He may be tempted to steal Shelley's last bit like he did the rest of his act.
Posted on 09/01/2017 1:50:00 PM PDT by EveningStar
Shelley Berman, whose brittle persona and anxiety-ridden observations helped redefine stand-up comedy in the late 1950s and early ’60s, died early Friday morning at his home in Bell Canyon, Calif. He was 92.
His publicist, Glenn Schwartz, said the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
Mr. Berman, one of the first comedians to have as much success on records as in person or on television, was in the vanguard of a movement that transformed the comedy monologue from a rapid-fire string of gags to something more subtle, more thoughtful and more personal.
The comedians of the preceding generation, Gerald Nachman wrote in “Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s” (2003), were “one-liner salesmen” for whom “a joke was a cheap and reusable commodity, easily bought and sold, not a worldview or a political stance.” Comedians like Mr. Berman, Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce had a different approach.
In 1959, Time magazine referred to this new breed as “sick” comics, and the term (which Mr. Berman hated) caught on. But they had little in common with one another besides a determination to remake stand-up comedy in their own image. Mr. Sahl was a wry political commentator; Mr. Bruce was a profane social satirist; Mr. Berman was a beleaguered observer of life’s frustrations and embarrassments.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
Loved his stuff!.....................REST IN PEACE, SHELLY. THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES!..................
I grew up in the NYC area (50s and 60s) and I remember Berman being on the Tonight Show. Funny man ... RIP.
Mort Sahl was a Haig supporter in 1987, as was Billy Dee Williams, so I was able to have dinner with both.
Really?
He played Larry David’s father on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in recent years. RIP, Mr. Berman.
I wonder if Williams’s support for Haig cost him acting jobs from that point on. He seemed to drop off the radar screen of high-profile gigs around that time (after Star Wars and Dynasty).
Remember him in the Twilight Zone
He may be tempted to steal Shelley's last bit like he did the rest of his act.
He had Alzheimers...................
Never thought Sahl was funny. Pollitics by its nature defies humor. Yet this guy has made a living at it for fifty years.
Oh darn, I remember him well from when I was a kid. Funny guy.
RIP and thanks for the laughs.
Phone skits were being done in the 1920s.
Yes, he endorsed the conservative Haig for President, as the least of all evils—”A really nice guy. Besides, he doesn’t promise much, so you can’t hold him to much.”
No, it was his insistence that the CIA killed Kennedy.
I remember Berman and his albums from the 50s. Funny stuff. Then, according to a reliable source (my brother) he did a TV special on how comedy is created and made an ass of himself. As a result, he disappeared for years (or at least I never saw nor heard of him). Recently, however, he popped up on a rerun of “The King of Queens” as a longtime buddy of Arthur Spooner (Jerry Stiller). And that is the end of my story.
>Never thought Sahl was funny.
Sure. "Wry political commentator" says it all. Mort Sahl wasn't competing for belly laughs from a mass audience, but trying to fill a smaller, more unusual niche. Whimsical political satire, I guess.
Sahl lost a lot of his audience because he insisted on making jokes about Kennedy just like he did about Eisenhower (and lost the rest of it obsessing about Kennedy's assassination).
In making fun of the guy he supported just like he did about the guy he didn't support Sahl showed character that later comedians couldn't match.
He’s not exactly the only person to hold that view.
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