Word: shtick
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...famous opening tune for Forum--Comedy Tonight--is brilliantly refreshed by director Jerry Zaks into a circus of Technicolor bawdry. He parades all the fine, low comedians and, for a hilarious moment, some tragedians too. Like Zaks' revival of Guys and Dolls, this Forum is a celebration of shtick. If a gag was ever funny, from Plautus' time to ours, he'll spit on it and spin it until you have to laugh unashamedly...
Donahue's brand of me-too feminism has fallen out of favor, though he will leave behind an important legacy in Washington. Not only did Bill Clinton use Donahue's show to reach voters in 1992; with his "I feel your pain" persona, he has even lifted Donahue's shtick. And now, thanks to the tabloids, we can finally imagine what happens when the Donahue New Man meets the Cosmo Girl. Just ask Gennifer Flowers or Paula Jones...
Artistic license has expired on shtick like that, and further critical explication of the separate realms of fact and fiction can no longer insulate the comedy from the offense . But the sexual obsession and obscenities are intrinsic to Sabbath's exaggerated character as a dirty old man. There is much humor in what makes us uneasy, and Roth extracts it, as he has done for nearly 40 years, with a technique and verbal flair unmatched by his contemporaries. Sabbath the houseguest rummaging through a teenager's underwear drawer or attempting to seduce his host's wife is the sort...
Onscreen and off, Grant's shtick is to stammer; words are land mines around which he stumbles nonchalantly. Even with a script, Grant has a rougher time getting through a sentence unharmed than anyone since Jimmy Stewart. And so, in his weeklong mass-media confession, it took a while for him to become sure of himself--sure, that is, of the Hugh Grant he was playing for the largest audience ever to see him (the night he appeared, the Tonight Show won its highest ratings since Leno's first month as permanent host...
DAVID LETTERMAN Oscar audience un-amused by transplanted talk-show shtick...