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From CAESAR'S HOUR to "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum" to M*A*S*H to TOOTSIE, some of the 20th century's finest moments of comedy -- and drama -- were written by a single person: Larry Gelbart. And when one person has made such an impact on the face of entertainment as we know it, raising the level of discourse to a fine art, it's very tempting to peer into his mind and see what makes him tick.
In February 2001, GREAT PERFORMANCES Online had a freewheeling conversation with Larry Gelbart, who spoke to us from his home in Los Angeles, about THE COLLEGE OF COMEDY III, his work, humor, show business, and life in general.
GREAT PERFORMANCES: Many of the things you've worked on have been based on current events. Is comedy necessarily tied to the news?
Larry Gelbart: Well, it can be specifically made to do that. You can make an attempt to be current in references and in prevailing attitudes. But certain, if not all, human behavior is pretty timeless and universal. So while people are always experiencing emotions and experiences for the first time -- the first time for them -- how we are, and how we've been, has been that way for a very long time.
GP: In tyrannical societies, satire can be against the law,
because it's seen as dangerous.
LG: It is, it's subversive, because among satire's favorite topics are whatever the established seems to be. There's an age-old device where you can satirize a particular government or a particular segment of society by calling it another place or calling it another name, but still being very direct as to what you're talking about.
GP: Did you ever feel in your career that you were puncturing
the establishment?
LG: I can only hope so! M*A*S*H did a lot of that, obviously.
It talked about the establishment, about the failure of politicians
worldwide to prevent war.
GP: You had trouble with the censors, but it was mostly about the sexual content, not really about the politics.
LG: Never. They were very good about that.
GP: Do you think that would be so today?
LG: I don't think anyone would do any comedy about politics today! Nobody cares about it, except perhaps SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, and they sort of do very broad comedy about it.
GP: Would you say this is a good or bad time for satire, then?
LG: It's a tough time for satire, because so much that happens in real life is so satirical. The daily headlines from Washington almost seem satirical. So much behavior is outrageous.
GP: And how does a comedian operate when real life seems fairly comedic?
LG: Well, you just have to dip your pen a little deeper in the acid and deal with it as you see it. It's not some official job, although some people do make it their job to punch holes in the pompous, in the preposterous, in the unfair, in the unkind, in the greedy. So, if the real-life behavior is that much more outrageous, you make your comments that much sharper.
GP: What do you think is the best form for that? Television, movies, stand-up?
LG: It's not movies. Movies are not interested in satire. George S. Kaufman, a famous playwright, once said, "Satire is what closes on Saturday night." People don't much like satire; they don't often see themselves in it, or they don't want to see what's being made fun of in it. Movies -- no, not at all. Movies are too slow-moving in terms of how they're made and when they're made, and so by the time they want to criticize a certain situation, that situation may be well over. Although there have been satirical movies; certainly the feature MASH (which I did not write; Ring Lardner, Jr. did) was such an effort; WAG THE DOG was certainly satirical.
But they're rare. People want to get scared or aroused sexually when they see a movie; they don't want to do a lot of thinking. And television isn't very good about it, either. There's a lot of it on the Internet; we'll see how much longer it is there, as a lot of the dot-com companies are disappearing. I've actually written an Internet series, which may or may not become a reality.
GP: What's it called?
LG: C-SCAM.
GP: Like C-SPAN. And is that supposed to see the light of day soon?
LG: Tell you soon. Tell you after the show's over! We're actually filming a few things this week, and we'll see what happens. It's live actors, in little five-minute segments. But it may not happen. We're going to film these things, but it may not go on the air, so I don't want people to be asking a year from now, "Now what was that all about?"
Interview by Sarah Birnbaum for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online conducted in February 2001.
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