Product Description

The comedians of the 1950s and 1960s were a totally different breed of relevant, revolutionary performer from any that came before or after, comics whose humor did much more than pry guffaws out of audiences. Gerald Nachman presents the stories of the groundbreaking comedy stars of those years, each one a cultural harbinger:

• Mort Sahl, of a new political cynicism
• Lenny Bruce, of the sexual, drug, and language revolution
• Dick Gregory, of racial unrest
• Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge, of racial harmony
• Phyllis Diller, of housewifely complaint
• Mike Nichols & Elaine May and Woody Allen, of self-analytical angst and a rearrangement of male-female relations
• Stan Freberg and Bob Newhart, of encroaching, pervasive pop media manipulation and, in the case of Bob Elliott & Ray Goulding, of the banalities of broadcasting
• Mel Brooks, of the Yiddishization of American comedy
• Sid Caesar, of a new awareness of the satirical possibilities of television
• Joan Rivers, of the obsessive craving for celebrity gossip and of a latent bitchy sensibility
• Tom Lehrer, of the inane, hypocritical, mawkishly sentimental nature of hallowed American folkways and, in the case of the Smothers Brothers, of overly revered folk songs and folklore
• Steve Allen, of the late-night talk show as a force in American comedy
• David Frye and Vaughn Meader, of the merger of showbiz and politics and, along with Will Jordan, of stretching the boundaries of mimicry
• Shelley Berman, of a generation of obsessively self-confessional humor
• Jonathan Winters and Jean Shepherd, of the daring new free-form improvisational comedy and of a sardonically updated view of Midwestern archetypes
• Ernie Kovacs, of surreal visual effects and the unbounded vistas of video

Taken together, they made up the faculty of a new school of vigorous, socially aware satire, a vibrant group of voices that reigned from approximately 1953 to 1965.

Nachman shines a flashlight into the corners of these comedians’ chaotic and often troubled lives, illuminating their genius as well as their demons, damaged souls, and desperate drive. His exhaustive research and intimate interviews reveal characters that are intriguing and all too human, full of rich stories, confessions, regrets, and traumas. Seriously Funny is at once a dazzling cultural history and a joyous celebration of an extraordinary era in American comedy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1125318 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 659 pages

From Amazon.com
It's been said that analyzing comedy is a bit like dissecting a frog: you arrive at a greater understanding of the frog but the frog does tend to die in the process. The purpose of Gerald Nachman's Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s is not to provide a laugh riot of his subjects' best punch lines, but rather to explore their lives, careers, and influence. Nachman's scope is impressive. He provides detailed biographies not only of household names Sid Caesar, Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, and Woody Allen but also comics like Jean Shepherd, Shelley Berman, and Will Jordan whose legacies have far outpaced their name recognition. Nachman has done his research; the book profiles 26 comedians, each in exhaustive detail, and no fan of this era will feel cheated at the end of its 768 pages. There are plenty of entertaining show biz anecdotes (Sid Caesar throwing a lit cigar at young writer Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby punching out Tommy Smothers) along with tales of the darker sides of Mort Sahl, Jonathan Winters, and others whose private lives were far less amusing than their stage acts. But what makes Seriously Funny so compelling, and its dopey title at least partially forgivable, is the author's meticulous attention to each comedian's imprint on the landscape of comedy itself. And while the jokes cited often seem a bit stale and obvious, it bears noting that they were revolutionary when these comedians first made them. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
Something happened to comedy beginning in the late 1950s. Geniuses like Mort Sahl, Mel Brooks, Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen took a tired medium ("Take my wife-please" was about as good as it got) and transformed it into a sharper, meaner, more personal and more politicized art form than any comedy that had come before. It was, as Nachman notes in this broad survey, a "satirical revolution." Suddenly, police might arrest a comic for obscenity (Bruce). Or the American president might demand an explanation of a punch line (Sahl). Or network censors might freak out over politically charged TV scripts (the Smothers brothers). As a group, Nachman argues, these comedians changed the cultural landscape, pushing the boundaries of humor, art and good taste. But for many, genius had a price. Jonathan Winters spent time in a sanatorium; Bruce succumbed to drug addiction; and Sahl became paranoid and unbalanced, oddly obsessed with JFK's assassination. The list could go on-and does. Nachman (Raised on Radio) covers 26 comedians here. Necessarily, some details are lost. But whatever Nachman lacks in depth, he makes up for with his enthusiasm and firsthand knowledge (he interviewed many of his subjects himself, repeatedly, over decades). Even better, Nachman knows when to shut up and let the comics speak for themselves (Sahl on Barry Goldwater: "The fascist gun in the West"; Allen on the modern condition: "Not only is God dead but try getting a plumber on the weekends"). A must-have for comedy fans, this book is also a notable study of America as it shed its gray flannel suit and began, finally, to laugh.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Now that Lenny Bruce is lionized for freeing stand-up from most constraints on material and language, Nachman figures it is time other "rebel" comics of the 1950s and 1960s got some attention, and he certainly knows whom to attend to. Sid Caesar, Ernie Kovacs, and Jonathan Winters are arguably the standouts in the section on the '50s, but even Jean Shepherd, most famous today as creator of the classic Christmas flick A Christmas Story, gets his due, in the same chapter as absurdists extraordinaire Bob and Ray. In the '60s section, figures as diverse yet comparably insightful as Bob Newhart and Godfrey Cambridge are profiled. Lenny does, of course, get his chapter, and so do the Smothers brothers, Dick Gregory, and Mel Brooks, plus the now relatively unknown David Frye, Vaughan Meader, and Will Jordan. Rather like aesthetically pondering rock musicians' instrumental techniques, serious discussion of comedy is a chancy proposition. Nachman manages, however, to leaven his content analysis with sheer enjoyment. All entertainment scholarship should be this enjoyable and informative. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Seriously Enjoyable
This book brings together more information about more comedians than any other book I've ever read.

It is a collection of biographies, not a comprehensive history of the 50s and 60s. Even so, the 50s and 60s came alive for me as I encountered in quick succession Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Steve Allen, Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, and a score of other comedians who hit it big during that time.

Thank you, Gerald Nachman, for several evenings of great reading.

Pop-Culture Chronicle of an Era
In an age when [curse words] are a standard part of American entertainment, it may be hard to understand why this book is so important. It's less about comedy than it is about the era in which comedy in America changed. When we understand this we then are able to see, over the shoulder of each comedian, the beginnings of the social and political movements that, ironically, would lead to the leaden, anti-intellectual climate we have in our country today.

If, as I do, you can remember the 50s and the 60s, you may also remember just how shocking much of the material spoken by these comedians was. Forget about the sour-grapes review posted above by an (obviously failed) comedian. Consider instead these tidbits in the book and see if they do not convince you of the power of the mike before the age of the Internet. Mort Sahl, who used as the basis of his routine the items in the daily newspaper, was punished for jokes he made about the Kennedys; when he refused to censor himself, Joe P. had the club in which he appeared closed for the owner's failure to pay back taxes. Sections about Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge have each comedian addressing the question of whether their acts were either flagrant "Uncle Tomming" of white listeners or the opposite.

Though the reporting does contain the occasional error--and a maddening typo or two (WHY can't the publisher pay for a copy editor, for crying out loud?)--the book is fresh in some of its points. For example, Nachman is one of the few writers NOT to deify Lenny Bruce. The story of our deification of him is as much a part of the biography as is the description of Bruce's rise and fall; my interpretation is that people made money off Bruce both before and after his death.

Nachman does have his favorites, to be sure, and there's the rather bigoted insinuation that the best comics must be "ethnic" (whatever that means) but all in all, it's a great book.

For the curious, it's worth it!
I am not the most avid reader, and for the most part the size of this book is usually preclusive, but I came away from knowing more than I did when I started, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Other reviewers of this book seem to have points of reference with which to mark from in talking about Nachman's work. I had none--I was born too late for the peaks of many of these classic comedians, and at least one was already gone and passed by the time I was born, plus this is the first time I had heard of this author. I came upon this book by way of being a third-generation Smothers Brothers fan, so I was excited when this book came out. It is time-consuming to read, true, but being that each chapter represents a single comedian or comedy team, the pressure is off to try and digest it all at once (good for non-avid readers such as myself). And with the Smothers Brothers, a lot of names were dropped that I never knew were what I term "Smothers Others" (those with less than a degree of separation from Tom and/or Dick). And with Tom and Dick, more of their early history was given than I have seen just about anywhere else.

My only beef in regards to the book is pretty incidental and cosmetic: the choice of pictures for each of the comedians. Some of the photos were representative of the comedians in the time frame the book covers, some were not (in the case of the Smothers Brothers, a pic from their 1988-89 run of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was used, not one from either their 1965-66 sitcom or 1967-69 variety show, for which they earned their right to be included in this book).

This book may be less than spectular for the pros,...but for us amatuers, it's just right.