It might really help if you could link to a face shot as I can generally remember comedian’s faces, but unless they are superstars their names are not usually registered in memory.
I googled up some of the names you listed. These comedians had stand up acts in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s for the most part. I don’t think most dopers will have seen these acts. Beyond this comedy is often contextual to the zeitgeist and making decisions about what is or is not “funny” 60, 70 or 80 years after the fact is of limited utility. Is Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Pryor or Dave Attel going to kill in the year 2300?
I don’t think this is fair, since we are judging topical comedy from decades ago by current standards, but, what the hey, I’ll play anyway.
TV in the 'fifties and 'sixties was a living graveyard of ex-vaudeville comedians whose sell-by dates had most definitely passed, but if I were to name just one, I’d say: Red Skelton. He had a variety show that ran on TV for several centuries, or so it seemed, and my parents insisted on watching it every week when I was growing up. For some reason, however, I can’t recall a single thing he ever did that was actually funny, or even slightly interesting.
Oh yeah, and the Three Stooges. For me, even as a kid, the world portrayed in their wierd little films was utterly nightmarish and horrifying.
I’ve seen some of Red Skelton’s performances via VHS. He’s usually just making goofy faces or generally being silly. I don’t see the comedic genius that everyone swears is there.
It’s really, really tough to judge humor from another era. Jokes that were then fresh and new now have been redone a million times. The pace always seem glacial to modern eyes and ears. Production values were primative when they weren’t minimal.
Even the films of someone as great as W. C. Fields mostly seem to be shown in slow motion. The only ones I still can rewatch are the last and most surrealistic. The vaudeville bits out of the early ones no longer work.
Most radio comedies are filled with obvious jokes and ethnic humor too crude to still be funny, except when they’re making topical references I can barely understand, no matter how much reading I’ve done in American history.
Same with early 50s television. I have a tape of Red Skelton and try as I might I couldn’t find one line that sounded like a joke, even though he laughed throughout. Even the hallowed Ernie Kovacs show is too slow to be watched. (If you’ve never seen it, it was ten minutes of Laugh-In stretched out over an hour.)
And while I still get a kick out of Laugh-In reruns I have to skip the comedy stylings of Rowan and Martin whose routines go over for five minutes without any actual jokes.
Which all makes the genius and the watchability of the Marx Brothers’ early films all the more remarkable.
astro, the reason that I don’t want to use recent comedians is because I have the nagging suspecion that this would have devolved into “Let’s See Who Hated Adam Sandler More” game, in the way that the Bad Actor threads become “Let’s See Who Hates Keanu Reeves More”.
(BTW, what I want isn’t dated comedians, but, rather, annoying comedians. When I complied the list I used, I ignored Fred Allen and Eddie Cantor because, while they have dated, they don’t get on my nerves in the way Penner, Wynn, and Pearl all do.)
(BTW, Exapno, in an example on how different taste can be, I though Ernie Kovacs to be hilarious (if with a couple of music numbers too many), while “Laugh-In” struck me as being repetitive, in form and content.)
You can tell if you like Cheech and Chong with a simple test. Here is a word: Marijuana. If you automatically think this is hilarious, C&C are for you (though they did do a few good things on their first album).
Lots of radio comedians got their humor from catchphrases. “Wanna buy a duck?” may not seem funny to us, but then, “Eat my shorts” and “D’oh” may not seem all that funny in 50 years, either.
I’ve never really seen the appeal of Jerry Lewis, though. And the Ritz Brothers are pretty dismal Marx Brothers imitators.
I’d like to see Eve’s view on this subject. She would know more about it than almost anybody else.
You may both be right but how much different was his act from Jim Carrey’s today?
As for Ernie Kovacs, he died long before I was born so the only exposure I’ve had to him are the old tapes of his shows. I will agree that his pacing seems too slow for most current viewers. Also, his musical shorts that had inanimate objects coming to life to perform production numbers seem to have been heavily “influenced” by the old Warner Brother’s cartoons that featured things like all-singing and all-dancing grocery store products. Still, he does deserve credit for infusing American comedy with a uniquely absurdist and surreal sensibility years before “Laugh-In,” Monty Python, SNL, “The National Lampoon,” David Letterman, Gary Larson’s “The Far Side,” and others did. For example, was there anybody doing anything like Kovak’s “Nairobi Trio” in the 50’s? Even now, I think that sketch would cause most first-time viewers–even if they’re laughing at it–to have a “WTF” reaction which, I think, is what Kovaks was aiming for.
Finally, a subject I can sink my (very sharp) teeth into.
Pigmeat Markham - “Here come de judge” just wasn’t funny. And yes, he came up with that LONG before it was used on Laugh-In.
Mort Sahl - Reading the newspaper outloud instead of writing his own material. Some of it was funny, but that’s just lazy.
Georgie Jessel - Okay, maybe he was funny, but he inspired WAY too many bad impressions of himself.
David Brenner - Observational humor is one thing, but not EVERY observation is funny. Example: “Ever notice every time you breathe in, you gotta breathe out?”
There are many more, but most are more recent, so I will relent.
Considerably. First of all, Skelton was funny. The high points of his shows were the skits – always well written – and his opening monologue. Skelton did not just make funny faces; he told jokes.
The main complaintwas that he laughed at his own jokes, but Skelton pulled that off, since he gave you the impression of someone enjoying himself, not of someone making a fool of himself. He was also a great ad-libber – very often things would go wrong in his skits and he’d come up with something that would have you chortling in glee.
I’ll admit I wasn’t impressed with his mime work, but the first 35 minutes of any of the original Red Skelton shows was some of the funniest moments on TV of the time.
Kovacs was also a genius, another example of a true innovator being underrated because people are used to the imitations (which took his concepts and just gave them a little extra polish). All of Kovacs’ specials were comic gems, and most comedians have nothing but awe for hit talent.