Word: comic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...colors together with a sort of consuming, sad energy. They are the blues, in paint. Everything seems right about the pattern of Sowing (circa 1940): the fierce orange and yellow stripes, the eccentric placement and displacement of shape, the not quite naive use of repetition and rhyme, even the comic-strip blue cabin and the Looney Tunes mule. And The Breakdown (circa 1940-41), showing a sharecropper's feet protruding from beneath his stalled jalopy while a huge sun sinks and his wife scrapes together a meal by the side of the road, has some of the deep, wry, emblematic...
...brightest members of that small club is Jerry Seinfeld. The Long Island native was perhaps the quintessential yuppie comic of the '80s: his larky, laid-back observations about the trivial pursuits of modern life -- buying candy at a movie theater, riding with your dog in the front seat of the car -- were funny, recognizable, nonthreatening. Now he is the centerpiece of nbc's hottest sitcom. Since the series made its debut in January 1991, Seinfeld has improved steadily in the ratings, especially among young, upscale viewers searching for life after thirtysomething. Sign of a show on the make: NBC promoted...
...structured, with the anecdotal, stream-of- consciousness style of monologue material. One entire show last season was set in a parking garage, as Jerry and his friends searched for their car. In another, Jerry got friendly with ex-New York Mets star Keith Hernandez; the show spun a hilarious comic essay on hero worship and male bonding. "He wants me to help him move!" cries Jerry after one phone call. "I said yes, but I don't feel right about it. I mean, I hardly know...
...infotainment press is busy stoking the one-way feud. In April, just before Leno replaced Carson, Entertainment Weekly ran a cover story with Hall proclaiming, "I'm gonna kick Leno's ass"; this week the cover copy blares LENO GETS EVEN, and the Gibraltar-jawed comic stares out in a Raging Bull pose. The Washington Post's Tom Shales rags Leno for going "all ponderous and ! stony" and, bizarrely, for overloading his opening monologue with political humor. (Memo to Jay: Better do more 7-Eleven jokes. Memo to Tom: Pssst, it's an election year...
...Bill Clinton torturing a saxophone, Leno still wins where it counts: equaling or surpassing Carson's ratings and ad revenue. The difference is that all this was to be accomplished without sweat or rancor. Who, after all, could get mad at Jay? Everyone knew him as a stand-up comic who was also a stand...