STANDUP COMEDY

Standup Comedy has a long history. During the Renaissance, the royal jesters were chosen by the king, and he chose people who looked ridiculous; they had bug-eyes, and humped backs, and were short and often deformed. They word motley (mismatched) clothing, and they also wore caps and bells, and they carried fake scepters with heads on the ends of them so that they could talk to the scepters and not directly to the king. Because they were so mis-formed, they were considered not to be in competition with the king, and were therefore allowed to say things to the king that no one else would have been allowed to say. Some jesters spoke through scepters (made from pig bladders), as when today’s ventriloquists speak through their puppets. It was a way of “distancing” themselves from criticism. Even today’s standup comics speak into microphones, which at the same time empowers the comedian and distances the comedian from the audience.

Early on, comedians sought to identify themselves with ethnicities. These went way beyond African American, Hispanic, and Asian communities. Scotch, Welsh, German, Norwegian, Jewish, and Irish were all fodder for joking—both from inside and outside the groups. Still today we see comedians desperate to stand out from the crowd. “Hot topics” in the 1960s and 70s, were politics, race relations, and sex. Alan King, Danny Thomas, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, and Jack Leonard became popular at nightclubs and resorts, while Woody Allen, Shelley Berman, Phyllis Diller, and Bob Newhart became famous on television. African American comedians Redd Foxx, George Kirby, Bill Cosby, and Dick Gregory developed white audiences. Lenny Bruce was known as ‘the’ obscene comic, while George Carlin was arrested in July of 1972 after performing his still famous “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.”

Alan King, Danny Thomas, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, and Jack Leonard became popular at nightclubs and resorts, while Woody Allen, Shelley Berman, Phyllis Diller, and Bob Newhart became famous on television. African American comedians Redd Foxx, George Kirby, Bill Cosby, and Dick Gregory developed white audiences. Lenny Bruce was known as ‘the’ obscene comic, while George Carlin was arrested in July of 1972 after performing his still famous “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” In the 1980s and 1990s, stand-up expanded from nightclubs into major concerts with huge audiences. Bill Cosby and Steve Martin were “gentle” comedians, while Robin Williams was frenetic. Richard Pryor used an acerbic style, while Rodney Dangerfield and Buddy Hackett stuck with the old style, avoiding social satire. Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show brought stand-up comedy to the whole country. One newspaper editor suggested that stand-up comedians were the new “heroes” in our society.

HBO was the first network to produce comedians without censoring them. This was partly because patrons paid for their services and so expected more. HBO produced 14 comedy specials starring George Carlin and his campaign against censorship. A new generation of comedians including Bill Burr, David Cross, Hannibal Buress, Chelsea Handler, Dave Foley, Todd Glass, Sara Silverman, and Demetri Martin do not have to worry about censorship of the kind that caused the Smothers Brothers to lose their show because of mildly criticizing the Vietnam war, or caused Jack Paar to walk off his show to protest his network’s censoring of an old British story about a confusion over whether W.C. stood for Wayside Chapel or Water Closet.

Bob Hope, Jack Benny, George Burns, Fred Allen, Milton Berle, Henny Youngman, Alan King, and Frank Fay are said to exemplify a pure form of stand-up comedy. They stood before an audience and managed to develop the kind of rapport that allowed them to speak—and laugh—with strangers who had suddenly become “friends.” Their performance comedy is more theatrical, more scripted, more elaborate, and more fully developed. Performers use costumes, props, and stage settings as do most of our contemporary late night TV hosts.

Don and Alleen Nilsen’s Humor PowerPoints:

https://aath.memberclicks.net/don-and-alleen-power-points