December 1: Sarah Silverman
What shall we say about Sarah Silverman — born in Bedford, New Hampshire on this date in 1970 — but that she has taken comedy to new levels of tension and raunchiness that nearly, but not quite, make...
View ArticleDecember 4: The Cowardly Lion
Vaudevillian and Broadway actor Bert Lahr, who wore a costume made of actual lion fur to play the Cowardly Lion across from Judy Garland in MGM’s 1939 classic version of The Wizard of Oz, died at 72 on...
View ArticleDecember 7: Nat Hiken, the Sit-Com King
Nat Hiken, the man who brought us Car 54, Where Are You? and The Phil Silvers Show and served as one of the first writer-producers in the television industry, died at 54 on this date in 1968. Hiken...
View ArticleDecember 23: Harry Shearer
Harry Julius Shearer, who since 1989 has provided the voices for Mr. Burns and his assistant Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, and numerous other characters on The Simpsons, was born to...
View ArticleFebruary 19: The Perfect Fool
Vaudevillian and radio and television entertainer Ed Wynn (Isaiah Edwin Leopold) died at 79 in Beverly Hills on this date in 1966. He ran away from home in his teens and changed his name to spare his...
View ArticleMarch 25: “You Are There”
Humorist, critic, radio host, and television writer Goodman Ace (Aiskowitz), best known as the creator of You Are There, died at 83 on this date in 1982. In his own hey-day, Ace was a well-known...
View ArticleApril 15: Seth Rogen
Comic actor, writer, and film producer Seth Rogen, the son of radical secular Jews (his father was an assistant director of the Workmen’s Circle in Canada), was born in Vancouver, British Columbia on...
View ArticleMay 1: Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22, was born to poor immigrant parents in Coney Island on this date in 1923. He fought in World War II as a B-25 bombardier on more than sixty combat missions. Studying...
View ArticleMay 11: Mort Sahl
Mort Sahl, the first modern stand-up comedian to crack wise about current events and politics, was born in Montreal on this date in 1927. Sahl took the stage casually dressed in a v-neck sweater, and...
View ArticleThe Uncivil Servant: Richard Pryor’s Daughter Onstage
“Fried Chicken and Latkes” by Mitchell Abidor RICHARD PRYOR was a unique figure in American comedy, his comedy developing from light and silly early routines to the pointed and profane humor of his...
View ArticleJune 20: Allison Raskin and the Youtube Generation
Allison Raskin, who with her friend Gaby Dunn produces “Just Between Us,” a weekly Youtube video series featuring the two of them responding to e-mailed questions, was born in New York on this date in...
View ArticlePeople of the Book 101: S.J. Perelman, Tumler with a Typewriter
by Joel Schechter I BRIEFLY MET one of my idols, the comic writer S.J. Perelman (1904-1979), at a New York theater where I worked as a literary advisor when his play, The Beauty Part, was revived in...
View ArticleToward the Shorter End of the Shtik: From Mort Sahl to Jon Stewart
A Curmudgeonly Goodbye by George Salamon “Jon Stewart is making fun of the anchorman. The enemy is not the anchorman. It is the fascists who are running the government.” —Mort Sahl to Gerald Nachman,...
View ArticleAugust 19: Alan Arkin
Actor Alan Arkin, best known for his roles in Wait Until Dark; The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming; The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; Catch-22; Edward Scissorhands; Glengarry Glen Ross; and...
View ArticleOctober 13: Sacha Baron Cohen
British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays goofy, unselfconscious characters who draw unsuspecting people into highly uncomfortable situations, was born in West London on this date in 1971. His show...
View ArticleNovember 7: The Mother of Improvisational Theater
Theater coach and innovator Viola Spolin, who created theater games to focus actors on the here-and-now and empower them to improvise, was born on this date in 1906. Spolin studied group games and...
View ArticleDecember 3: Madeline Kahn
Actress Madeline Kahn (Wolfson), best know for her comedic roles in a series of Mel Brooks films, including What’s Up, Doc? (1972), Young Frankenstein (1974), Blazing Saddles (1974), High Anxiety...
View ArticleJanuary 24: What a Country!
Comedian Yakov Smirnoff (Pokhis), who starred in a TV sitcom, What a Country! in 1986-7, was born in Odessa on this date in 1951. Smirnoff emigrated to the U.S. in 1977 and developed a comic persona as...
View ArticleThe Subversive Power of Jewish Humor
by George Jochnowitz Discussed in this essay: Kvetching and Shpritzing: Jewish Humor in American Popular Culture, by Joseph Dorinson, foreword by Joseph Boskin. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015, 248...
View Article“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” as Television’s Jewish Woman
by Elliot B. Gertel CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND, the new CW melodrama-musical, is reminiscent in genre of ABC’s Cop Rock (1990), the current Sir Galavant, and the music and humor in Seth MacFarlane’s TV...
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