Word: kidding
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...hint of envy, a writer of another series observes: "Dean does everything he shouldn't do, but on him it's funny." He squints blatantly at the prompter cards, purposely blows lines. He ignores taboos to snigger at his own gags, bravo his own songs. "This kid's come a long way," he says of himself. "I'd have him back, but he's too expensive." Week after week, he repeats the same business: lobbing a cigarette butt into the air like a grenade, then holding his ears as if waiting for the explosion...
...gotten braver; we're doing nuttier, wilder things." S. J. Perelman, on the other hand, says unequivocally: "I have never seen so much ghastly work, even in television, as this year." And as far as Playwright (Cactus Flower} Abe Burrows is concerned, "there is nothing to kid any more. This is the age of consensus, and all the humorists are censoring themselves." If the purveyors of humor disagree on whether the change is for better or worse, however, they at least agree that it has profoundly affected their...
What satire there is these days often satirizes the village idiot. Batman kids the comics-which kid the kids. The man from U.N.C.L.E. is, at its best, only taking off on James Bond, an acknowledged spoof on itself...
Besides Miss Firth and Rosen, I liked Richard Cooke, as a henchman of the demagogic Southern senator who wants to dispossess the poor but tolerant folk in whose valley Finian has sunk his funds; Pat Wynn, as the hero's graceful kid sister who, being mute, dances to communicate (don't worry, she'll learn to say "I . . . love . . . you" before the curtain; and Steve Presser, in the small role of a cigar-chawin', bulge-bellied minion...
...most critical moment in Promise follows Leslie's discovery that her tyke has secretly made his movie debut opposite a Junoesque redhead in a wild bikini. Such rancid twists of plot could easily sour a comedy, except that the kid is a disarming moppet named Michael Bradley who saves his heartiest responses for a pile of red plastic blocks. Warren saves his for Leslie, and most of the fun is as simple as that...