Product Description: In recent decades, some of the most celebrated and culturally influential American oratorical performances have come not from political leaders or religious visionaries, but from stand-up comics. Even though comedy and satire have been addressed by rhetorical scholarship in recent decades, little attention has been paid to stand-up...read more

Product Description: In this examination of stand-up comedy, Rebecca Krefting establishes a new genre of comedic production, "charged humor," and charts its pathways from production to consumption. Some jokes are tears in the fabric of our beliefs―they challenge myths about how fair and democratic our society is and the behaviors and practices we enact to maintain those fictions...read more

Product Description: This work examines the dramatic changes in America women's comedy performance in the years 1955-1995.The study focuses on the standup of Phyllis Diller and Roseanne andon the character comedy of Lily Tomlin. As the historical arc of women's comedy unfolds, it outlines a change from the traditional vaudevillian style of standup, as represented by Diller (50s-70s), to a more satiric comedy represented by Tomlin (60s-80s) and Roseanne (80s-90s)...read more

Product Description: Overpriced two-drink minimums and potato skins, bad Clinton jokes on late night these used to be the hallmarks of comedy, an art relegated to the controlled environs of comedy clubs and network TV. Fortunately, in the late 90s, a daring breed of comedians began rejecting the status quo altogether and, by taking cues from the indie-music world, started reviving comedy as a savvy and groundbreaking art form...read more

Product Description: The comedians of the 1950s and 1960s were a totally different breed of relevant, revolutionary performer from any that came before or after, comics whose humor did much more than pry guffaws out of audiences. Gerald Nachman presents the stories of the groundbreaking comedy stars of those years, each one a cultural harbinger: • Mort Sahl, of a new political cynicism • Lenny Bruce, of the sexual, drug, and language revolution• Dick Gregory, of racial unrest • Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge, of racial harmony • Phyllis Diller, of housewifely complaint• Mike Nichols & Elaine May and Woody Allen, of self-analytical angst and a rearrangement of male-female relations• Stan Freberg and Bob Newhart, of encroaching, pervasive pop media manipulation and, in the case of Bob Elliott & Ray Goulding, of the banalities of broadcasting • Mel Brooks, of the Yiddishization of American comedy• Sid Caesar, of a new awareness of the satirical possibilities of television• Joan Rivers, of the obsessive craving for celebrity gossip and of a latent bitchy sensibility• Tom Lehrer, of the inane, hypocritical, mawkishly sentimental nature of hallowed American folkways and, in the case of the Smothers Brothers, of overly revered folk songs and folklore• Steve Allen, of the late-night talk show as a force in American comedy• David Frye and Vaughn Meader, of the merger of showbiz and politics and, along with Will Jordan, of stretching the boundaries of mimicry• Shelley Berman, of a generation of obsessively self-confessional humor • Jonathan Winters and Jean Shepherd, of the daring new free-form improvisational comedy and of a sardonically updated view of Midwestern archetypes• Ernie Kovacs, of surreal visual effects and the unbounded vistas of videoTaken together, they made up the faculty of a new school of vigorous, socially aware satire, a vibrant group of voices that reigned from approximately 1953 to 1965...read more

A collection of essays, reviews and interviews from the Village Voice explores the idea of what makes us laugh and think, discussing the work of Richard Pryor, Dennis Miller, Whoopi Goldberg, Eric Bogosian, Rosie O'Donnell, Tracy Ullman, and many other artists who have shaped American comedy. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Through candid personal interviews with Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, and other visionary performers, Queens of Comedy explores how comediennes have redefined the roles of women in not only the entertainment business, but society as a whole...read more

Describes specific forms of television comedy, looks at top television comedians of the past, and shares reminiscences and brief selections from comedy routines

Beginning with the headliners of the late 1940s and closing on the young monologists of the early 1980s chronicles more than four decades of famous obscure stand-up comedians