address,” notes comic Patton Oswalt. “It’s just a marker. It keeps getting moved.”
Living up to its billing as history, this hour reaches all the way back to the early 1900s to recall the parallel emergence of vaudeville and burlesque — and explain the difference. (Among its store of fun facts is the origin of the term “blue” as a synonym for vulgar or racy. Watch and learn.)
Future episodes look at political humour, topical comedy, com- edy in race and culture, and comedy gleaned from everyday life.
Yet another episode shines a light on the dark side of comedy, citing examples of the personal cost of being funny that include Robin Williams and Andy Kaufman.
The episode on women in comedy celebrates the distaff drollery of Phyllis Diller, Moms Mabley and Joan Rivers. But it also remembers their largely forgotten sister pioneer Jean Carroll, who enjoyed fame as a standup in the 1950s.
Yet another episode focuses on parody and satire, and explores the often overlooked difference.
“Satire is making fun of the powerful,” explains Harry Shearer.
“There’s only one way to get even,” adds Mel Brooks, one of whose career-long targets has been Adolf Hitler. “You have to bring them down with ridicule.”