American humor
Encyclopedia
American humor refers collectively to the conventions and common threads that tie together humor
in the United States. It is often defined in comparison to the humor of another country - for example, how it is different from British humor
and Canadian humor
. It is, however, difficult to say what makes a particular type or subject of humor particularly American.
Humor usually concerns aspects of American culture
, and depends on the historical and current development of the country's culture. The extent to which an individual will personally find something humorous obviously depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including, but not limited to geographical location, culture
, maturity
, level of education
, and context. People of different countries will therefore find different situations funny. Just as American culture has many aspects which differ from other nations, these cultural differences may be a barrier to how humor translates to other countries.
, identified the character of the "Yankee
" as that first American comic figure, the first widely accepted American character that the nation could find funny, make fun of and even export for the amusement of the world - a gangly traveler who told stories, played elaborate practical jokes, was ingenuous, sly, perhaps uneducated. She reports that American comedy sprang forth after the American Revolution
, when the country was "freed from the worry of self preservation" and its citizens began to regard themselves as "works of art".
and physical comedy
. There is less emphasis on understatement
, and so the humor tends to be more open; rather than satirizing the social system through exaggeration.
American humor prefers more observational
techniques. However the style of observational humor (while not exclusively American) is very much a staple of the American style of humor since it seeks to point out the aspects of American culture and social discourse which are obvious while at the same time highlighting their ridiculousness.
, including some of the most influential: The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce
, Rodney Dangerfield
, Jackie Mason
, Woody Allen
, Mel Brooks
, Larry David
, Jerry Seinfeld
, Jon Stewart
, and Lewis Black
, just to name a few.
In the latter half of the 20th century, comedy from the United States saw its African-American comedians come to the forefront. With exposure stemming from TV shows such as The Jeffersons, Saturday Night Live and The Cosby Show, black comedians became household names. During the eighties and nineties, Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby were two of the most popular American comedians exported around the globe.
Humor began to emerge in the United States soon after the American Revolution
in written and spoken form, and delivery methods have continued to evolve since then. This article is not strictly chronological in nature, but the mediums are arranged by the approximate date each one began to grow in importance. Literature
appears before cartoons although newspaper cartoons in the modern sense began in the 1840s. Radio and film came out roughly at the same time. Film is covered after radio because it led more directly to the television section. Stand-up comedy
began to receive renewed attention in the 1970s which is the reason why it was placed directly after television.
, the man Ernest Hemingway
credits with the invention of American literature
. It should be stated that humorists existed in the United States before Twain, for example Augustus Baldwin Longstreet
collection of Southern humor came out when Twain was 5 years old, but Twain is seen as a founding figure in creating an "American voice" to humor. That stated, Twain remained conscious of his humor's relationship with European counterparts, commenting in "How to Tell a Story" that, "The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter."
This early definition puts emphasis on the performance orientation of American humor, and thereby necessarily the performer her/himself. Indeed, in his time on the lecture circuit Twain essentially 'performed' many of his works, most notably "The American Vandal Abroad" lecture he gave via the Lyceum Movement
before the publication of his breakthrough work The Innocents Abroad. Thus, at the root of American humor is the very concept of stand-up comedy
itself, and the shift from textual means of conveying humor to that of performance and performer.
His value notwithstanding, Twain represents only one strain of humor in the United States. Another famous American humorist of the 19th century was Ambrose Bierce
, whose most famous work is the cynical Devil's Dictionary. Popular humorists who spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries included Samuel Minturn Peck (1854–1938), who wrote My Sweetheart, and Hayden Carruth (1862–1932), who wrote Uncle Bentley and the Roosters. Early 20th-century American humorists included members of the Algonquin Round Table
(named for the Algonquin Hotel
), such as Dorothy Parker
, SJ Perelman and Robert Benchley
. In more recent times popular writers of American humor include P. J. O'Rourke
, Louis (L) Harding, Erma Bombeck
, and Dave Barry
.
There has also been a history of using humor in children's books, sometimes using rhymed text. Popular choices include Dr. Seuss
and Ogden Nash
.
have commented, humorously or scathingly, on American life since Thomas Nast
or earlier. Humorous print cartoonists of note include Charles Schulz, Scott Adams
, Jim Davis
, Gary Larson
, Walt Kelly
, Johnny Hart
, Bill Watterson
, and others.
U.S. humor magazines of note include Mad
, Humbug
, Trump
and Help!
, as well as the National Lampoon, and Spy
magazine.
National Lampoon began in 1970 as an offshoot of the Harvard Lampoon
. The magazine regularly skewered popular culture
, the counterculture
and politics
. The magazine was at its height in the 1970s, and its influence spread to films and comedy programs. In the mid 1970s, some of the magazine's contributors left to join the NBC comedy show Saturday Night Live
(SNL). The magazine stopped publication in 1998, but films and other programs attributed to "National Lampoon" continue.
In the 20th-century, film allowed for animated cartoons of a humorous nature. The most notable of these perhaps being Looney Tunes
and Tom and Jerry
. Chuck Jones
, Tex Avery
, Friz Freleng
and Mel Blanc
(providing voices for many popular characters), were instrumental in these and many other animated shorts continued popularity. What's Opera, Doc?
, Duck Amuck
, and One Froggy Evening
garnered enough critical appeal to be inducted into the National Film Registry
. Warner Brothers' cartoons often dealt with themes beyond US culture or society, but did involve a great deal of commentary on American life. Although many of the American winners of the Academy Award for Animated Short Film
are not examples of American humor, a significant percentage would qualify as such. On television, noteworthy American cartoons include The Flintstones
, The Simpsons
, Futurama
, Beavis and Butt-head
, King of the Hill
, Ren and Stimpy, Family Guy
, SpongeBob SquarePants
, American Dad and South Park
.
sy show. These shows featured white actors dressed in blackface
and playing up racial stereotypes.
Burlesque
became a popular form of entertainment in the middle of the 19th century. Originally a form of farce
in which females in male roles mocked the politics
and culture
of the day, burlesque was condemned by opinion makers for its sexuality and outspokenness. The form was hounded off the "legitimate stage" and found itself relegated to saloons and barrooms, and its content mostly raunchy jokes.
Vaudeville
is a style of variety entertainment predominant in America in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. Developing from many sources including shows in saloons
, minstrel
sy, British pantomimes, and other popular entertainments, vaudeville became one of the most popular types of entertainment in America. Part of this entertainment was usually one or more comedians. Vaudeville provided generations of American entertainers including George M. Cohan
, George Burns
and Gracie Allen
, Mae West
, Fanny Brice
, and W.C. Fields, among others. Vaudeville grew less popular as movies replaced live entertainment, but vaudeville performers were able to move into those other fields. Former vaudeville performers who were successful in film, radio and television include: Buster Keaton
, Marx Brothers
, Edgar Bergen
, Three Stooges
, and Abbott & Costello.
radio in 1926. It was partially inspired by Sidney Smith's popular comic strip The Gumps
. Amos & Andy began as one of the first radio comedy serials which debuted on CBS in 1928. This was a show written and performed by white actors about black farmhands moving to the big city. The show was successful enough that in 1930 a film was made with the characters and in 1951 it became a television sitcom. The film starred the white actors in blackface. The television show starred African American actors.
Radio in its early years was a showcase for comedy stars from the vaudeville
circuit. Jack Benny
being among the early comedy stars in this medium. When Jack moved to television in the 1950s, his time slot was filled by Stan Freberg
a voice actor, and comedian
. Stan began in 1950 to produce records of his comedy routines which involved parodies of popular tunes and spoofs of modern entertainment personalities and on political topics. He was also on radio from 1954-1957.
Bob Elliott
and Ray Goulding
were an American comedy team who began in radio in 1946 with a daily 15-minute show titled Matinee With Bob and Ray
. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as though it were a serious interview. They continued on the air for over four decades on radio and television, ending in 1987.
In more recent times the medium fell out of favor as a source of humor with Garrison Keillor
being perhaps a rare modern example.
As podcasts have seen increasing popularity through the early 21st century, one part-comedic, part-confessional program has seen marked success. Stand-up comedian Marc Maron garnered a considerable following beginning in 2009-10 with his free WTF with Marc Maron
podcast, in which he conducts humorous interviews with a range of major and minor figures in the world of comedy, from lesser-known stand-ups, to a more famous crowd, such as Robin Williams, Ben Stiller, Amy Poehler, and Judd Apatow. Maron himself prefaces each episode with a brief summary of his own life and attempts to overcome his neuroses, and despite the potential for seriousness, these challenges are generally presented in a comical, if not exasperated light.
's kinetoscope
of his assistant Fred Ott
in Record of a Sneeze. This could also be considered the first to show a comedic element.
During the era of silent films in the 1920s, comedic films began to appear in significant numbers. These were mainly focused on visual humor, including slapstick
and burlesque
. In America, prominent clown-style actors of the silent era include Charlie Chaplin
(although he was born in England), Buster Keaton
and Harold Lloyd
. Oliver Hardy
(of Laurel and Hardy
) (Stan Laurel
being British), Fatty Arbuckle
, the Marx Brothers
and other names were significant in the first decades of American cinema humor.
Many early film directors in the US were born elsewhere. This is true of one of the most noted early comedy directors in Hollywood, Billy Wilder
. That said, American born directors like Howard Hawks
, Preston Sturges
and George Cukor
also were major film comedy directors in the 1940s. In the 1960s to 1970s Woody Allen
and Mel Brooks
gained note becoming two of the most appreciated of American film comedy directors. In the 1980s Christopher Guest
, Carl Reiner
, and the Coen brothers
emerged as significant directors or writers in American film comedy. Added to this several "brother duos" have been of significance in American film like The Zucker brothers, the Coen brothers
, and The Farrelly brothers
. In the last ten years Kevin Smith
, Jay Roach
, Tom Shadyac
, and Alexander Payne
have garnered notice as film directors whose work is often humorous; if at times darkly so in the case of Payne. Some of the aforementioned directors, particularly Woody Allen
and the Coen brothers
, also do other genres of film besides comedy.
(sitcom) is a format that first developed in radio and later became the primary form of comedy on television. The first sitcom to be number one in US ratings overall was I Love Lucy
. A typical I Love Lucy episode involved one of Lucy's ambitious but hare-brained schemes, whether it be sneaking into Ricky's nightclub act, finding a way to hobnob with celebrities, showing up her fellow women's club members, or simply trying to improve the quality of her life. Usually she ends up in some comedic mess, a form of slapstick comedy. The I Love Lucy show grew out of a radio program in which Lucille Ball was featured. Another popular sitcom of the 50s to cross over from radio was Amos & Andy.
In the decades since, several sitcoms have been tops in the ratings. In the 1960s The Beverly Hillbillies
and The Andy Griffith Show
show held that distinction. Both of these programs were based on the country bumpkin - the Clampetts bringing their hillbilly ways to Beverly Hills, and the slow talking sheriff in the small rural town. In the 1970s All in the Family
was the top rated show while dealing with serious issues it was based on the loudmouth bigot usually getting his come-uppance.
The most successful sitcoms of the 1980s were Roseanne
and Cheers
. Roseanne was a family sitcom, based on loud and large blue-collar parents. Cheers on the other hand was about a neighborhood bar frequented by a mix of working-class and professional drinkers.
In the 1990s the increasing popularity of cable changed the popularity of the sitcom. Cable provided more viewing options and made it more difficult for any one show to dominate in the manner that The Cosby Show or Cheers did in their eras. That said, Seinfeld
and Friends
managed to be among the most-watched shows of the decade. The 2000s has seen a further erosion in the sitcom with Friends
being the only one to be the top watched show in any year of this decade, thus far, and the cancellation of the Emmy winning
Arrested Development. Arrested Development had been one of the few critically successful comedies to have started in the 2000s, but recent comedies like The Office
, 30 Rock
and My Name Is Earl
have garnered some praise.
While many sitcoms were based on families or family situations, another common thread in sitcoms is "workplace comedies." The Andy Griffith Show
and Arrested Development had elements of both workplace and family comedy. For more on this see US sitcom.
Although often derided by the critics, a few sitcoms have managed to be successful with both critics and audiences alike. Amongst these are Frasier
, Seinfeld
, All in the Family
, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show
.
The television sitcom provides an opportunity to compare British and American humor. Many British sitcoms have been re-made for American audiences. For example, Till Death Us Do Part became All in the Family
; Man About the House
became Three's Company
; and, the immensely popular Steptoe and Son
became Sanford and Son
. The Office was originally a British sitcom that has been successfully remade for an American audience using the same title (and in the case of the pilot episode, the same script). However, most British sitcoms usually fare better in their original forms. Re-makes of other British comedies have failed.
is a show with a variety of acts, often including music and comedy skits, especially on television. The first successful comedy-variety show might be Milton Berle
's, followed by Ernie Kovacs
and Sid Caesar
. Jack Benny
moved to television in the mid 1950s. Variety shows also featured Jackie Gleason
, Bob Hope
and Dean Martin
mixing stand-up comedy
, sketches and musical numbers for true variety. Later successes include The Carol Burnett Show
and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
. See Variety television series for more examples.
Saturday Night Live
(SNL) first aired on October 11, 1975, with George Carlin
as its host. It was created by Canadian Lorne Michaels
. The original concept was for a comedy-variety show featuring young comedians, live musical performances, and short films. Rather than have one permanent host there was a different guest host each week. The first cast members were The Second City
alumni Dan Aykroyd
, John Belushi
, and Gilda Radner
and National Lampoon "Lemmings" alumni Chevy Chase
(whose trademark became his usual falls and opening spiel that ushered in the show's opening), Jane Curtin
, Laraine Newman
, and Garrett Morris
. The original head writer was Michael O'Donoghue
, a writer at National Lampoon who had worked alongside several cast members while directing The National Lampoon Radio Hour. The cast has periodically changed over the years, serving as a springboard for many of its performers to success in other television programs or films. SNL continues to air weekly.
In the early 1990s there started to be more sketch comedy shows that concerned racial issues or intentionally had a diverse cast. An early example of this being In Living Color
, initially produced by Keenen Ivory Wayans
. Despite the original cast being majority African American the show is most remembered for introducing the Caucasian Jim Carrey
and Puerto Rican Jennifer Lopez
to a wider audience. In the 2000s Chappelle's Show
began and became a popular, if controversial, variety series. It became noted for dealing with issues like racism, sexual perversity, and drug use.
Currently The Daily Show
and Saturday Night Live
are leading comedy-variety shows.
about everyday life and Improvisational comedy. Modern improvisational comedy in general is largely linked to Chicago
and especially The Second City
troupe. The 1950s saw the rise of this troupe's significance in modern improvisational comedy.
That decade also witnessed a rise in stand-up comedy dealing with more provocative or politically charged subject matter. Among the best known comedians from the 1950s to the 1980s to work in this fashion are Lenny Bruce
, Richard Pryor
, George Carlin
, Bill Hicks
, and Sam Kinison
. They dealt with subject manner like race, religion, and sex in a manner that was generally not allowed on television or film. Hence The Richard Pryor Show
ended after four episodes due in part to controversy, although poor ratings was a strong factor. In other cases the reactions were more severe, as both Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were arrested on obscenity charges.
That said, other stand-ups in the US choose an opposite approach that involves avoiding angering or offending elements of the audience. They may also try to work "clean" either because they prefer doing so or because they wish to reach audiences that disdain raunchy material. Among those who do so as a preference are Brian Regan
, Bob Newhart
, and Bill Cosby
. Ray Romano
is capable or even willing to work "blue", see Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
and commentary tracks on the DVD, but has tended to avoid doing so out of deference to his current audience.
Note: An attempt has been made to avoid repeating names already mentioned, but some repetition might still exist. This list is partial and mostly deals with American comedians or humorists who won Lifetime Achievement awards in their fields or were placed in lists of history's great comedians.
Humour
Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement...
in the United States. It is often defined in comparison to the humor of another country - for example, how it is different from British humor
British humour
British humour is a somewhat general term applied to certain comedic motifs that are often prevalent in comedic acts originating in the United Kingdom and its current or former colonies...
and Canadian humor
Canadian humour
Canadian humour is an integral part of the Canadian Identity. There are several traditions in Canadian humour in both English and French. While these traditions are distinct and at times very different, there are common themes that relate to Canadians' shared history and geopolitical situation in...
. It is, however, difficult to say what makes a particular type or subject of humor particularly American.
Humor usually concerns aspects of American culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, and depends on the historical and current development of the country's culture. The extent to which an individual will personally find something humorous obviously depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including, but not limited to geographical location, culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, maturity
Maturity (psychological)
Maturity is a psychological term used to indicate how a person responds to the circumstances or environment in an appropriate manner. This response is generally learned rather than instinctive, and is not determined by one's age...
, level of education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, and context. People of different countries will therefore find different situations funny. Just as American culture has many aspects which differ from other nations, these cultural differences may be a barrier to how humor translates to other countries.
Themes
One leading analysis of American humor, the 1931 book American Humor: A Study of the National Character by Constance RourkeConstance Rourke
Constance Mayfield Rourke was an American author and educator. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended Sorbonne and Vassar College. She taught at Vassar from 1910 to 1915. She died in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1941....
, identified the character of the "Yankee
Yankee
The term Yankee has several interrelated and often pejorative meanings, usually referring to people originating in the northeastern United States, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region.The...
" as that first American comic figure, the first widely accepted American character that the nation could find funny, make fun of and even export for the amusement of the world - a gangly traveler who told stories, played elaborate practical jokes, was ingenuous, sly, perhaps uneducated. She reports that American comedy sprang forth after the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, when the country was "freed from the worry of self preservation" and its citizens began to regard themselves as "works of art".
Types of humor
American humor might also be distinguished by its most common type of humor, for example, more slapstickSlapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
and physical comedy
Physical comedy
Physical comedy, also known as slapstick, is a comedic performance relying mostly on the use of the body to convey humour.Physical comedy, whether conveyed by a pratfall , a silly face, or the action of walking into walls, is a common and rarely subtle form of comedy...
. There is less emphasis on understatement
Understatement
Understatement is a form of speech which contains an expression of less strength than what would be expected. This is not to be confused with euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression....
, and so the humor tends to be more open; rather than satirizing the social system through exaggeration.
American humor prefers more observational
Observational comedy
Observational comedy is a style of humor based on making remarks about commonplace aspects of everyday life. It is the most common type of humor used in stand up comedy.The humor is based on the premise of "It's funny because it's true."-External links:* *...
techniques. However the style of observational humor (while not exclusively American) is very much a staple of the American style of humor since it seeks to point out the aspects of American culture and social discourse which are obvious while at the same time highlighting their ridiculousness.
Sources
The United States has many diverse groups from which to draw on for humorous material. The strongest of these influences, during the 20th century at least, has been the influx of Jewish comedians and their corresponding Jewish humorJewish humor
Jewish humour is the long tradition of humour in Judaism dating back to the Torah and the Midrash from the ancient mid-east, but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal, self-deprecating, crude, and often anecdotal humour originating in Eastern Europe and which took root in the United...
, including some of the most influential: The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
, Rodney Dangerfield
Rodney Dangerfield
Rodney Dangerfield , was an American comedian, and actor, known for the catchphrases "I don't get no respect!," "No respect, no respect at all... that's the story of my life" or "I get no respect, I tell ya" and his monologues on that theme...
, Jackie Mason
Jackie Mason
Jackie Mason is an American stand-up comedian and movie actor.-Early life:Born Yacov Moshe Maza in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City....
, Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
, Larry David
Larry David
Lawrence Gene "Larry" David is an American actor, writer, comedian and producer. He is best known as the co-creator , head writer, and executive producer of the television series Seinfeld from 1989 to 1996, and for creating the 1999 HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, a partially improvised sitcom in...
, Jerry Seinfeld
Jerry Seinfeld
Jerome Allen "Jerry" Seinfeld is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and television and film producer, known for playing a semi-fictional version of himself in the situation comedy Seinfeld , which he co-created and co-wrote with Larry David, and, in the show's final two seasons,...
, Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian...
, and Lewis Black
Lewis Black
Lewis Niles Black is an American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor. He is known for his comedy style, which often includes simulating a mental breakdown, or an increasingly angry rant, ridiculing history, politics, religion, trends and cultural phenomena...
, just to name a few.
In the latter half of the 20th century, comedy from the United States saw its African-American comedians come to the forefront. With exposure stemming from TV shows such as The Jeffersons, Saturday Night Live and The Cosby Show, black comedians became household names. During the eighties and nineties, Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby were two of the most popular American comedians exported around the globe.
Development of humor in the United States
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
in written and spoken form, and delivery methods have continued to evolve since then. This article is not strictly chronological in nature, but the mediums are arranged by the approximate date each one began to grow in importance. Literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
appears before cartoons although newspaper cartoons in the modern sense began in the 1840s. Radio and film came out roughly at the same time. Film is covered after radio because it led more directly to the television section. Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
began to receive renewed attention in the 1970s which is the reason why it was placed directly after television.
Literature
The earliest example of deliberate, skillful and sustained comedy and satire in American literature is 1637's "New English Canaan" by Thomas Morton of Merrymount, who devoted chapters and poems to his wry observations of Native people and English Puritan colonists alike, including a witty comparison of their cultural values that produced surprising and disturbing answers. A second example is Benjamin Church's "Entertaining Passages from King Philip's War" (1680s editions, Richard Slotkin, ed.), in which a seasoned frontiersman and friend of Native New Englanders observes the foolish tactics and needless tragedies of the conflict. Another candidate for the 'founding father' of American humor is Mark TwainMark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, the man Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
credits with the invention of American literature
American literature
American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...
. It should be stated that humorists existed in the United States before Twain, for example Augustus Baldwin Longstreet
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet was an American lawyer, minster, educator, and humorist, known for his book Georgia Scenes.-Biography:...
collection of Southern humor came out when Twain was 5 years old, but Twain is seen as a founding figure in creating an "American voice" to humor. That stated, Twain remained conscious of his humor's relationship with European counterparts, commenting in "How to Tell a Story" that, "The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter."
This early definition puts emphasis on the performance orientation of American humor, and thereby necessarily the performer her/himself. Indeed, in his time on the lecture circuit Twain essentially 'performed' many of his works, most notably "The American Vandal Abroad" lecture he gave via the Lyceum Movement
Lyceum movement
The lyceum movement in the United States was a trend in architecture inspired by Aristotle's Lyceum in ancient Greece....
before the publication of his breakthrough work The Innocents Abroad. Thus, at the root of American humor is the very concept of stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
itself, and the shift from textual means of conveying humor to that of performance and performer.
His value notwithstanding, Twain represents only one strain of humor in the United States. Another famous American humorist of the 19th century was Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
, whose most famous work is the cynical Devil's Dictionary. Popular humorists who spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries included Samuel Minturn Peck (1854–1938), who wrote My Sweetheart, and Hayden Carruth (1862–1932), who wrote Uncle Bentley and the Roosters. Early 20th-century American humorists included members of the Algonquin Round Table
Algonquin Round Table
The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929...
(named for the Algonquin Hotel
Algonquin Hotel
The Algonquin Hotel is a historic hotel located at 59 West 44th Street in Manhattan . The hotel has been designated as a New York City Historic Landmark....
), such as Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, SJ Perelman and Robert Benchley
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor...
. In more recent times popular writers of American humor include P. J. O'Rourke
P. J. O'Rourke
Patrick Jake "P. J." O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, writer, and author. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on...
, Louis (L) Harding, Erma Bombeck
Erma Bombeck
Erma Louise Bombeck was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s...
, and Dave Barry
Dave Barry
David "Dave" Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author and columnist, who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. He has also written numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comedic novels.-Biography:Barry was born in Armonk, New York,...
.
There has also been a history of using humor in children's books, sometimes using rhymed text. Popular choices include Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
and Ogden Nash
Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".-Early life:Nash was born in Rye, New York...
.
Cartoons, magazines and animation
American cartoons and comicsComics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
have commented, humorously or scathingly, on American life since Thomas Nast
Thomas Nast
Thomas Nast was a German-born American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist who is considered to be the "Father of the American Cartoon". He was the scourge of Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall machine...
or earlier. Humorous print cartoonists of note include Charles Schulz, Scott Adams
Scott Adams
Scott Raymond Adams is the American creator of the Dilbert comic strip and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, business, and general speculation....
, Jim Davis
Jim Davis (cartoonist)
James Robert Davis is an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the comic strip Garfield, which he signs as Jim Davis. He has also worked on other strips: Tumbleweeds, Gnorm Gnat, U.S. Acres and a strip about Mr...
, Gary Larson
Gary Larson
Gary Larson is the creator of The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to newspapers for 15 years. The series ended with Larson's retirement on January 1, 1995. His 23 books of collected cartoons have combined sales of more than 45 million...
, Walt Kelly
Walt Kelly
Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. , or Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip, Pogo. He began his animation career in 1936 at Walt Disney Studios, contributing to Pinocchio and Fantasia. Kelly resigned in 1941 at the age of 28 to work at Post-Hall Syndicate,...
, Johnny Hart
Johnny Hart
Johnny Hart was an American cartoonist noted as the creator of the comic strip B.C. and co-creator of the strip The Wizard of Id. Hart was recognized with several awards, including the Swedish Adamson Award and five from the National Cartoonists Society...
, Bill Watterson
Bill Watterson
William Boyd Watterson II , known as Bill Watterson, is an American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes...
, and others.
U.S. humor magazines of note include Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
, Humbug
Humbug (magazine)
Humbug was a humor magazine edited 1957–1958 by Harvey Kurtzman with satirical jabs at movies, television, advertising and various artifacts of popular culture, from cereal boxes to fashion photographs...
, Trump
Trump (magazine)
Trump was a glossy magazine of satire and humor, mostly in the forms of comic-strip features and short stories. It was edited by Harvey Kurtzman and published by Hugh Hefner, with only two issues produced in 1957...
and Help!
Help! (magazine)
Help! was an American magazine published by James Warren. It wasHarvey Kurtzman's longest-running magazine project after leaving Mad and EC Publications, and during its five years of operation it was always chronically underfunded, yet innovative...
, as well as the National Lampoon, and Spy
Spy (magazine)
Spy was a satirical monthly magazine founded in 1986 by Kurt Andersen and E. Graydon Carter, who served as its first editors, and Thomas L. Phillips, Jr., its first publisher. After one folding and a rebirth, it ceased publication in 1998...
magazine.
National Lampoon began in 1970 as an offshoot of the Harvard Lampoon
Harvard Lampoon
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.-Overview:Published since 1876, The Harvard Lampoon is the world's longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor...
. The magazine regularly skewered popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
, the counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
and politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
. The magazine was at its height in the 1970s, and its influence spread to films and comedy programs. In the mid 1970s, some of the magazine's contributors left to join the NBC comedy show Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
(SNL). The magazine stopped publication in 1998, but films and other programs attributed to "National Lampoon" continue.
In the 20th-century, film allowed for animated cartoons of a humorous nature. The most notable of these perhaps being Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
and Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...
. Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
, Tex Avery
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Fred/Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, voice actor and director, famous for producing animated cartoons during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He did his most significant work for the Warner Bros...
, Friz Freleng
Friz Freleng
Isadore "Friz" Freleng was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros....
and Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...
(providing voices for many popular characters), were instrumental in these and many other animated shorts continued popularity. What's Opera, Doc?
What's Opera, Doc?
What's Opera, Doc? is a 1957 American animated cartoon short in the Merrie Melodies series, directed by Chuck Jones for Warner Bros. Cartoons. The Michael Maltese story features Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny through a parody of 19th century classical composer Richard Wagner's operas, particularly...
, Duck Amuck
Duck Amuck
Duck Amuck is a surreal animated cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons. The short was released in early 1953 by The Vitaphone Corporation, the short subject division of Warner Bros. Pictures, as part of the Merrie Melodies series...
, and One Froggy Evening
One Froggy Evening
One Froggy Evening is an approximately seven-minute long Technicolor animated short film written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones, with musical direction by Milt Franklyn.The short makes the debut of Michigan J...
garnered enough critical appeal to be inducted into the National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
. Warner Brothers' cartoons often dealt with themes beyond US culture or society, but did involve a great deal of commentary on American life. Although many of the American winners of the Academy Award for Animated Short Film
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
are not examples of American humor, a significant percentage would qualify as such. On television, noteworthy American cartoons include The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
, The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
, Beavis and Butt-head
Beavis and Butt-Head
Beavis and Butt-head is an American animated television series created by Mike Judge. The series originated from Frog Baseball, a 1992 short film by Judge. After seeing the short, MTV signed Judge to develop the concept. Beavis and Butt-head originally aired from March 8, 1993 to November 28, 1997...
, King of the Hill
King of the Hill
King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...
, Ren and Stimpy, Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
, SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series, created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg. Much of the series centers on the exploits and adventures of the title character and his various friends in the underwater city of "Bikini Bottom"...
, American Dad and South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
.
Theater and vaudeville
A popular form of theater during the 19th century was the minstrelMinstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...
sy show. These shows featured white actors dressed in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
and playing up racial stereotypes.
Burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
became a popular form of entertainment in the middle of the 19th century. Originally a form of farce
Farce
In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
in which females in male roles mocked the politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
and culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
of the day, burlesque was condemned by opinion makers for its sexuality and outspokenness. The form was hounded off the "legitimate stage" and found itself relegated to saloons and barrooms, and its content mostly raunchy jokes.
Vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
is a style of variety entertainment predominant in America in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. Developing from many sources including shows in saloons
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
, minstrel
Minstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...
sy, British pantomimes, and other popular entertainments, vaudeville became one of the most popular types of entertainment in America. Part of this entertainment was usually one or more comedians. Vaudeville provided generations of American entertainers including George M. Cohan
George M. Cohan
George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....
, George Burns
George Burns
George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...
and Gracie Allen
Gracie Allen
Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen , known as Gracie Allen, was an American comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns...
, Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
, Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American illustrated song "model," comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances and is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show...
, and W.C. Fields, among others. Vaudeville grew less popular as movies replaced live entertainment, but vaudeville performers were able to move into those other fields. Former vaudeville performers who were successful in film, radio and television include: Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
, Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
, Edgar Bergen
Edgar Bergen
Edgar John Bergen was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.-Early life:...
, Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
, and Abbott & Costello.
Radio and recorded
Early radio shows include what is labeled as the first situation comedy, Sam and Henry, which debuted on WGNWGN (AM)
WGN is a radio station in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is the only radio station owned by the Tribune Company, which also owns the flagship television station WGN-TV, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and Chicago magazine locally. WGN's transmitter is located in Elk Grove Village, Illinois...
radio in 1926. It was partially inspired by Sidney Smith's popular comic strip The Gumps
The Gumps
The Gumps, a popular comic strip about a middle-class family, was created by Sidney Smith in 1917, launching a 42-year run in newspapers from February 12, 1917 until October 17, 1959....
. Amos & Andy began as one of the first radio comedy serials which debuted on CBS in 1928. This was a show written and performed by white actors about black farmhands moving to the big city. The show was successful enough that in 1930 a film was made with the characters and in 1951 it became a television sitcom. The film starred the white actors in blackface. The television show starred African American actors.
Radio in its early years was a showcase for comedy stars from the vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
circuit. Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
being among the early comedy stars in this medium. When Jack moved to television in the 1950s, his time slot was filled by Stan Freberg
Stan Freberg
Stanley Victor "Stan" Freberg is an American author, recording artist, animation voice actor, comedian, radio personality, puppeteer, and advertising creative director whose career began in 1944...
a voice actor, and comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
. Stan began in 1950 to produce records of his comedy routines which involved parodies of popular tunes and spoofs of modern entertainment personalities and on political topics. He was also on radio from 1954-1957.
Bob Elliott
Bob Elliott (comedian)
Robert Brackett "Bob" Elliott is an American actor and comedian, formerly one-half of the comedy duo of Bob and Ray. He is the father of comedian/actor Chris Elliott and the grandfather of Saturday Night Live cast member Abby Elliott.-Life and career:Elliott was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the...
and Ray Goulding
Ray Goulding
Raymond Walter Goulding was an American comedian, who, together with Bob Elliott formed the comedy duo of Bob and Ray....
were an American comedy team who began in radio in 1946 with a daily 15-minute show titled Matinee With Bob and Ray
Bob and Ray
Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding were an American comedy team whose career spanned five decades. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as...
. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as though it were a serious interview. They continued on the air for over four decades on radio and television, ending in 1987.
In more recent times the medium fell out of favor as a source of humor with Garrison Keillor
Garrison Keillor
Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor is an American author, storyteller, humorist, and radio personality. He is known as host of the Minnesota Public Radio show A Prairie Home Companion Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor (born August 7, 1942) is an American author, storyteller, humorist, and radio...
being perhaps a rare modern example.
As podcasts have seen increasing popularity through the early 21st century, one part-comedic, part-confessional program has seen marked success. Stand-up comedian Marc Maron garnered a considerable following beginning in 2009-10 with his free WTF with Marc Maron
WTF with Marc Maron
WTF with Marc Maron is a twice-weekly podcast hosted by stand up comedian Marc Maron. The show launched in September 2009. The program primarily consists of interviews with comedians and comedy writers, as well as others in the entertainment and radio communities...
podcast, in which he conducts humorous interviews with a range of major and minor figures in the world of comedy, from lesser-known stand-ups, to a more famous crowd, such as Robin Williams, Ben Stiller, Amy Poehler, and Judd Apatow. Maron himself prefaces each episode with a brief summary of his own life and attempts to overcome his neuroses, and despite the potential for seriousness, these challenges are generally presented in a comical, if not exasperated light.
Film
The very first movie to be produced was Thomas EdisonThomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
's kinetoscope
Kinetoscope
The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. Though not a movie projector—it was designed for films to be viewed individually through the window of a cabinet housing its components—the Kinetoscope introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic...
of his assistant Fred Ott
Fred Ott
Frederick P. Ott was an employee of Thomas Edison's laboratory in the 1890s. His likeness appears in two of the earliest surviving motion pictures – Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze Frederick P. Ott (1860; New Jersey – October 24, 1936; West Orange, New Jersey) was an employee of...
in Record of a Sneeze. This could also be considered the first to show a comedic element.
During the era of silent films in the 1920s, comedic films began to appear in significant numbers. These were mainly focused on visual humor, including slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
and burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
. In America, prominent clown-style actors of the silent era include Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
(although he was born in England), Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
and Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
. Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955.-Early life:...
(of Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
) (Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...
being British), Fatty Arbuckle
Fatty Arbuckle
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...
, the Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
and other names were significant in the first decades of American cinema humor.
Many early film directors in the US were born elsewhere. This is true of one of the most noted early comedy directors in Hollywood, Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
. That said, American born directors like Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
, Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges , originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois...
and George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
also were major film comedy directors in the 1940s. In the 1960s to 1970s Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
and Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
gained note becoming two of the most appreciated of American film comedy directors. In the 1980s Christopher Guest
Christopher Guest
Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest , better known as Christopher Guest, is an American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several improvisational "mockumentary" films that...
, Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
, and the Coen brothers
Coen Brothers
Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen known together professionally as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers...
emerged as significant directors or writers in American film comedy. Added to this several "brother duos" have been of significance in American film like The Zucker brothers, the Coen brothers
Coen Brothers
Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen known together professionally as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers...
, and The Farrelly brothers
Peter Farrelly
Peter John Farrelly is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and novelist. The Farrelly Brothers are mostly famous for directing and producing gross-out humor romantic comedy films such as, Dumb and Dumber, Me, Myself and Irene, There's Something About Mary and The Heartbreak...
. In the last ten years Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith
Kevin Patrick Smith is an American screenwriter, actor, film producer, and director, as well as a popular comic book writer, author, comedian/raconteur, and internet radio personality best recognized by viewers as Silent Bob...
, Jay Roach
Jay Roach
Matthew Jay Roach is an American film director and producer, best known for directing the Austin Powers films and Meet the Parents.-Life and career:...
, Tom Shadyac
Tom Shadyac
Thomas Peter "Tom" Shadyac is an American comedian, director, screenwriter, and producer. Shadyac, who was the youngest joke-writer ever for comedian Bob Hope, is widely known for writing and directing the films Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, and the...
, and Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne, born Alexander Constantine Papadopoulos is an American film director and screenwriter. His films are noted for their dark humor and satirical depictions of contemporary American society.- Early life :...
have garnered notice as film directors whose work is often humorous; if at times darkly so in the case of Payne. Some of the aforementioned directors, particularly Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
and the Coen brothers
Coen Brothers
Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen known together professionally as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers...
, also do other genres of film besides comedy.
Sitcoms
The situation comedySituation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
(sitcom) is a format that first developed in radio and later became the primary form of comedy on television. The first sitcom to be number one in US ratings overall was I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...
. A typical I Love Lucy episode involved one of Lucy's ambitious but hare-brained schemes, whether it be sneaking into Ricky's nightclub act, finding a way to hobnob with celebrities, showing up her fellow women's club members, or simply trying to improve the quality of her life. Usually she ends up in some comedic mess, a form of slapstick comedy. The I Love Lucy show grew out of a radio program in which Lucille Ball was featured. Another popular sitcom of the 50s to cross over from radio was Amos & Andy.
In the decades since, several sitcoms have been tops in the ratings. In the 1960s The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for nine seasons on CBS from 1962 to 1971, starring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer, Jr....
and The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...
show held that distinction. Both of these programs were based on the country bumpkin - the Clampetts bringing their hillbilly ways to Beverly Hills, and the slow talking sheriff in the small rural town. In the 1970s All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
was the top rated show while dealing with serious issues it was based on the loudmouth bigot usually getting his come-uppance.
The most successful sitcoms of the 1980s were Roseanne
Roseanne (TV series)
Roseanne is an American sitcom broadcast on ABC from October 18, 1988 to May 20, 1997. Starring Roseanne Barr, the show revolved around the Conners, an Illinois working class family...
and Cheers
Cheers
Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...
. Roseanne was a family sitcom, based on loud and large blue-collar parents. Cheers on the other hand was about a neighborhood bar frequented by a mix of working-class and professional drinkers.
In the 1990s the increasing popularity of cable changed the popularity of the sitcom. Cable provided more viewing options and made it more difficult for any one show to dominate in the manner that The Cosby Show or Cheers did in their eras. That said, Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
and Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
managed to be among the most-watched shows of the decade. The 2000s has seen a further erosion in the sitcom with Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
being the only one to be the top watched show in any year of this decade, thus far, and the cancellation of the Emmy winning
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series
The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series is an Emmy given to the best television comedy series of the year.-Winners and nominees:...
Arrested Development. Arrested Development had been one of the few critically successful comedies to have started in the 2000s, but recent comedies like The Office
The Office (US TV series)
The Office is an American comedy television series broadcast by NBC. An adaptation of the original BBC series of the same name, it depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company...
, 30 Rock
30 Rock
30 Rock is an American television comedy series created by Tina Fey that airs on NBC. The series is loosely based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live...
and My Name Is Earl
My Name Is Earl
My Name Is Earl is an American television comedy series created by Greg Garcia that was originally broadcast on the NBC television network from September 20, 2005, to May 14, 2009, in the United States...
have garnered some praise.
While many sitcoms were based on families or family situations, another common thread in sitcoms is "workplace comedies." The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...
and Arrested Development had elements of both workplace and family comedy. For more on this see US sitcom.
Although often derided by the critics, a few sitcoms have managed to be successful with both critics and audiences alike. Amongst these are Frasier
Frasier
Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993, to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Grammnet and Paramount Network Television.A spin-off of Cheers, Frasier stars...
, Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
, All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns that aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977...
.
The television sitcom provides an opportunity to compare British and American humor. Many British sitcoms have been re-made for American audiences. For example, Till Death Us Do Part became All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
; Man About the House
Man About the House
Man About the House is a British sitcom starring Richard O'Sullivan, Paula Wilcox and Sally Thomsett that was broadcast for six seasons on ITV from 1973 to 1976. It was created and written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke. The series was considered daring at the time due to its subject matter of...
became Three's Company
Three's Company
Three's Company is an American sitcom that aired from March 15, 1977, to September 18, 1984, on ABC. It is based on the British sitcom, Man About the House....
; and, the immensely popular Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
became Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son is an American sitcom, based on the BBC's Steptoe and Son, that ran on the NBC television network from January 14, 1972, to March 25, 1977....
. The Office was originally a British sitcom that has been successfully remade for an American audience using the same title (and in the case of the pilot episode, the same script). However, most British sitcoms usually fare better in their original forms. Re-makes of other British comedies have failed.
Sketch comedy and Variety shows
A variety showVariety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
is a show with a variety of acts, often including music and comedy skits, especially on television. The first successful comedy-variety show might be Milton Berle
Milton Berle
Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
's, followed by Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs was a Hungarian American comedian and actor.Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident...
and Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
. Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
moved to television in the mid 1950s. Variety shows also featured Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
, Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
and Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
mixing stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
, sketches and musical numbers for true variety. Later successes include The Carol Burnett Show
The Carol Burnett Show
The Carol Burnett Show is a variety / sketch comedy television show starring Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway. It originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 278 episodes and originated from CBS Television City's Studio 33...
and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In is an American sketch comedy television program which ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968, to May 14, 1973. It was hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin and was broadcast over NBC...
. See Variety television series for more examples.
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
(SNL) first aired on October 11, 1975, with George Carlin
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
as its host. It was created by Canadian Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels, CM is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.-Early life:...
. The original concept was for a comedy-variety show featuring young comedians, live musical performances, and short films. Rather than have one permanent host there was a different guest host each week. The first cast members were The Second City
The Second City
The Second City is a improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
alumni Dan Aykroyd
Dan Aykroyd
Daniel Edward "Dan" Aykroyd, CM is a Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician, winemaker and ufologist. He was an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, an originator of The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters and has had a long career as a film actor and screenwriter.-Early...
, John Belushi
John Belushi
John Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor, and musician, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, The Star of the Films National Lampoon's Animal House and the The Blues Brothers and for fronting the American blues and soul...
, and Gilda Radner
Gilda Radner
Gilda Susan Radner was an American comedian and actress, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1978.-Early life:...
and National Lampoon "Lemmings" alumni Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon...
(whose trademark became his usual falls and opening spiel that ushered in the show's opening), Jane Curtin
Jane Curtin
Jane Therese Curtin is an American actress and comedienne. She is commonly referred to as Queen of the Deadpan.First coming to prominence as an original cast member on Saturday Night Live in 1975, she went on to win back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on the 1980s...
, Laraine Newman
Laraine Newman
Laraine Newman is an American comedienne, actress, and writer, and was part of the original Saturday Night Live cast.-Personal life:...
, and Garrett Morris
Garrett Morris
Garrett Gonzalez Morris is an American comedian and actor from New Orleans. He was part of the original cast of the sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live, appearing from 1975 to 1980.-Early life and career:...
. The original head writer was Michael O'Donoghue
Michael O'Donoghue
Michael O'Donoghue was a writer and performer. He was known for his dark and destructive style of comedy and humor, was a major contributor to National Lampoon magazine, and was the first head writer of Saturday Night Live.-Childhood:O'Donoghue was born Michael Henry Donohue in Sauquoit, New York...
, a writer at National Lampoon who had worked alongside several cast members while directing The National Lampoon Radio Hour. The cast has periodically changed over the years, serving as a springboard for many of its performers to success in other television programs or films. SNL continues to air weekly.
In the early 1990s there started to be more sketch comedy shows that concerned racial issues or intentionally had a diverse cast. An early example of this being In Living Color
In Living Color
In Living Color is an American sketch comedy television series, which originally ran on the Fox Network from April 15, 1990 to May 19, 1994. Brothers Keenen and Damon Wayans created, wrote, and starred in the program. The show was produced by Ivory Way Productions in association with 20th Century...
, initially produced by Keenen Ivory Wayans
Keenen Ivory Wayans
Keenen Ivory Wayans is an American actor, comedian, director and writer known as the host and creator of the FOX sketch comedy series In Living Color, which also starred Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, brothers Damon Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans, sister Kim Wayans, David Alan Grier, Tommy...
. Despite the original cast being majority African American the show is most remembered for introducing the Caucasian Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey
James Eugene "Jim" Carrey is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario...
and Puerto Rican Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
to a wider audience. In the 2000s Chappelle's Show
Chappelle's Show
Chappelle's Show is an American sketch comedy television series created by comedian Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan, with Chappelle hosting the show as well as starring in various skits. Chappelle, Brennan and Michele Armour were the show's executive producers. The series premiered on January 22,...
began and became a popular, if controversial, variety series. It became noted for dealing with issues like racism, sexual perversity, and drug use.
Currently The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
and Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
are leading comedy-variety shows.
Stand-up
American stand-up comedians deal with a variety of forms and issues. Among forms popular or popularized in the US is observational comedyObservational comedy
Observational comedy is a style of humor based on making remarks about commonplace aspects of everyday life. It is the most common type of humor used in stand up comedy.The humor is based on the premise of "It's funny because it's true."-External links:* *...
about everyday life and Improvisational comedy. Modern improvisational comedy in general is largely linked to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and especially The Second City
The Second City
The Second City is a improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
troupe. The 1950s saw the rise of this troupe's significance in modern improvisational comedy.
That decade also witnessed a rise in stand-up comedy dealing with more provocative or politically charged subject matter. Among the best known comedians from the 1950s to the 1980s to work in this fashion are Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
, Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
, George Carlin
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
, Bill Hicks
Bill Hicks
William Melvin "Bill" Hicks was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. Hicks' material was often controversial and steeped in dark comedy...
, and Sam Kinison
Sam Kinison
Samuel Burl "Sam" Kinison was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Kinison was known for his intense, harsh and politically incorrect genre humor...
. They dealt with subject manner like race, religion, and sex in a manner that was generally not allowed on television or film. Hence The Richard Pryor Show
The Richard Pryor Show
The Richard Pryor Show is an American comedy variety series starring Richard Pryor. It premiered on NBC on Tuesday, September 13, 1977 at 8 p.m. opposite ABC's popular television shows Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days....
ended after four episodes due in part to controversy, although poor ratings was a strong factor. In other cases the reactions were more severe, as both Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were arrested on obscenity charges.
That said, other stand-ups in the US choose an opposite approach that involves avoiding angering or offending elements of the audience. They may also try to work "clean" either because they prefer doing so or because they wish to reach audiences that disdain raunchy material. Among those who do so as a preference are Brian Regan
Brian Regan
Brian Regan is a stand-up comedian who uses observational, sarcastic, and self-deprecating humor. His performances are relatively "clean" as he refrains from profanity and off-color humor. Regan's material typically covers everyday events, such as shipping a package with UPS and a visit to an...
, Bob Newhart
Bob Newhart
George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
, and Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby
William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...
. Ray Romano
Ray Romano
Raymond Albert "Ray" Romano is an American actor, writer and stand-up comedian, best known for his roles on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and in the Ice Age film series. He recently starred in the TNT comedy-drama Men of a Certain Age.-Early life:Romano was born in Queens, New York to Italian...
is capable or even willing to work "blue", see Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist is an American animated series that originally ran on Comedy Central from May 28, 1995 to December 24, 1999,–with a final set of three shelved episodes airing in 2002–starring Jonathan Katz, Jon Benjamin, and Laura Silverman...
and commentary tracks on the DVD, but has tended to avoid doing so out of deference to his current audience.
Notable names
- Allan BurnsAllan BurnsAllan Burns is an American screenwriter and television producer. Burns is best known for, alongside James L. Brooks, creating and writing for the television sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.-Early life:...
-Three Emmies for Comedy writing.http://www.emmys.org/awards/awardsearch.php - Art BuchwaldArt BuchwaldArthur Buchwald was an American humorist best known for his long-running column in The Washington Post, which in turn was carried as a syndicated column in many other newspapers. His column focused on political satire and commentary...
-Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning humorist. - Art CarneyArt CarneyArthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
.http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1990 - Bernie MacBernie MacBernard Jeffrey McCullough , better known by his stage name, Bernie Mac, was an American actor and comedian. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Mac gained popularity as a stand-up comedian. He joined comedians Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, and D. L...
-Number 72 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Betty WhiteBetty WhiteBetty White Ludden , better known as Betty White, is an American actress, comedienne, singer, author, and former game show personality. With a career spanning seven decades since 1939, she is best known to modern audiences for her television roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
.http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1990 - Bill BurrBill BurrWilliam "Bill" Burr is an American stand-up comedian, radio host and actor.-Life and career:Burr was born in Canton, Massachusetts. His father was a dentist, and Bill worked as a hygienist for a short time. He began stand-up at age 23 after attending Emerson College. In 1995, he moved to New...
- Bill MaherBill MaherWilliam "Bill" Maher, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and...
-Number 38 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Carl ReinerCarl ReinerCarl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
-Mark Twain Prize for American HumorMark Twain Prize for American HumorThe Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998. It is named after the 19th century novelist, essayist and humorist Mark Twain and is presented annually to an individual who... - Chris RockChris RockChristopher Julius "Chris" Rock III is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer and director. He was voted in the US as the 5th greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central...
-Number five on Comedy CentralComedy CentralComedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
's100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0429332/fullcredits - Christopher Buckley-Thurber Prize for American HumorThurber Prize for American HumorThe Thurber Prize for American Humor, named after American humorist James Thurber, recognizes outstanding contributions in humor writing. The prize is given out by the Thurber House. It was first awarded irregularly, but since 2004 has been bestowed annually....
. - Dave ChappelleDave ChappelleDavid Khari Webber "Dave" Chappelle is an American comedian, screenwriter, television/film producer, actor, and artist. Chappelle began his film career in the film Robin Hood: Men in Tights in 1993 and continued to star in minor roles in the films The Nutty Professor, Con Air, and Blue Streak. His...
-Number 43 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - David CrossDavid CrossDavid Cross is an American actor, writer and stand-up comedian perhaps best known for his work on HBO's sketch comedy series Mr...
-Number 85 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - David JaverbaumDavid JaverbaumDavid Javerbaum is an American comedy writer and former executive producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He was hired as a staff writer there in 1999, promoted to head writer in 2002 and attained EP status at the end of 2006. He has won 11 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, two Peabody Awards...
--Eight Emmys, two Peabody AwardPeabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
s, and only two-time winner of Thurber Prize for American HumorThurber Prize for American HumorThe Thurber Prize for American Humor, named after American humorist James Thurber, recognizes outstanding contributions in humor writing. The prize is given out by the Thurber House. It was first awarded irregularly, but since 2004 has been bestowed annually....
. - David SedarisDavid SedarisDavid Sedaris is a Grammy Award-nominated American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor....
-Thurber Prize for American HumorThurber Prize for American HumorThe Thurber Prize for American Humor, named after American humorist James Thurber, recognizes outstanding contributions in humor writing. The prize is given out by the Thurber House. It was first awarded irregularly, but since 2004 has been bestowed annually....
.http://www.oberlin.edu/wwwcomm/convocation/ - Debbie ReynoldsDebbie ReynoldsDebbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1997 - Denis LearyDenis LearyDenis Colin Leary is an Irish-American actor, comedian, writer and director. Leary is known for his biting, fast paced comedic style and chain smoking...
-Number 50 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Dennis MillerDennis MillerDennis Miller is an American stand-up comedian, political commentator, actor, sports commentator, and television and radio personality. He is known for his critical assessments laced with pop culture references...
-Number 21 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Diane EnglishDiane EnglishDiane English is an American film director, screenwriter and producer, known for creating the sitcom Murphy Brown. She also served as writer and executive producer of the sitcom My Sister Sam.-Life and career:...
-One of the few women to win an unshared Emmy for comedy writing.http://www.emmys.org/awards/awardsearch.php - Don RicklesDon RicklesDonald Jay "Don" Rickles is an American stand-up comedian and actor. A frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rickles has acted in comedic and dramatic roles, but is best known as an insult comic....
-Number 17 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Doug StanhopeDoug StanhopeDouglas Gene "Doug" Stanhope is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and author known for his abrasive comedy routines.-Life and career:Stanhope quit high school after his freshman year...
- Eddie MurphyEddie MurphyEdward Regan "Eddie" Murphy is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, singer, director, and musician....
-Number 10 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - George BurnsGeorge BurnsGeorge Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
.http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1988 - George CarlinGeorge CarlinGeorge Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
-Number 2 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Ian FrazierIan FrazierIan Frazier is an American writer and humorist. He is best known for his 1989 non-fiction history Great Plains, his acclaimed 2010 best-selling opus Travels in Siberia, and as a writer and humorist for The New Yorker....
-Thurber Prize for American HumorThurber Prize for American HumorThe Thurber Prize for American Humor, named after American humorist James Thurber, recognizes outstanding contributions in humor writing. The prize is given out by the Thurber House. It was first awarded irregularly, but since 2004 has been bestowed annually....
.http://www.bookhelpweb.com/awards/thurber/thurber.htm - Imogene CocaImogene CocaImogene Fernandez de Coca was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows....
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
.http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1988 - James L. BrooksJames L. BrooksJames Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...
-Academy Award nominee for several comedy films http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000985/awards and won two Emmies for comedy writing. (also did dramas)http://www.emmys.org/awards/awardsearch.php - Jerry LewisJerry LewisJerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
.http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1998 - Jerry SeinfeldJerry SeinfeldJerome Allen "Jerry" Seinfeld is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and television and film producer, known for playing a semi-fictional version of himself in the situation comedy Seinfeld , which he co-created and co-wrote with Larry David, and, in the show's final two seasons,...
-Number 12 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Johnny CarsonJohnny CarsonJohn William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
.http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1992 - Jonathan WintersJonathan Winters-Early life:Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, the son of Alice Kilgore , a radio personality, and Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an investment broker. He is a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1987 and 2000 Mark Twain Prize for American HumorMark Twain Prize for American HumorThe Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998. It is named after the 19th century novelist, essayist and humorist Mark Twain and is presented annually to an individual who...
. - Jon StewartJon StewartJon Stewart is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian...
-Number 41 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Lenny BruceLenny BruceLeonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
-Number 3 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Lewis BlackLewis BlackLewis Niles Black is an American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor. He is known for his comedy style, which often includes simulating a mental breakdown, or an increasingly angry rant, ridiculing history, politics, religion, trends and cultural phenomena...
-Number 51 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Lily TomlinLily TomlinMary Jean "Lily" Tomlin is an American actress, comedienne, writer, and producer. Tomlin has been a major force in American comedy since the late 1960's when she began a career as a stand up comedian and became a featured performer on television's Laugh-in...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1987 and 2003 Mark Twain Prize for American HumorMark Twain Prize for American HumorThe Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998. It is named after the 19th century novelist, essayist and humorist Mark Twain and is presented annually to an individual who...
. - Lorne MichaelsLorne MichaelsLorne Michaels, CM is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.-Early life:...
-2004 Mark Twain Prize for American HumorMark Twain Prize for American HumorThe Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998. It is named after the 19th century novelist, essayist and humorist Mark Twain and is presented annually to an individual who... - Louis C.K.Louis C.K.Louis Szekely , known professionally as Louis C.K., is a stand-up comedian, television and film writer, actor, producer, and director...
-Number 98 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Martin LawrenceMartin LawrenceMartin Fitzgerald Lawrence is an American actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and stand up comedian. He came to fame during the 1990s, establishing a Hollywood career as a leading actor, most notably the films Bad Boys, Blue Streak, and Big Momma's House...
-Number 37 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Mitch HedbergMitch HedbergMitchell Lee "Mitch" Hedberg was an American stand-up comedian known for his surreal humor and unconventional comedic delivery. His comedy typically featured short, sometimes one-line jokes, mixed with absurd elements and non sequiturs...
-stoner and drug user, the national award winner for best comedian of the post-modern age - Neil SimonNeil SimonNeil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
-2006 Mark Twain Prize for American HumorMark Twain Prize for American HumorThe Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998. It is named after the 19th century novelist, essayist and humorist Mark Twain and is presented annually to an individual who... - Norman LearNorman LearNorman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...
-Television Hall of FameTelevision Hall of FameThe Television Academy Hall of Fame was founded by a former president of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the late John H. Mitchell , to honor individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to television....
, mostly wrote and produced for comedies. - Paul MooneyPaul MooneyPaul Mooney is an American comedian, writer, social critic, television and film actor. He was also featured on one of truTV's reality shows, Ma's Roadhouse.-Early life:...
- Penny MarshallPenny MarshallPenny Marshall is an American actress, producer and director.After playing several small roles for television, she was cast as Laverne DeFazio in the sitcom Laverne and Shirley...
-Director of a comedy film in the top 50 of AFI's 100 Years... 100 LaughsAFI's 100 Years... 100 LaughsPart of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Laughs is a list of the top 100 funniest movies in American cinema. A wide variety of comedies were nominated for the distinction that included slapstick comedy, screwball comedy, romantic comedy, satire, black comedy, musical comedy, comedy of...
and comedic actress. - Phyllis DillerPhyllis DillerPhyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
.http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1992 - Redd FoxxRedd FoxxJohn Elroy Sanford , better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American comedian and actor, best known for his starring role on the sitcom Sanford and Son.-Early life:...
-Number 24 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Red SkeltonRed SkeltonRichard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
.http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1989 - Richard LewisRichard Lewis (comedian)-Early life:Lewis was born in Brooklyn, New York City and was raised in Englewood, New Jersey. His father worked as a caterer and his mother was an actress. Lewis is Jewish. He later attended Ohio State University and was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity....
-Number 45 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Richard PryorRichard PryorRichard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
- Number 1 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Robert KleinRobert KleinRobert Klein is an American stand-up comedian, singer and actor.-Early life:Klein was born in the Bronx, the son of Frieda and Benjamin Klein, and was raised in a "prototypical 1950s Bronx Jewish" environment. After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School, Klein planned to study medicine...
-Number 22 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Robin WilliamsRobin WilliamsRobin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
-Number 13 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time and won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album. - Rodney DangerfieldRodney DangerfieldRodney Dangerfield , was an American comedian, and actor, known for the catchphrases "I don't get no respect!," "No respect, no respect at all... that's the story of my life" or "I get no respect, I tell ya" and his monologues on that theme...
-Number 7 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Steve AllenSteve Allen (comedian)Stephen Valentine Patrick William "Steve" Allen was an American television personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer. Though he got his start in radio, Allen is best known for his television career. He first gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey's Talent...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
.http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1987 - Steve MartinSteve MartinStephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/2000 and 2005 Mark Twain Prize for American HumorMark Twain Prize for American HumorThe Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998. It is named after the 19th century novelist, essayist and humorist Mark Twain and is presented annually to an individual who...
. - Steven WrightSteven WrightSteven Alexander Wright is an American comedian, actor and writer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes and one-liners with contrived situations.-Early life and career:Wright was born in Mount Auburn...
-Number 23 on 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. - Tina FeyTina FeyElizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer, known for her work on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live , the NBC comedy series 30 Rock, and films such as Mean Girls and Baby Mama .Fey first broke into comedy as a featured player in the...
-First female head-writer for Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
. - Walter MatthauWalter MatthauWalter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
-Lifetime Achievement from the American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/American_Comedy_Awards_USA/1997 - Whoopi GoldbergWhoopi GoldbergWhoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
-2001 Mark Twain Prize for American HumorMark Twain Prize for American HumorThe Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998. It is named after the 19th century novelist, essayist and humorist Mark Twain and is presented annually to an individual who...
. - "Weird Al" Yankovic"Weird Al" YankovicAlfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...
-Multiple winner of the Grammy Award for Best Comedy AlbumGrammy Award for Best Comedy AlbumThe Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album was awarded from yearly 1959 to 1993 and then from 2004 to present day. There have been several minor changes to the name of the award over this time:*From 1959 to 1967 it was Best Comedy Performance...
.
Note: An attempt has been made to avoid repeating names already mentioned, but some repetition might still exist. This list is partial and mostly deals with American comedians or humorists who won Lifetime Achievement awards in their fields or were placed in lists of history's great comedians.
See also
- List of comedians
- Mark Twain Prize for American HumorMark Twain Prize for American HumorThe Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998. It is named after the 19th century novelist, essayist and humorist Mark Twain and is presented annually to an individual who...
- American Comedy AwardsAmerican Comedy AwardsThe American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States from 1987 to 2001 recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films...
- Stand-up comedyStand-up comedyStand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
- Canadian humorCanadian humourCanadian humour is an integral part of the Canadian Identity. There are several traditions in Canadian humour in both English and French. While these traditions are distinct and at times very different, there are common themes that relate to Canadians' shared history and geopolitical situation in...
- British humorBritish humourBritish humour is a somewhat general term applied to certain comedic motifs that are often prevalent in comedic acts originating in the United Kingdom and its current or former colonies...
- Australian humor
External links
- http://ancientlights.org See Thomas Morton of Merrymount and his 1637 'New English Canaan' for the earliest American social satires, observed witty sketches of actual Native and English persons, and Pilgrim-pounding poetry on the "Elephants of Wit" who thought God had sent them to rule America for themselves.
- American Humor.org
- Article on Constance Rourke's book on American humor
- My Sweetheart, Uncle Bentley and the Roosters – page with both of these short stories.