Word: comical
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...stigma of the pruney banker. On the radio side, conservative talk also had '50s and '60s pioneers: cantankerous Joe Pine and Bob Grant. Grant and Limbaugh, who have broadcast back to back on New York City's WABC since 1988, have set the limits -- one growly, the other comic-pompous -- for Right Radio...
...Imus is one liberal -- well, he did vote for Clinton -- who succeeds with a comic-misanthropic style he has established in 27 years of radio, the last seven on New York City's WFAN. Imus, whose morning potpourri of talk and sharp parody sketches is syndicated in 23 cities, has interviewed Clinton, Bob Dole, Alfonse D'Amato, the lot. The rest of the show revels in bad taste, spitball humor and abolition of the Fairness Doctrine; it's radio freedom with a vengeance. (His show last Wednesday claimed that Gingrich earned his college degree from the "Close Cover Before Striking...
Thus collectors must be interesting, no? No, it turns out, in Geoff Nicholson's cheerfully loopy comic novel Hunters & Gatherers (Overlook; 215 pages; $21.95). Nicholson's hero, a feckless would-be writer named Steve Geddes, has unwisely taken a publisher's advance to produce a book on collectors. But the collector collector finds that his subjects, though daft, are stunningly boring. An obsessed gatherer of sounds has recorded utter silence in Namibia, the Sahara and the Australian Outback. One human rodent, who promises to show Geddes the world's largest beer-can collection, leads him to a completely empty room...
Coordinating Beethoven's music with the story poses another problem. The relentless melodrama of the film contrasts with the composer's work to an unintentionally comic effect. And of course, we hear plenty of the Fifth Symphony at crucial intervals...
...brides and their American husbands offers an occasionally disturbing glimpse into American policy. Performed by the Asian-American Association Players at the Agassiz Theater last weekend, "Tea" could have made its point more strongly. But its tameness allows it to be comfortably entertaining, and it does have its comic moments...