Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s Book

It's been said that analysing 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 influences. 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 such as Jean Shepherd, Shelley Berman and Will Jordan whose legacies have far outpaced their name recognition. Nachman has done his homework; 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 showbiz anecdotes (Sid Caesar throwing a lit cigar at young writer Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby punching 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 corny 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, Amazon.comRead More