Day 28: "Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America" - Laugh a Little, Learn a Lot

Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been away for a little while. This has little to do with my viewing habits, and a lot to do with Darren and I’s plumbing woes. It’s surprisingly difficult to concentrate on a review while your husband is in the next room hacking away at pipes and listing every curse word he’s ever known. Today I am blessed with peace, so here goes…


Films 22 & 23: “Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America” (2009), PBS

Written and Directed by Michael Kantor (documentary about American 20th Century comedy)

I’m counting this as two films, though it’s really a PBS mini-series, chunked out into 1-hour bits. I’m reviewing four of them today, which I figure is the same as two 2-hr movies. These are being broadcast repeatedly this month and next on your local stations, but they’re also available on DVD, which is why I’m including them here. (It’s good to be King.)

In brief:

“Would Ya Hit a Guy with Glasses?: Nerds, Jerks and Oddballs”
The focus here of course is the comedy of the outsider, either desperately trying to fit in, or contented to laugh at the insanity around him. The usual suspects Harold Lloyd and Steve Martin show up, but there’s little new to say about them (even though a lot of time is spent on them). The real revelations for me were the backstories of some male comedians, and the mere existence of some 1950s comediennes – the stylish Jean Carroll and the bawdy, much-censored Belle Barth and Rusty Warren. (I must find their material – apparently still around on LPs.) Considerable time is also devoted here to the evolutions of the personas we know now as Woody Allen, Andy Kaufman, Bob Hope and Jonathan Winters – the most surprising for me being Woody Allen’s old TV tapes – before glasses, dancing and singing, with hair. The most impressive though was Phyllis Diller – a big shock to me – as I learned of her touring with her five kids while her deadbeat husband stayed home and cashed the checks. It gave me pause to realize that what I find dated now was shocking then – a woman onstage talking about crazy in-laws and sexless marriages – threatening every power quota in place. Of course, she had to make herself unattractive for people to listen…

“Honey, I’m Home! Breadwinners and Homemakers”
In short, the sitcom. And specifically, the family sitcom. Before “Friends” replaced the family unit, “I Love Lucy” and “All in the Family” rode the rocky waves of changing American interiors. What was really happening behind those closed doors? Even now, as many of my compatriots feast on the insanity of real-life losers via Reality TV, I prefer the sitcom, as it continues to dramatize and make sense of what we’re going through as a culture. That’s where the real value of this episode lay for me – showing the evolution of our reality through our fantasy TV lives. An unexpected bonus: seeing Roseanne Barr speak with intelligence and without defensive bluster.

“Slip on a Banana Peel: The Knockabouts”
Falling down is funny. Maybe studying it isn’t quite so much. Strange, but I found this to be the least entertaining of the series so far, even though it featured some of my favorite comedians: Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers. I don’t think slapstick’s appeal is hard to figure out, and so the only real interest here was in discovering some unknown backstories – how Lucille Ball learned pantomime from Jonathan Winters and studied comedy like a science, how Harpo Marx went silent in response to criticism of his voice, and why Buster Keaton never smiled.

“When I’m Bad, I’m Better: The Groundbreakers”
This is the one to watch. Until now, the series has the feel of a documentary without a center, well-intentioned and well-researched, but without much to say. Here’s what it’s all about. George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, the Smothers Brothers, Richard Pryor, Mort Stahl – all conscientious crusaders against hypocrisy and determined to be heard in ‘free’ America. I especially appreciated the serious treatment of two ground-breaking women – Mae West and Moms Mabley. We’ve probably all heard of the first, but many have likely dismissed her as lightly suggestive or old-fashioned. Most white Americans have probably never heard of Mabley – a woman who worked the black ‘chitlin circuit’ from the 1930s through the 1960s. What few of us who have laughed at their insights have probably realized is how often we were denied them. Both women – and all the comics featured here – paid fines, were imprisoned, lost work, were threatened by the government and had material cut almost every routine – not because the material was just lewd or suggestive, but because it implied criticism – of government, of hypocrisy, of the status quo. Whoopi Goldberg tells a story about being censored for trying to even repeat some of Mabley’s material – twenty years later. By the end of this one, you’ll feel not just enlightened but enriched. There are still warriors for freedom inside America; why else would the authorities care so much about silencing the laughter?


There are two more hours of this series, which I’ll review next week after they air this weekend on my local station. In the meantime, I’m checking out the online companion at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/makeemlaugh/ - and enjoying it even more than the series. This seems to be where a great deal of the best stories and insights are, going beyond what we already know and into the rarer territory – e.g. interviews with Carol Burnett, Kaye Ballard and Reynaldo Rey on dangerous moments in comedy, etc.