Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America Review

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(More customer reviews)This big, beautiful book is the companion to the PBS series about what makes Americans laugh. It's not meant to be comprehensive, and it's not. But what is here is fascinating. Filled with photographs, it's easy to open to any page and begin reading. I couldn't put it down.
The book is separated into six chapters that explore different styles of comedy. There is lots of overlap, of course -- Harpo Marx would be at home in the "Oddball" segment, and Jon Stewart is certainly a "Smart-Aleck" -- but this convention makes it easy to put similar comedians together, and focus on why what they do makes us laugh.
There is lots of comedy here. The book is peppered with transcripts of comedy routines and television shows. Quotes from people in the industry, including writers, producers and other comedians, provide insight to what makes performers tick. Rare archival material includes a full page detailing The Sketch That Couldn't Be Done, written by Elaine May for The Smothers Brothers (it was considered in bad taste). If you want to know George Carlin's seven dirty words, they're all here.
In a sweeping book like this, lots will be left out. But I have a few personal peeves. The only mention of one of my favorites, Red Skelton, is to diss him in the segment about Buster Keaton: "(Keaton) spent the next two decades doing what work he could get as an off-camera gagman for stars like Red Skelton, who couldn't hold a candle to Keaton." Animated classic film comedies from Pixar such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo are ignored. And Garry Shandling merits only a mention in the Gilda Radner section, instead of being in a spotlight for The Larry Sanders Show. Worst of all, women are passed over routinely for guys: there are segments on 53 male comedians versus 9 for women. And that's not funny.
Here's the chapter list:
Introduction
1. Slip on a Banana Peel: The Knockabouts
Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Harpo Marx, The Three Stooges, Lucille Ball, Jerry Lewis, Jim Carrey
Sock it to Me?: Satire and Parody
Will Rogers, Sid Caesar and Your Show of Shows, Tom Lehrer, Allan Sherman, Johnny Carson, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, Saturday Night Live, Billy Crystal, The Wayans Brothers, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break: Smart-Alecks and Wiseguys
W.C. Fields, Groucho Marx, Jack Benny, Tim (The Kingfish) Moore, Phil Silvers, Paul Lynde, Redd Foxx, Joan Rivers, Eddie Murphy, Larry David
Would Ya Hit a Guy With Glasses?: Nerds, Jerks, Oddballs and Suckers
Harold Lloyd, Eddie Cantor, Bob Hope, Jonathan Winters, Phyllis Diller, Woody Allen, Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin, Gilda Radner, Robin Williams, Andy Kaufman
Honey, I'm Home!: Breadwinners and Homemakers
The Goldbergs, George Burns and Gracie Allen, The Honeymooners, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Norman Lear and All in the Family, The Odd Couple, Bill Cosby, Roseanne, Seinfeld, The Simpsons
When I'm Bad, I'm Better: The Groundbreakers
Mae West, Burlesque, Abbott and Costello, Moms Mabley, Fred Allen, Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, The Smothers Brothers, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Maher

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From the most popular routines and the most ingenious physical shtick to the snappiest wisecracks and the most biting satire of the last century, MAKE 'EM LAUGH illuminates who we are as a nation by exploring what makes us laugh, and why. Authors Laurence Maslon and Michael Kantor draw on countless sources to chronicle the past century of American comedy and the geniuses who created and performed it-melding biography, American history, and a lotta laughs into an exuberant, important book. Each of the six chapters focuses a different style or archetype of comedy, from the slapstick pratfalls of Buster Keaton and Lucille Ball through the wiseguy put-downs of Groucho Marx and Larry David, to the incendiary bombshells of Mae West and Richard Pryor . And at every turn the significance of these comedians-smashing social boundaries, challenging the definition of good taste, speaking the truth to the powerful-is vividly tangible. MAKE 'EM LAUGH is more than a compendium of American comic genius; it is a window onto the way comedy both reflects the world and changes it-one laugh at a time. Starting from the groundbreaking PBS series, the authors have gone deeper into the works and lives of America's great comic artists, with biographical portraits, archival materials, cultural overviews, and rare photos.Brilliantly illustrated, with insights (and jokes) from comedians, writers and producers, along with film, radio, television, and theater historians, MAKE 'EM LAUGH is an indispensible, definitive book about comedy in America.

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