Word: comical
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...typical successful TV comic is either Irish or Jewish, earns more money than the President of the U.S., and is likely to suffer from egomania, insomnia and, especially, vertigo-i.e., a morbid fear of falling from his high Nielsen rating. In a new book, The Funny Men (Simon & Schuster; $3-95), published this week, TV Comic Steve Allen, who labors to be funny five nights a week on NBC's Tonight, outlines the terrors of his trade and takes a measuring look at 16 of his competitors. Since he began work on the book...
What makes the whole business maddening, Allen observes, is that no one-from Aristotle to Freud-has yet worked out a satisfactory definition of humor. Allen concludes that the relationship of the TV fan to his favorite comic is a little like falling in love. Within six months the honeymoon is over. After a year, the fan begins to mutter critical asides. In two years he may switch to another channel. Allen's purpose in writing his book is to make "an examination and somewhat relaxed analysis of television humor"; his major concern is to give his readers...
Jack Benny: "Basically, an actor of sheer comic genius rather than a true, essential comedian . . . Jack has been on top for a long time by playing 'himself; maybe the fact that he himself is exactly opposite to his public character has a lot to do with his limitless success...
...Night Work), and Rose's longtime (five years) fiancee; he for the third time (his first: Comedienne Fanny Brice; second: Aqua-star Eleanor Holm), she for the fourth (her first: Colonel Gonzalo Gomez, son of Venezuela's late Dictator Juan Vicente Gomez; her second and third: TV Comic Milton Berle); in Manhattan...
...script, in short, is just a barrel of soggy tanbark, but there are plenty of comic spangles scattered through it-e.g., the midget who is wakened every morning by the kiss of a giraffe, and the snake merchant who spends the better part of the picture polishing a lady python...