Word: sahl
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Comparing the white pages of Sick, Sick, Sick, his first cartoon collection, to the later strips darkened by heavy dialogue, one finds Feiffer edging toward literary satire. Why didn't he begin as a writer? The question applies equally well to Mort Sahl, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, all of whom started out in fields close to writing, and who now seem to be entering the field itself: Sahl is working on a book, Nichols just published a story in the New Yorker, and May's one act play opens off-Broadway this week...
...began," Feiffer explains, "as frustrated writers." In the early fifties his material was being rejected as universally as it is now sought. Similarly, Nichols and May found their only outlet for critical humor in Chicago's Second City Theatre, and Sahl attracted attention at the Hungry i. "The mass circulation magazines of that period were too rich or satisfied or afraid to start fooling around with strong, radical satire. They turned us down, and so we found other places where we could really swing...
That anonymous masterpiece typifies the current brand of topical and political humor as practiced in a growing number of U.S. nightclubs, a form opened wide by acerbic Mort Sahl and still growing in popularity from Manhattan's Greenwich Village to San Francisco's North Beach. Even in Washington, where political humor has heretofore been of the unconscious kind, four night spots are now flourishing with topical jokesters. Manhattan's The Premise has just opened a Washington outpost, where distinguished audiences (including, on occasion, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Senators Hubert Humphrey, Mike Mansfield, Kenneth Keating, "Scoop" Jackson) have...
...sense, Gleason's sudden achievements should not be as surprising as they seem. For unlike such masters of the oneline gag as Bob Hope and Mort Sahl, he bases his humor on the creation of comic characters-most of them acted by himself. And as the late James Thurber liked to remark, such comedy may be amusing, but it is also serious commentary on human life. "Gleason has gorgeous creative juices," says Requiem's Producer David Susskind with purple accuracy. "He is a thundering talent-the kind of raw, brilliant talent that has gone out of style, with...
...smoldering young sirens whose singing style tries to suggest that they are capable of unseemly passion, Joanie sounds throaty but relaxed, is admired both by rock 'n' rollers (for whom she steadfastly refuses to rock) as well as by those who pant for Ella and Frankie. Mort Sahl heard the records, took a look at gamin-faced Joanie, signed her up to accompany him on a 35-city concert tour. Suddenly everybody wants Joanie. She has just made a movie with Mickey Rooney (Columbia's Everything's Ducky), is eagerly sought for TV specials, has nightclub...