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THE ART OF COMEDY
By Sarah Birnbaum
Essayist E.B. White tossed off the ultimate line on the difficulty of talking about comedy. "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog," he wrote. "Few people are interested and the frog dies of it."
So, what makes THE COLLEGE OF COMEDY, which tries to do that very thing, the delightfully entertaining spectacle it is -- and keeps it from becoming a dead frog?
It could be Alan King's initial homage to the giants of comedy, whose oversized portraits appear behind the performers in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium in Pasadena, CA. "The Masters of the Universe," he calls them: from Laurel and Hardy to George Burns and Jack Benny, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin to Lucille Ball and Mae West, and more -- the pantheon of funny people that no comic can ignore. Perhaps King's invocation of the comedy gods caused them to smile upon the evening. It could be the moments of inspired lunacy throughout the program, such as Shecky Greene's hysterical impression of an enraged cosmonaut phoning Moscow from the surface of the moon to complain (in ersatz Russian) about stepping on "ka-ka" left there by the American astronauts. Bill Maher positing that "there are two totally pure pleasures in life: laughter and orgasm," realizing he had been speaking in Larry Gelbart's direction, then mugging, "I don't know why I'm looking at you." Rita Rudner's recitation of the first thing that ever made her laugh, which shortly has the
same effect on the audience:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I like peanut butter
Can you skate?
It is likely the salubrious effects of what producer Tom Werts, who has helmed all three installments of THE COLLEGE OF COMEDY, calls "the mix, the dynamic of the people" on the program. Describing the panelists for the third installment of COLLEGE, Werts says, "We had a wonderful writer who is probably one of the most versatile writers in this country and a very bright guy, Larry Gelbart, who really has thought about it [comedy]. And Rita Rudner, who taught herself comedy, and is also very funny and very smart. And Bill Maher, who is a stand-up, and who now runs a television talk show, and whose take is mostly political and social observation. And Shecky Greene, a brilliant monologist. I think this is our smartest show," he concludes. "These are all smart people. They're on a very high level." But as it is with most funny business, the answer is "All of the above" -- and more. THE COLLEGE OF COMEDY III is a laugh-out-loud production that also provides a thoughtful series of answers to the ancient question, "What's funny?" Nothing better demonstrates the evening's twin aims -- to teach and to entertain -- when, at the show's opening, King brings up Freud's essay on wit and the subconscious, then turns to Greene and deadpans, "Now, Shecky, you knew Sigmund. ..."
But besides deathless lines such as the one above, what does make people laugh?
Gelbart thinks "people laugh without realizing they're laughing at themselves. We laugh because we're surprised, either pleasantly or unpleasantly. It's anything that catches us off guard."
Maher puts in, "Honesty gets laughs. Because people don't even want
to laugh. You say something honest, and it's involuntary."
Rudner agrees: "It always has to be a shock."
For Greene, it comes down to rhythm and timing. But, he admits, "I've been doing this for a little over 50 years, and I still have no idea what makes people laugh."
Top banner photos: Bill Maher; host Alan King; Rita Rudner; Shecky Greene. |
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Bill Maher and Alan King. |
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Alan King and Rita Rudner. |
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The program is not available from Shop Thirteen or Shop PBS. |
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