Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Although this book has flaws, I found it very interesting. It covers many famous comedians, whose work I had either enjoyed (Newhart, Woody Allen, Cosby) or had encountered here and there (Kovacs, Freberg, Nichols and May). The book worked as a series of mini-biographies which were compulsively readable, and as a bonus, there were very funny bits in each chapter as he quotes from the routines.
There were flaws, but I could live with them. There were a few errors, and the structure of most of the chapters could have used help. (The chapters tend to start with an overview of the comedian's essence, then shift to biography. In some instances, this came across as repetitious.) Don't expect a history of the era (say for a assessment of how the shift from Paar to Carson affected the direction of comedy.)
The most serious drawback to me was that there was no concluding chapter after we had covered all the biographies, because I had a few questions by then and wanted Nachman to try to draw stuff together. (Chiefly, why did his Fifties comics, apart from Phyllis Diller, tend to fall silent or burn out fast, while the Sixties comics, apart from Bruce and Dick Gregory, seem to go on forever?)
Still, this was a very enjoyable book. My wife is looking forward to reading it, having seen me enjoy it. I say regard it as a useful overview of an era and not a definitive last word on the subject.

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