I had been inspired after reading Steve Martin's memoir to further read about stand up comedy in the 1970's. Lucky for me, Richard Zoglin decided to write a book about it.
This book is pretty comprehensive for any fans of comedy. It starts with the metamorphosis of both George Carlin and Richard Pryor and the effect on the generation of comedians that started after them.
Zoglin talks to almost all the major players: Robin Williams, Carlin, Albert Brooks, and even the recluse, and hard to interview David Letterman.
The story spans both coasts and traces the rise of the comedy clubs and the importance of Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show on many a career.
The one flaw about the book, and it is a minor one, is that Zoglin is a bit repetitive with his anecdotes. Say, the same story by Jerry Seinfeld speaking on how Robert Klein influenced him appears when Zoglin talks about Klein and about Seinfeld. And it is repeated almost word for word. That is a bit distracting.
But, like I said, that was relatively minor. This book is an excellent history of a unique artform. If you like comedy, you'll like this one.
Does Zoglin talk at all about NATIONAL LAMPOON and it's progeny, most specifically SNL, had an impact on these standups? NAT LAMP was amazingly groundbreaking for its time and I don't think you can seperate its influence on comedy in the 70s from that of how standup transformed in that decade.
ReplyDelete[this is good] National Lampoon and SNL are mentioned in passing (SNL more because Carlin, Pryor and other comedians hosted it), but the focus is more on stand up more than anything else.
ReplyDeleteI think National Lampoon desreves its own book.
Actually, there are already a couple of good books on the early days of NAT LAMP. I'd recommend publisher Matty Simmons (or whatever his name is) memoir as well as the biographies of early NAT LAMP writers Michael O'Donough and Doug Kinney.
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