[nickcarraway]

I never saw those two movies. I think Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose is about Borscht Belt types, even if i takes place in Manhattan.

Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Carl Reiner wrote for Sid Caesar's show early in their career. All four were from the Borscht Belt.

[Steely Tom]

I think Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose is about Borscht Belt types, even if i takes place in Manhattan.

Well, quite a bit of it takes place in New Jersey!

In Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall, Allen's character Alvy Singer is a comedy writer. There's a short but funny scene where he's interviewed for a job by a second-rate (or maybe third-rate) Borscht Belt comic, played by Johnny Haymer, who wants him to write "a little French number" for his act. Alvy Singer looks at him like he's a total flake.

[Albion Wilde]

I disagree that Carl Reiner's start was fueled by the Borscht Belt. He pretty much went straight into television after serving in WW2. For his humor he rarely catered to a strictly Jewish audience or relied upon jokes about Jewishness; his material was mainstream. One of his closest lifelong friends was an Irish Catholic guy from Philadelphia who had been his WW2 Army buddy, Joe Coogan, who wrote a comedic novel based on their army days called To the Rear March. Reiner even used Joe's name in some of his Sid Caesar sketches.