Word: comical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Garry Trudeau may be the most private public person in American life. His acerbic and politically acute comic strip, Doonesbury, a national institution for some 15 years, appears in nearly 900 newspapers and is the first comic ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. Spin-offs have been ubiquitous: more than 30 books, an NBC-TV special, a rock album and a Broadway musical, all written by Trudeau. His jabs have provoked outrage from targets as varied as Frank Sinatra and House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Yet with just a handful of exceptions over the years -- mostly college...
...problem merely a linguistic one. Just what name the affair acquires may influence how it is viewed by the American public. A scandal dubbed, say, Ayatullahgate or Mullahmess will be hard to take seriously, much less spell correctly. On the other hand, a silly name could offer some welcome comic relief in what might become an increasingly grim affair...
...approaches comedy through the eyes of a vulnerable, naive persona, an innocent commenting on the world, But the real Emo is almost indistinguishable from his comic persona at first. He slips in a joke wherever possible, ponders each answer as though on another planet, and only then lets a small grain of truth slip...
...TOOK Marcel Marceau, dressed him like a third grade geek and gave him extensive electroshock therapy you'd create a creature very similar to Emo Phillips. Give him an abused childhood and a wretched lovelife and you'd provide most of his comic material...
...Lantry's murderous libido. They also suffer Bradbury's murderous writing, having to deliver such lines as "Law? The terms you are using no longer exist." Several improvised scenes, particularly a discussion about the digestibility of spaghetti, are genuinely funny; others miss the mark. On the whole, though, the comic breaks serve as welcome oases in a sea of burdensome sci-fi philosophizing...