SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, A COMEDY TONIGHT

I am known in some circles as a witty fellow, and I remember how it all started.  The first intentionally funny thing I said was in third grade.  The teacher, Miss Neander, was talking about Benjamin Franklin’s famous sayings.  She recited “a stitch, in time, saves nine” like most people do, without the pauses where the commas are.  I said “Nine what?”  The kids around me burst out laughing. 

OK, maybe you had to be there.  But that’s all it took to get me started.  For the rest of my elementary and high school career, I was the kid who’d blurt out funny stuff in class. 

As I got older, I studied my craft.  I read biographies of famous comedians, and watched them on TV, absorbing some of their sense of timing along the way.  I learned to pick my spots, and to limit my quips to whatever the class was studying.  I could find humor in Silas Marner and the Italian Revolution of 1848.  Perhaps because of that (and because I was a good student), my teachers put up with me, and some of them clearly enjoyed my contributions to the discussion.  I brought that skill into the workplace as an adult.

I’m reminded of all that because Monday brought news of the passing of Shelley Berman, following close on the heels of both Dick Gregory and Jerry Lewis last week.  I have to admit that I never really got Jerry Lewis.  In 1956, my parents took me to see “Pardners” at a drive-in.  It was the last Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis collaboration, and as best I remember, the only one of his films I’ve ever seen.  My exposure to his work was almost exclusively through his television appearances, including his famous telethons.  I know he was beloved by French cineastes, but his brand of slapstick mugging just didn’t tickle my funny bone.

I paid more attention to Dick Gregory and Shelley Berman, who burst onto the scene (or at least onto my personal scene) with a series of comedy albums (Gregory – In Living Black and White, East & West, Dick Gregory Talks Turkey; and Berman – Inside, Outside, and The Edge of) that I bought and listened to repeatedly in the early 60s. 

Inside Shelley Berman, released in 1959, effectively kicked off a golden age of comedy LPs, which lasted about five years.  In those days, the bestselling album charts belonged, with rare exceptions, to adults.  They were dominated by soundtrack albums, comedy albums, and “adult” music from Sinatra to the Kingston Trio. 

I spent a lot of time in record stores as a teenager.  At the beginning of that period, my discretionary money was limited to the weekly allowance my parents gave me, so I browsed more than I bought.  But I still remember flipping through the bins of comedy LPs.  There were the “adult” albums, by Oscar Brand, Woody Woodbury, Redd Foxx, and Rusty Warren.  Lenny Bruce belongs in a category of his own.  I bought several of his early LPs, expecting to be shocked.  But the records he put out on the Fantasy label in the late 50s and early 60s were pretty tame, and not that funny.  Expurgated Lenny Bruce was weak sauce, for the most part.

My three favorites from that era were Mort Sahl, Bob Newhart, and Jonathan Winters.  Sahl riffed on the politics of the Eisenhower era, which means his albums probably won’t resonate with contemporary listeners, but he deserves credit for reviving political standup comedy, which had been dormant since the death of Will Rogers two decades earlier. 

Bob Newhart is the best known of his contemporaries because of his top rated TV shows in the 70s and 80s.  But in 1960, The Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart became the first comedy album to reach number one on Billboard’s album charts.  His follow-up album, Behind the Button-Down Mind, also reached number one.  Typically, he played a calm, rational person who got a phone call from a crackpot.  His exasperated responses to the imaginary caller were comedy gold. 

Mort Sahl and Bob Newhart are still alive.  Sahl just turned 90, and Newhart will celebrate his 88th birthday on September 5.

Jonathan Winters, the funniest man I’ve ever heard, died at the age of 87 in 2013.  It’s hard to describe what he did, but I’ll settle for saying he was Robin Williams before Robin Williams was Robin Williams.  He did improv before anyone else, and he was a favorite of Tonight Show hosts Jack Paar and Johnny Carson – at a time, sadly, when I was too young to stay up that late.  But I played his first four albums (Down to Earth, The Wonderful World of Jonathan Winters, Here’s Jonathan, and Another Day Another World) over and over.

Those were the days, my friend.  The last major comedy album artist of that era was a guy named Vaughn Meader, who specialized in imitating President Kennedy.  The Kennedy assassination ended his career, and also marked the beginning of the end of the golden age of comedy LPs.  When the Beatles cracked the American market in January, 1964, they and other British acts began their takeover of the airwaves and the best seller charts. 

I can’t say I regret that.  Those were also the days.  A quick check of Amazon reveals that the seminal albums of both Shelley Berman are available on CD.  Dick Gregory, Mort Sahl and Jonathan Winters rate only a smattering.  All of them are represented on YouTube to some extent.  My advice:  check them out.