Pretend The World Is Funny and Forever

Psychology Press
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PRETEND
THE WORLD
IS FUNNY AND FOREVER:
A Psychological Analysis
of Comedians, Clowns, and Actors
Page Intentionally Left Blank
PRETEND
THE WORLD
Seymour Fisher
Rhoda L. Fisher
State University of New York
at Syracuse
'P ~~~~~~~~i?c~Xp Press

NEW YORK AND LONDON
First Published 1981 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
This edition published 2014 by Psychology Press

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Copyright© 1981 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Fisher, Seymour.
Pretend the world is funny and forever.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Actors- Psychology. 2. Comedians- Psychology.
3. Wit and humor-Psychology. I. Fisher, Rhoda Lee,
1924- joint author. II. Title.
PN207I.P78FS 791' .092' 2 80- 17777
ISBN 0-89859-073-6
Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality
of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the
original may be apparent.
ISBN- 13: 978- 1-315-80294-7 (ebk)

To our children, Jerid and Eve, and also all of the Lilliputians
we have known who helped us to glimpse the absurdities of the "big people"
Contents
PREFACE xi
1. Where and How do Comedians Surface? 1

Introduction 1
Early School Experiences 2
Pathways to Comedy 5
Similarities and Differences Among Comics 7
The Comic's Resilience 9
Comic's View of the Audience 12
2. Exploring the Comic Personality 17

Introduction 17
Recruiting and Evaluating Comics 18
John Mahoney (fictitious name) 22
Loretta Waverly 25
William Randolph 28
Walter Berg 31
Robert Iannucci 32
More Objective Approaches 34
3. Comics, Angels, Devils, and Anarchists 36

Introduction 36
Exploratory Approach 37
Good Versus Evil 38
Systematic Studies 40
Good-Bad Themes in the Lives of
Comedians 44
The Comic-Fool as a Religious Figure 48
Origins of Good-Bad Concern 52
Parental Images 55
Parental Images in Imaginative Stories 57
Individual Histories 59
Comedy as Virtue 62
Direct Observation of Comic's Parents 64
Why Be Funny? 69
vii
viii CONTENTS
4. There Is a Little Lie in Everything 73

Introduction 73
Projective Concealment Themes 76
The Comic-Fool's Unique Use of Disguise 81
Humor as a Protection Against Anxiety 83
Concealment and the Unconscious 84
Surprise! 88
5. Feeling Small and Down 90

Introduction 90
Small Images 95
The Small Theme in Comedy 98
Sources of Small Imagery 100
Anorexia Nervosa 102
Down, Falling, and Underneath 105
6. The Child Schlemiel 109

Introduction 109
Comic Inkblot Themes 110
Parent Rorschach Images 114
Further Evaluation of Inkblot Findings for Parents
of Comic and Noncomics 116
Contradictions in Early Memories in Professional
Comics 129
7. Amateur Humor Producers 132

Introduction 132
Identifying Amateur Comics 134
Personality Trends 136
Parental Attitudes 139
Summary Perspective 142
Qualitative Descriptions of Parents 143
Parents' Attitudes Toward Humor 144
Integration with Previous Research 145
Comedy and Health 147
8. Being an Actor: The Time Integrators 149

Introduction 149
The Evolving Fascination 152
The Acting Experience 154
Religion and Merging 157
Time Preservation and Continuity 160
Attitudes Toward Parents 168
Individual Histories 170
The Question of Role Diffusion 173
CONTENTS ix
9. Performers, Entertainers, and

Nonperformers 177
Performers and Entertainers 177
Backgrounds 178
Good-Bad Concerns 179
Attitudes Toward Parents 180
Integration of Findings 183
Qualitative Observations 184
Parental Attitudes 185
Summary 187
10. Perspectives 189

Introduction 189
Psychoanalytic Concepts 190
Contrasts and Opposites 191
The Comic as a Person 197
Early Experiences with Parents 203
Stripping the World Down to Its Size 212
Implications for Theories of Humor 216
What Has Been Accomplished 217
Appendices 219
References 227
Author Index 247
Subject Index 251

Preface
We have devoted this book primarily to studying comedians, clowns, and other
funny people. We set ourselves the task of understanding the origins, the
motivations, and personalities of those who make humor. Secondarily, we were
interested in exploring the factors that shape actors and other public entertainers.
Without exception, we all laugh and joke and say funny things. Humor
pervades human spaces. Universally, people find that it helps to interpret events
by coding them in funny metaphors. There is no question but that seeing life as
funny has protective value. There is evidence that it softens trauma; that it oils
difficult human contacts; that it enriches what we tell each other; and that it
debunks aesthete, de-personalized stiffness by reminding us that all humans, no
matter what airs they put on, are made of "body stuff."
People seem to have such a hunger for funny, humorous input that they have
commissioned a whole class of people, called comics or clowns, to help fill them
up. These comics occupy prominent and influential positions in just about every
culture. They are certainly powerful figures in the Western world where radio,
motion pictures, and television have magnified their impact. People like Will
Rogers, Charlie Chaplin, Fred Allen, Milton Berle, Woody Allen, and Johnny
Carson clearly have used humor to shape attitudes in large segments of our
population. Some have become directly involved in important political matters.
Others have skillfully used comic images to make all sorts of things seem right or
wrong or illogical or sentimentally acceptable. Comics are forever telling us that
certain types of people are silly; that various commonly accepted customs do not
make sense; and that no one set of values is more trustworthy than any other. In
one recent television appearance a well-known comedian did the following:
1. He made fun of a prominent politician.

2. He ridiculed the American advertisement establishment for ballyhooing
products that supposedly render people less disreputable and dirty.
xi
xii PREFACE
3. He highlighted a number of common difficulties and paradoxes that occur

between marriage partners.
4. He raised doubts about the value of being honest in today's world.
5. He vividly made it clear how much we fear death.
He obviously bombarded his audience with his perspectives on a wide gamut of

issues. Indeed, in his own way, he preached a series of minisermons reflecting
his view that the world is in a fairly absurd state. His comedy communicated
powerful messages to his audience.
The power of the nonprofessional comic in informal social groups is also
impressive. As he jokes and kids, he often becomes the center of attention. His
performance draws people to him. He titillates and stimulates. He makes people
laugh. He may set the mood for an entire evening. It is true that some people may
not enjoy him or may feel irritated with his performance, but there is no doubt
that they react strongly. Few are neutral about the comic when he goes into
action.
Our intent in writing this book is to build an understanding of the people who
create humor and are expert at making people laugh. Who are the comedians and
clowns of the world? Where do they come from? Why are they so dedicated to
tickling funny bones? In what ways are they unique? The comedian and the
clown have been conspicuous figures in just about every culture that has ever
existed. They obviously have strong catalytic functions. We considered it an impor-
tant task simply to learn about their dynamics. But we were also convinced that if
we could learn more about the expert producer of humor we would simultane-
ously generate new understanding of humor itself. We were hopeful that novel
ideas would surface if we matched up new information about the humor maker
with what is solidly known about humor.
Clowns are funny people who have been around for a long time. Their
makeup and costumes are almost universally recognized. We were intrigued to
learn that clown makeup was originally plain old mud that was smeared on. The
clown declares to the world that he is comfortable with mud rubbed into his skin.
He identifies himself with mud. This is but one example of the numerous ways in
which the funny man dramatizes that he is close to the things that other people
consider worthless, devalued, and even bad. He wears mud like others wear
decorations of honor. As we see later, the clown covered with mud feels
strangely armored and virtuous. A clown that we interviewed actually said that
when he dons his makeup and clown outfit he feels that he is better and morally
superior to the person he is without his clown regalia. The clown finds in his mud
veneer a puzzling strength and inspiration. Phyllis Diller, a modern comedienne,
expressed her sense of the comic's closeness to the devalued stuff of life in her
reply to a question concerning how she achieved fame and recognition. She said
(Wilde, 1973, p. 223): "I ate shit! ... I still take a spoonful a day for fear I'll
lose my taste for it. ... That means you gotta stay humble.'' Similarly, Jerry
PREFACE xiii
Lewis remarked that a deprived background often typifies the comedian (Wilde,
1973, p. 331): "Because you have to taste dirt before you can analyze it."
In studying the comic we get directly involved in the psychology of various
kinds of superiority and inferiority. We quickly learn that although being labeled
as inferior is painful, it also provides a peculiar potency. The comic is a central
actor in the continuous drama of who is up and who is down. As we see later, he
tries at times to be both at once. He wants to be up and down simultaneously.
This is a tricky and risky way to live, so he often feels precariously immersed in
contradictions. He becomes a master at integrating what seems not to fit together.
This is actually a central theme in most humor. The joke is so often the mastery
of disparate pieces that do not fit together. The image of the pompous gentleman
taking a pratfall is a paradigm in so much humor. On the one hand there is dignity
and on the other hand there is the silly sprawling fall. Putting the two together
somehow, mysteriously, brews comedy. We will, in this book, explore the link
between the incongruities in the comic's personality and his fine alchemy in
distilling humor from themes that seem, on the surface, to be alien to each other.
We have taken several approaches in trying to understand the people who are
the humor makers. First of all, we recruited numerous professional comedians
and clowns who agreed to be interviewed and also to respond to various
psychological tests. They were all people whose full-time occupations involved
being funny. They varied in their public prominence and success. Among the
more prominent comedians and clowns who participated were Harry Ritz, Jimmy
Ritz, Sid Caesar, Tommy Smothers, Pat Cooper, Donald O'Connor, Jackie
Mason, Jimmie Walker, Kay Ballard, Julie DeJohn, "Professor" Irwin Corey,
Myron Cohen, and Blinko the Clown (Ernest Burch). To supplement the infor-
mation we gathered from such individuals, we also collected all of the autobiog-
raphies and biographies of fun makers that we could locate. Numerous come-
dians like Charlie Chaplin, Milton Berle, Groucho Marx, Harold Lloyd, Mort
Sahl, and W. C. Fields have published revealing data about themselves. Fur-
thermore, we decided to study nonprofessional funny people. We wanted to find
out if amateur comedians were or were not like the professionals. Is the humorist
with a national reputation really different in his personality dynamics from the
amateur comedian who is the top wit of local cocktail parties? If we understand
the professional comedian, does that give us any insight into what happens when
ordinary people create comedy? Among the amateurs we studied were funny
college students and schlemeil-like children who played the fool and were often
class clowns. The information we pulled together from all these sources was then
looked at in the context of what is known about humor. There is a growing
scientific literature about joking, laughter, and fun that helped us to think through
some tough interpretative problems.
As we got more and more immersed in the fantasies and feelings of the
comedian-clown, we were drawn to issues that go beyond humor. We could see
that understanding the comedian clarifies other problems having to do with how
xiv PREFACE
we bridge contradictions in our lives; how we make occupational choices to fit

our needs; and how we wrestle to overcome the apparent evil within ourselves.
To understand the comedian is to come closer to grasping difficult issues that
have troubled just about everyone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, we wish to express our appreciation to the comedians,

clowns, actors, and other performers and entertainers who gave us access to their
lives and fantasies. We could not have asked for greater cooperation and willing-
ness to help.
Many people supported us in our efforts to recruit the comedians and actors
we studied. We wish particularly to thank Mr. David Semonin, Mr. Carl Wal-
lenda, Mr. Joseph Synder, Ms. Kitty Oliver, Ms. Shirley Lockwood, and Ms.
Nancy Duffy.
Further, we would like to thank the following colleagues who variously
helped us in obtaining, analyzing, and interpreting the material we collected:
Drs. Roger Greenberg, Jay Land, Jerid Fisher, Harvey Taub and Anita Katz.
Invaluable technical and secretarial assistance for the entire enterprise has
consistently been provided by Mr. Robert Curtiss and Ms. Mary McCargar.
The Upstate Computer Center assisted us ably with our statistical computa-
tions.
Finally, we wish to acknowledge the unique expertise of the Upstate Medical
Center Library in tracking down even the most esoteric of references.
Seymour Fisher
Rhoda L. Fisher
PRETEND
THE WORLD
Where and How Do
Comedians Surface?
INTRODUCTION
What is the pathway to dedicating your life to being funny and manufacturing
laughter? How do people like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton or Milton Berle
or Martha Raye or Will Rogers or Groucho Marx get launched? Are there typical
pathways?
We can provide information about this matter on the basis of two sources.
First, as we shall describe in detail later, we interviewed over 40 professional
clowns and comedians and learned a good deal about their life patterns. Second,
we collected published biographical and autobiographical accounts of 40 come-
dians and clowns. 1 Putting these two sources together gave us a rather reliable
picture of how professional funny people evolve. We would like in this chapter to
provide some general, fairly impressionistic information about the beginnings of
the comic-to-be2 and also about some of his special perspectives on life. This
1 They are listed in alphabetical order below: Goodman Ace, Fred Allen, Woody Allen, Lucille
Ball, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Joey Bishop, Mel Brooks, Joe E. Brown, Lennie Bruce, George
Bums, Johnny Carson, Charlie Chaplin, Joan Davis, Phyllis Diller, Jimmy Durante, W. C. Fields,
Eddie Foy, Jackie Gleason, Dick Gregory, Bob Hope, George Jesse!, Buster Keaton, Emmett Kelly,
Ernie Kovacs, Bert Lahr, Stan Laurel, Jerry Lewis, Beatrice Lillie, Harold Lloyd, Groucho Marx, Ed
McMahon, Martha Raye, Carl Reiner, Will Rogers, Mort Sahl, Danny Thomas, Flip Wilson, Ed
Wynn, Henny Youngman.
2 lt is important to keep in mind that most comics come from families of lower socioeconomic
status. A great many grew up in poverty-stricken circumstances. People like Charlie Chaplin, Milton
Berle, Jackie Gleason, Flip Wilson, and Joey Bishop were exposed to great economic hardship.
Previous studies (Willhelm & Sjoberg, 1958) have shown that comics do, in general, come from
lower ~ocioeconomic strata and also from a greater proportion of broken families than do other
classes of actors and show people. It remains true, however, that some comics have grown up in
homes of relative affluence. Poverty is not a prerequisite for comic talent.
2 1. WHERE AND HOW DO COMEDIANS SURFACE
information will provide an overall framework for making sense of more detailed
and technical material we present later.
EARLY SCHOOL EXPERIENCES
One of the first things we discovered is that comics are usually funny quite early
in life. A majority recall that as kids they enjoyed saying and doing funny things.
They especially recall being funny in school. Again and again they remember
being the ''class clown.'' It is interesting how consistently this class-clown
theme appears. The comics would do things in school which involved mocking
teachers and getting the kids in class to laugh at the rigidities of the school
culture. They cultivated this role with zest and would often devote more time to it
than to their studies. They seemed to glory in the laughter of their school mates.
Here are a few examples of memories bearing on this point that were conjured up
by some of the comics we interviewed:
In school in the fourth grade I'd sit in the back of the room. I'd make paper
airplanes. I'd defy the teacher and all the kids laughed.
The teacher would tell me to go to the board and spell ''petroleum'' and I wrote
"oil." Sometimes the teacher would get exasperated .... Sometimes I'd go with a
joke too long.
As a kid I always hung onto humor. I was one of the funniest in my school. I
was voted funniest in our yearbook.
I had a lot of trouble in school. I was nasty. I had an English teacher who was
very ugly. She'd ask the girls, "Can you see through my dress?" I'd imitate a girl,
"Yes, I can." She slapped me.
Tommy Smothers, a well-known stand-up comic, gave us a great deal of

material about his attempts to be funny in school. He recalls that when he was
late for a class, which was apparently not infrequent, he would stage the most
visible entrance into the room as possible. He would make a point of walking
directly up to the teacher's desk and begin a litany of apology for his tardiness.
He would loudly and solemnly proclaim how sorry he was and the more annoyed
the teacher became the more he would reaffirm his guilt. The class would roar
and he got a big kick out of it. He was quite aware of what he was doing and the
impact he was making. Similarly, he would often attempt to tum an occasion
when he was supposed to address the class into a hilarious performance. It is
worthwhile quoting one of his memories:
I would look them straight in the eye. I would not smile or laugh or giggle and
say exactly what I had to say. Well, this straightness cracked people up. When I
EARLY SCHOOL EXPERIENCES 3
once gave a nomination speech, in the ninth grade .... I memorized a very long
speech with every big word I could put in, with this straight mock seriousness and
the people fell apart .... I got a big kick out of them laughing, but I didn't know
what it was that made them laugh, but I knew I could make people laugh .... I
wrote the speech hoping it might be funny. Because I put, "It's a great pleasure to
be in this edifice with so many of the students gathered together on such a serious
occasion. "
Johnny Carson, who has had occasion to know a wide range of comics,
reaffirmed the importance of school experiences in the comic's life (Wilde,
1973, p. 177): "I think, by the fact that you find you can get laughs when you are
in school-and this is where most of the guys start, when they are growing up in
the neighborhood-they're jerking around, doing silly things, interrupting the
class. It's an attention-getting thing, and that, in effect, is saying, 'Hey, look at
me, folks, I'm getting your acceptance'."
The comics' funny behavior in school often conveyed a mocking attitude
toward the teacher and this symbolized their generally negative attitude toward
the whole school establishment. The great majority clearly hated the kinds of
things they were supposed to do in classrooms. It is rare to find a comic who was
a good student, despite the fact that as a group they are of high intelligence
(Janus, 1975). In fact, a majority got poor grades and tried to miss school
whenever possible. There is evidence that the expectations of teachers upset
them. Woody Allen found school so upsetting that he fled from it day after day.
The young boy, Charlie Chaplin, resorted to strategems that would do credit to
the Little Tramp to evade school classes. Jack Benny was involved in a running
battle with his parents in his refusal to do his school work. It is a common pattern
for the future comic to play truant and to spend the day not in school, but rather in
places of entertainment like the movie house or the vaudeville palace.
Woody Allen, in referring to the escapist things he did to avoid going to
school, said (Lax, 1975, p. 30): "It kept me isolated from the world. It was so
much better than school, which was boring, frightening. The whole thing was
ugly. I never had the answers. I never did the homework."
Bert Lahr is another example of a comic who hated school. His son comments
(Lahr, 1969, pp. 21-22): "School was the bane of Lahr's early years. He had
never been a good student, but at P.S. 40 in the Bronx, he seemed to get worse.
His parents were outraged by his curious inaction. He did not work; he would not
even try. 'I was like a caged animal in school', he says .... He could not explain
to his parents about the classroom-the anxiety over gray walls and long rows of
wooden seats, the sadness of the winter stench of damp clothing and moth
balls. . . . 'I didn't feel free at school; it just didn't mean anything-nothing'. ''3
3 Note the following comment by Groucho Marx's biographer son (Marx, 1954, p. 16):
Despite his fascination with the printed word, father was not a born scholar. In fact, he wasn't any
kind of a scholar, if his school record is any indication. He had a disdain for most of his teachers, and
The only pleasant memory Bert Lahr could recall about school related to a school
play in which he participated. He had a funny part and he was ecstatic about the
impact he had on the audience. His biographer son noted (p. 22): "He felt
completely in control on stage, proud and curiously powerful. He had enjoyed it
all-the make-up, the clowning, the noisy laughter." His sister recalled that
(p. 23), "after that performance ... he was the clown of the class and they
couldn't do anything with him."
There is no question but that something about being in school turns the
potential comic off. This is not a universal truth. Occasionally comics have done
well in school. But they are the exceptions. The school atmosphere, with its
emphasis on discipline, sitting still, and being seriously devoted to abstractions
seems to frighten and anger the neophyte comedian. But, interestingly, it is often
at school, where he is looking for some way to comfort himself and to assert that
he has talent (even if the school does not formally recognize it), that he proves he
can make people laugh. The classroom becomes a stage for attracting attention
by displaying defiant funniness. Also, school plays and skits often provide the
potential comic with a chance, as was true for Bert Lahr, to try his hand formally
at amusing and entertaining an audience. For many, it is the first official taste of
glory and success. Teachers are typically surprised at the talent revealed by the
young comic when they get a chance to see him give his first formal public
performance, because their previous experiences with him in the classroom have
been so negatively slanted. The potential comic also does a good deal of kidding
around at home and in his neighborhood. He says funny things to his parents and
he jokes around a lot with big brothers and sisters. Actually, he has a way of
getting people to see him as a bit on the laughable or silly side. Quite a few
comics recall their surprise and also pain when they discovered that some of the
laughter directed at them was depreciating. Jimmy Durante (Fowler, 1951) was
very unhappy about the kidding he received about his nose. Joe E. Brown (1956)
describes vividly his embarrassment when, as a child, he discovered that adults
thought he had a funny-looking face.
One logical question that arises is whether the comic typically models himself
after someone in his family. Is he imitating a funny father or mother? Our
interview material does not suggest this is the usual case. Only about 15% of the
comics we questioned recalled that one of their parents was unusually funny or
a
dedicated to joking. By the way, whenever parent was described as funny, it
an unfortunate inability to solve arithmetic problems. These things, coupled with the fact that my
grandparents couldn't afford to support him through any more schooling, led to his decision, at the
age of fourteen, to retire from P.S. 14 without waiting for his diploma.
It is worthwhile quoting also from Jack Benny's biographer (Fein, 1976, p. 25): "He [Benny]
was constantly in trouble with his teachers and parents for skipping school on matinee days. Finally,
when he failed every examination, the principal requested him to take his leave."
PATHWAYS TO COMEDY 5
was almost always the father. 4 In general, from the information we have uncov-
ered it does not seem reasonable to trace the average comic's development as a
humorist to the simple copying of the behavior of one or both of his parents.
PATHWAYS TO COMEDY
For most comics the road to becoming an expert humorist is a gradual one with a
good many detours. They discover over a period of years at home and at school
that they possess a talent for making people laugh. But they have mixed feelings
about this talent because not infrequently they sense that the laughter directed at
them echoes overtones of derision. Getting laughs has its negative as well as its
positive aspects. But whatever the discomfort involved, comics are strongly
attracted to the power :mplicit in being able to "make" people laugh. They are
intensely conscious of the power of the funny person. They refer again and again
to the satisfaction they get from knowing that they have control over an audience.
They frankly discuss their chronic fear that they will lose this control. There is no
greater threat in the comic's life than the possibility that he will not be able to
"make" people laugh. In his developing years he is conscious of his special
humorous prowess, but does not know what to do with it. His uncertainty is
reinforced by the fact that he periodically may be very uncomfortable with being
funny because it is associated with the dumb silliness of the clown.
There are not many comics who directly concluded that because they are
funny they ought to become professional humorists. Only about 10 or 15% in our
sample of comedians followed such a direct route. This is also true for comedians
described in published biographies and autobiographies. Some few comedians
got directly started in comedy at an early age by virtue of being in vaudeville
families who cast them in such a role. For example, Buster Keaton (Blesh, 1966)
was barely out of infancy when he was incorporated into the funny business of
his parents' vaudeville act. He started as a comic and stayed in that straight line
course throughout his life. Woody Allen (Lax, 1975) identified himself with the
world of humor from a very early age by writing comic material for others,
although he did not personally become a stand-up comedian until he was an
adult. Bert Lahr (Lahr, 1969) went rather directly into the role of a comic as the
result of an early successful audition for a comic vaudeville part which had been
called to his attention by a friend. The majority of comics in our sample and also
those described in published biographies and autobiographies became comedians
4 0f the comics who said one of their parents was unusually funny, all but one said that it was
father. It should be added, however, that in the published biographies and autobiographies of comics
there are a few instances where mother is mentioned as being a funny person. For example, George
Jesse! (Wilde, I 973) refers to his mother's excellent sense of humor.
by first getting into some other phase of show business. Most frequently they
began by participating in a musical act or group. A surprisingly large number
were at first attracted to music and were excellent musicians. Music was initially
a major vehicle for such well-known comics as Jack Benny, Beatrice Lilly,
Martha Raye, George Bums, Ed Wynn, and Jimmy Durante, just to name a few.
A story we commonly heard from the comics in our sample was that they entered
show business by playing and singing in some group and gradually discovered
that people were amused when they made side remarks or constructed funny bits
in between musical numbers. They would, at first, not believe the impact they
could achieve by putting out a line of funny chatter. Then, they became more and
more intrigued with the laughter they could evoke and began to consider the
revolutionary possibility of abandoning their music and risking a straight comic
role. Jack Benny was for many years primarily a violin player in his vaudeville
act. Even after he discovered, almost by accident in the course of service in the
Navy, that he had comic talent, it took him a long time before he banished the
violin from his performance and opted for pure comedy. Jimmy Durante was
largely a musician for many years and he introduced comedy into his work only
slowly and with some misgivings. The Marx brothers were initially a singing
group (Four Nightingales) that had been organized by their mother. They were
not very good and the going was tough. Their switch from singing to comedy
apparently happened almost by accident. The story, which may or may not be
true, is told that they were performing in a small town in Texas when suddenly in
the middle of the show a substantial part of the audience ran out (apparently to
watch a runaway mule). The Marx brothers did not know why the audience had
deserted them and they were enraged when the spectators finally drifted back.
So, as Marx's biographer son describes it (Marx, 1954):
They were no longer interested in giving a good performance. All they wanted to do
was get even with the audience, and the only way they knew how was to burlesque
the kind of singing they had been doing so seriously.
They quickly evolved into a rough-house comedy bit, with the Marxes, led by
my father, flinging insults about Texas and its inhabitants to the audience as rapidly
as they could think of them .... They fully expected to be tarred and feathered and
run out of town on a rail. But instead the audience loved their clowning and greeted
their insults and the most tired jokes with uproarious laughter.
And so they were suddenly comedians [pp. 20-21].
Actually, the groundwork for such comic behavior had always existed be-
cause the Marx brothers were funny people who engaged in a lot of horseplay and
extravagant kidding within the family and with their friends.
Comics have also variously started out in show business as jugglers (W. C.
Fields), actors (Milton Berle, Charlie Chaplin), radio disc jockeys (Ernie
Kovacs, Johnny Carson, Ed McMahon), rodeo performers (Will Rogers), and
SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES AMONG COMICS 7
circus performers (Joe E. Brown). It is important to keep in mind that most

comedians did not intend to be comedians. Rather, they began with the idea of
performing in front of people. They were attracted to show business, to being on
the stage, to getting applause, to entertaining, to being publicly admired.
The average comedian that we interviewed did not get much support from his
parents in his desire to be in show business and especially in his comic ambitions.
Again and again we heard lingering hurt in the voices of these comics when they
talked about the contempt they had detected in their parents toward their voca-
tional aspirations. It was rare to find a comic who felt that his parents were really
overjoyed that he wanted to become a comedian. The comics repeatedly referred
to how much more satisfied their parents were with those brothers or sisters who
had gone on to advanced education and entered more respectable professions.
The neophyte comic not infrequently had to put up with gross opposition and
contempt from his parents when they got wind of his desire to be a comedian.
One well-known comedienne was told by her father that she would be no better
than a whore if she went into show business. Jack Benny's parents were bitterly
opposed to his stage aspirations. Henny Youngman's father was really contemp-
tuous of his son's comic interests. Will Rogers's father could not at all under-
stand his son's desire to make it on the stage. A number of the comics we
interviewed rather wryly remarked that only after they had achieved considerable
financial success did their parents begin to show favor toward their comic voca-
tion. It would be a distortion, however, not to add that a sizable minority of
parents did support their offsprings' show business goals. Milton Berle 's mother
is a prime example. She invested her entire life in getting his career started and
then furthering it. The Marx brothers' mother was very active in getting them
into vaudeville. People like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Beatrice Lillie, Stan
Laurel, and Jerry Lewis came from families in which either one or both parents
were invested in show business and they had at least the implicit support of such
investment. This is a pertinent place to point out that many clowns grow up in
circus families and find that they are directly supported in their clown aspi-
rations. About fifty percent of the clowns we interviewed had had fathers who
were clowns. Only two clowns in our sample had to overcome opposition from
their parents. One had to threaten to run away from home in order to get permis-
sion to leave school and join up with the circus. Another, who became a clown in
an ice show, sensed a good deal of concealed resistance in his parents who
wanted him to enter a profession rather than show business.
SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES AMONG COMICS
In referring to a general class of people, like comedians, it is easy to fall into glib
overstatements. Our previous reading of the journalistic literature had led us to
believe that comedians would, in their overt personal styles, show a lot of
similarity. It would be hard to verbalize what similarity we expected to find.

Perhaps they would all do a lot of kidding. Or perhaps they would all be reserved
and a bit depressed. Or perhaps they would have an exaggerated and compen-
sated way of calling attention away from their presumed sense of inferiority.
Whatever our assumptions may have been, they proved no more valid than if we
expected all physicists or physicians or plumbers or bankers, as individual
groups, to display unique overt similarities in their behavior. In face to face
encounters, we discovered that comics can be quite different from each other.
One appears to be intellectual and quietly introspective. Another is brash and
loud. One is on the edge of tears during a good part of the interview, and another
is the joker throughout. One seems angry at the world and another is placidly
accepting of his life. One spends a good part of the interview telling dirty jokes
and another expounds intellectually on the effects of the capitalistic system. Such
variation is certainly true of well-known comedians. The flamboyant and lavish
expressiveness of people like Jackie Gleason (Bishop, 1956) and Ernie Kovacs
(Wally, 1975) contrasts with the laconic style of Buster Keaton (Blesh, 1966) or
the modesty of Jimmy Durante (Fowler, 1951). The niceness of a Jack Benny
(Fein, 1976) is at the opposite pole to the bristling provocativeness of a W. C.
Fields (Monti, 1973). Charlie Chaplin's anxious and ambivalent pattern of rela-
tionships with women is so different from the apparent long-term stable pattern
shown by Harold Lloyd (1971). The somewhat secluded and routinized life style
of a Groucho Marx (Marx, 1954) is so unlike the night club prowling of a Milton
Berle (197 4). Having made our point about the differences among comedians,
we would like to call attention to one similarity we did observe. We found,
without exception, that when we were talking with the clowns or comedians they
seemed to be interested in setting up relationships. They encouraged interaction.
Once they had agreed to being interviewed (and we describe in the next chapter
more about how interview arrangements were made), they .were invested. This
does not mean they were profusely friendly or ''buddy-buddy,'' but they com-
municated a desire to be heard. They conveyed a wish to set up a relationship that
would permit them to get certain ideas and views across.
We did detect another overt similarity among the comedians (but not the
clowns) we studied. This similarity involves an attitude or perspective that can
most economically be paraphrased as follows: ''I am like an anthropologist. My
job is to watch people and notice all of the quaint, strange things they do. I will
not take anything for granted about people. I will study them patiently and sooner
or later I will uncover absurdities." The average comedian moves among his
fellows like an anthropologist visiting a new culture. He is a relativist. Nothing
seems natural or "given." He is constantly taking mental notes. Many of the
comedians we interviewed told us their best material derives from just watching
people day after day. Comics who are on the road and moving from city to city
often prowl around when they arrive in a new town and try to isolate special
THE COMIC'S RESILIENCE 9
peculiarities of the people living there so that they can spotlight them in their
comic routines. One comic told us that he has found material for his act by just
visiting supermarkets in different cities. He has been fascinated with the special
customs about checking out and handling of grocery carts in certain locales.
Another comic closely watches the contrasting ways in which people walk. He
finds every new posture he observes to be intriguing; and he cleverly interprets
what it may mean concerning the personality of the individual involved. Phyllis
Diller (Wilde, 1973) reports that most of her material comes from a careful
scrutiny and analysis of the problems that the average housewife encounters. She
observes that the more a joke is based on solid truth, the funnier it is. Joey Bishop
(Wilde, 1973) has underscored curiosity as the main requirement for being a
good comedian. He feels that you have to be curious about everything, no matter
how routine, to dig out the inconsistencies and pearls that are basic to humor.
Here is his perspective in his own words (Wilde, 1973, p. 118): "You look at all
good comedians .... They will walk into a house and pick up articles and look at
them. It's curiosity. It's curiosity about the news, about science, it's curiosity
about anything that develops material. Unless you have a curious mind, you
cannot be a comedian. "
There is a striking parallel between this perspective and the scientific attitude.
The scientist is curious, observes, and takes nothing for granted. The comedian is
like a social scientist who prowls around looking for new patterns and new
insights about how people behave. Instead of publishing his findings in a scien-
tific journal, he immediately acts them out in the broad metaphors of comedy.
THE COMIC'S RESILIENCE
Although, in general, we have minimized similarity with reference to how com-

ics look on the outside and with reference to their overt actions, we do not mean
to imply that there are no fundamental similarities in their problems, fantasies,
conflicts, and concerns. Indeed, we present material later which shows that there
are important underlying commonalities among them which help to explain why
humor is so important in their lives.
In the course of our interviews of the clowns and comedians we did not get a
general impression of unusual personal disturbance or peculiarity. We were
surprised because we had read so much written by popular journalists which had
suggested that when comics are not performing they are inclined to be depressed
and rather maladjusted. This view has also been put forward by Janus (1975) who
interviewed a large number of well-known comedians. We have had a good deal
of clinical experience in detecting disturbance in people, but we simply failed to
see any unusual amount in the comics in our sample. We would like to add that
we administered the Rorschach Ink Blot Test, which is a widely used diagnostic
device, to these comics and we also failed to detect a significant surplus of

disturbance in their responses. We do not mean that signs of disturbance were
absent, but only that they were not any greater than one would find in various
other groups of normal people. In reading all of the available published biog-
raphies and autobiographies of comics, we were once again not impressed with
the amount of pathology that was described. Of course, there were a number of
instances of disturbance. Buster Keaton and W. C. Fields did become alcoholics.
Charlie Chaplin would from time to time develop hysterical loss of his voice.
Milton Berle apparently suffered from hysterical fainting spells in late adoles-
cence. Lenny Bruce was a serious drug addict. Mort Sahl seems to have had
some problems in reality testing. Jerry Lewis apparently struggles with depres-
sive trends. Jackie Gleason has fairly intense oral conflicts that result in extreme
eating habits. Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, Martha Raye, and others have had
great difficulty in establishing stable marriages. Some well-known comics have
had overt psychotic episodes. But overall, one does not get the impression that
the amount of disturbance exceeds that uncovered in various surveys of
psychological disturbance in normal populations (Srole et al., 1962).
As a matter of fact, we have been struck with the resilience and psychological
toughness of comedians. So many of them grew up in the worst of deprived
circumstances. So often they came from broken families. They were exposed to
unusual demands to grow up fast and to take adult-like responsibilities early in
adolescence. Consider a few examples. Charlie Chaplin, as a mere child, did not
know where his next meal was coming from and had to carry the weight of a
psychotic mother who made many demands on him. Jackie Gleason's father
deserted him when he was a young child and he had to cope with a grieving
disappointed mother for years. Joe E. Brown left his family to go with a circus
when he was only 10 years old and endured unending sadistic punishment from
the man to whom he had been apprenticed as an acrobat. Fred Allen's mother
died when he was a child and his father was an alcoholic who gave him little help
or support. Milton Berle was pushed by his mother into the impossible demands
of being a child actor and spent his adolescence in an unending grind on the road
playing vaudeville. During this time he was the main financial support of his
family because his father just could not consistently earn a living. W. C. Fields
lived under unbelievably deprived conditions as a child. He has said, although he
may have been lying, that he ran away from home because he thought his father
was going to kill him and for days he had to sleep in open fields. He had to steal
to get enough food to survive.
Despite all of the horror stories just cited, these comics forged ahead and
achieved notable success. They were creative, worked hard, and endured many
frustrations and failures. They participated capably in a very competitive voca-
tion. The great majority married, raised families, and survived to a reasonable
old age. Janus (1975), in his study of well-known male comedians, found that
THE COMIC'S RESILIENCE 11
about 95% married and established families. In the sample we studied, about
75% had married and about 20% had been divorced. 5
We would like to reiterate that being a comic is a demanding role. Every time
the comic appears before an audience he is clearly on trial. If he does not make
people laugh, he is a failure. Comics also testify that audiences are immensely
variable. You may get a great response at the afternoon show and a poor one
that same night. The comic is forever being tested and can never be sure of his
prowess with the next audience he encounters. Psychological studies have actu-
ally shown that enjoyment of humor and jokes is influenced by multiple things
like the size and sex composition and also the special ethnic and social attitudes
of the audience (Goldstein & McGhee, 1972). A good example of the delicate
balance of conditions that may affect response to a comedian is provided by a
study (Pollio & Edgerly, 1976) which compared Don Rickles and Bill Cosby. It
was found that the response to Don Rickles was influenced by how well the
members of the audience knew each other. People were more likely to laugh at
his clowning if they were part of a cohesive, friendly group. Those who are
sitting in an audience of strangers are less likely to laugh at Don Rickles. This
reflects perhaps the derision and hostility in Rickles's style which may not seem
so funny if you are with a bunch of strangers whose degree of friendliness is a
matter of ambiguity. By way of contrast, people were found to laugh as much at
Bill Cosby's more gentle humor whether they were with friends or strangers.
Most of the comics we interviewed (and also those seen by Janus) focused on
their uncertainty about their ability to get laughs. Their vocation is really unstable
by its very nature. Many comics have suffered gross reverses in their careers and
have fallen from popular favor fairly suddenly (for example, Buster Keaton,
Groucho Marx, Mort Sahl, Milton Berle). They have, in interviews and au-
tobiographies, described their anguish when they failed to be as funny as they
were supposed to be. But even in the face of such failure and their own sense of
never being vocationally secure, 6 they persist. They encounter an unusual quan-
5 Janus also found that about 85% of his comics had at some time in their lives sought
psychotherapeutic treatment. We did not specifically ask about this point in our own interviews, so
we are not in a position to evaluate the generality of Janus' finding. We would add, however, that the
statistic cited by Janus does not have any conclusive meaning about the amount of disturbance in his
group. We do not know what percentage of people in other occupations who have good incomes and
who live in large cities (as most of the comics do) seek psychotherapeutic assistance at some time in
their lives.
We used a formal measure of psychological disturbance, based on inkblot responses, namely,
Pathognomic Verbalization, developed and validated by Holtzman, Thorpe, Swartz, and Herron
( 1961) to determine if the comics were unusually disturbed. We could find no evidence that they were
more maladjusted than the actors or other normal groups.
6 Groucho Marx's son (Marx, 1954) has related in considerable humorous detail how frightened
his father was of imminent failure even at the height of his success. This is likewise true in Bert
Lahr 's son's description of his father.
tity of psychological turmoil in their work but somehow absorb it. We discuss
later the kinds of personality defenses comics evolve and how these defenses
serve them.
COMIC'S VIEW OF THE AUDIENCE
It is interesting to look at some of the images that comics construct of their

audiences. One fairly large segment build up a picture phrased in oppositional
terms. The people in the audience are objects to be conquered and controlled.
They will be made to laugh. They will be aroused and manipulated. This perspec-
tive is illustrated by the comments of one well-known comedian (Jimmie Ritz)
we interviewed: "You can feel an audience .... You want to make them want
more-to enjoy .... We have a basic business, ideas, bits, communica-
tion .... They enjoy us. We take control. They control us when they don't laugh.
If they laugh, we've got them."
Dick Gregory, a black comedian, is very open and explicit in linking the
comedian's laugh-getting prowess to power. He says (Wilde, 1973, p. 256):
"Power makes people laugh. L.B.J. can tell unfunny jokes. Your boss can tell
unfunny jokes .... This is why when the boss took you aside and told you an old
silly-assed joke that never made any sense ... you laughed.'' Gregory boasts
that he is such a powerful figure that (p. 257), ''I just wink and that makes them
laugh. It's amazing the effect power has on people." He goes so far as to say that
he has tried for brief periods not to get a laugh from an audience, but they still
laugh.
One of the comics we interviewed stated quite baldly: ''If you're not in
control people won't pay attention. You have to show them you're the boss. If
there happens to be a heckler in the audience and you find you can't control
them, then the whole audience turns into hecklers. My routine is like a machine
gun. No one can throw a word in."
Another group of comics seems to want to merge with the audience. They see
their job as one of getting the people ''out there'' to identify with them, to share
their perceptions. They surrender and submit themselves to the audience. In this
merging, the audience presumably becomes capable of seeing what is funny.
Note how this attitude is expressed by one of the comedians in our sample: ''I
become open. I have no protection. I trust you [the audience] to love me and
protect me .... I am saying, 'Here I am'. I could take my clothes off. Here I am
and they are kind .... I say, 'I am a nice guy and you gotta love me'. "
In a less extreme way, this same attitude was voiced by Donald O'Connor: "I
let my audience dictate to me. They are in control. Fast or slow. It's how you
wait for a laugh .... I wait and listen. See how they're responding to me. In
COMIC'S VIEW OF THE AUDIENCE 13
harmony. I may be hating it. I may not be with it. Frustrated. But I never burden
my audience. They don't know. They're to be entertained. " 7
Pat Cooper similarly said: "They [the audience] are important to me. I need
them. They are doing me a favor. I love them seven days a week."
A third major attitude we have found to exist has to do with defensiveness
about one's adequacy. The comic sees himself in an encounter in which he might
end up being ridiculed or exposed as someone worthless. He worries about
hecklers, being embarrassed, and being viewed as someone just plain silly. Here
are a few quotes from comedians that convey this feeling:
Your routine is a way of approaching. A facade. A mask .... You put on a

mask to hide what you really are. Afraid they will know. Most comics don't want to
be buffoons. If you show yourself they won't like you.
I analyze myself all the time. If I think I am not funny I feel ashamed.
You're as good as your last show. You can't satisfy 100% .... Everyone is a
critic. If they don't like it, it's bad.
As already indicated, this kind of concern is found in all of the comics to some
degree, even those who have achieved great success. But it stands out more
prominently as a major theme in some as compared to others.
One of the recurrent messages the comic delivered to us was that being funny
is not just a matter of telling jokes. Rather it is viewed as a presentation of self.
Comics do not deny the importance of having good humorous material to offer.
But they emphasize that the most effective and durable comedian is someone
who creates an overall appealing identity for himself. He communicates that he
has an underlying consistency and that he is trustworthy. He makes an impres-
sion that has style and character. We have yet to interview a comic who did not
directly or indirectly refer to this idea. Many well-known comics have voiced
similar ideas. For example, Woody Allen (Lax, 1975) felt that he did not become
an effective comic until he gave up his focus on individual jokes and worked on
the general presentation of himself as the Little Drip (the schlemiel who is
threatened by an endlessly strange environment). 8 Charlie Chaplin (1966) notes
in his autobiography that he generated his best comedy only after he had worked
7 Jimmy Durante has expressed a similar slant (Wilde, 1973, pp. 245-246): "You come out with
the band playing .... You try to make them feel they're sitting in their own homes, having a lot of
fun ... and you like to get intimate. The intimacy between you and your audience-that's what
counts .... It's no phony-and the audience is with you a hundred percent."
8 Some of Woody Allen's specific comments on this point are worth quoting (Wilde, 1973, p. 24):
"It's not the jokes .... It's the individual himself. When I first got started ... the same jokes I did at
that time that got nothing for me, now will get roars, and not because I am more known. It's the funny
character emergence that does it. You can take the worst material in the world and give it toW. C.
Fields or Groucho Marx, and there's just something that will come out funny."
out a general model of the Little Tramp. Once he clearly established his fictional
identity he became more inventive and his every gesture took on an integrated
meaning for the audience. Jack Benny, Joey Bishop (Wilde, 1973) and others
take a similar tack in emphasizing that you cannot be a long-term success as a
comic unless you convince audiences that you are honest, good, and worth
knowing. This matter of honesty and sincerity is one we refer to a good deal at a
later point. It is one of the most frequently recurring themes in the talk and
fantasies of the comedian.
We discovered that comics gave a great deal of complicated thought to the
character of their audience. They introduce certain jokes or eliminate certain
others as a function of who they think is tuning in. A good example of the
multiple things that may go through a comic's mind as he ponders an audience
appeared in a discussion we had with the black comic, Jimmy Walker, when he
was working in a Miami night club. Here is part of what he had to say:
I didn't want to come here. They said it was good for my career. This crowd is
Jewish and consists of families. Rigid. The family usually consists of young kids
seven to ten; a teenager about 15; the parents are 45 to 55. Wide range. There is the
psychology of the father; he doesn't want to be here. He doesn't spend much time
usually with the family. This is his effort at a family holiday. He wants to show
everyone that he treats the family right. He takes them on a family vacation.
Usually they go to the Concord. The entertainment is included in the cost. Here it's
not. There's been no sun here this week. (So everyone is frustrated.) These men
like to be with the young chicks-but here they are with their families instead. The
wife likes it because there are no dishes. The husband is concerned with his own
impotence. So he's resistive. The youngest child in the family is too young. He
wants to see something physical. That's not my reality.
The colored kid on TV that I play has a favorite saying: 'Dy-No-Mite'. That's
what they expect me to say. I don't want to say it-but I do at times. I can't be
hostile. I am supposed to be cheerie. They're unhappy. No sun, lot of dinners. Very
hostile crowd. I didn't see the reviews but I don't think they liked me. Not my kind
of crowd. I came here against my better judgment. The situation is not conducive to
humor.
I dropped all material from my act on economy, Caucasians, Gerald Ford.
These people are not hurting financially. If you talk about these topics, it makes
them feel guilty.
He tailored his jokes accordingly. But we could see from our interview mate-
rial that he felt like an alien appearing before this group and was experiencing a
great deal of anxiety about it. He sensed his own distance from these people and
was really uncomfortable. As one might expect under the circumstances, his
performance did not go well, and he was angrily disappointed. It is incidentally
apropos to point out that Charlie Chaplin ( 1966) had a parallel sort of experience
in his first and last venture as a stand-up comedian. In his youth, he tried to
entertain a Jewish group in London that was culturally alien to him. He worked
COMIC'S VIEW OF THE AUDIENCE 15
up an act full of Jewish dialect material to present to this audience and he flopped
catastrophically. His experience of that hostile audience scarred him for a long
time. 9
Comics do come across as rather competitive in their occupational attitudes.
They are fascinated with winning recognition and they dream of making the ''big
time.'' Quite a number that we interviewed, although not nationally known, were
in a solid second echelon of entertainers who work regularly in fairly prestigious
night clubs. But they were typically dissatisfied with the recognition they had
received. They tantalized themselves with dreams of glory-of becoming
another Milton Berle or Jack Benny. One comic who volunteered that he was
already making over one hundred thousand dollars a year said he felt like a
failure because he knew that the top comedians could earn that much for just a
few performances. It is our impression that unless a comedian reaches stardom he
feels he has fallen grossly short. But we were also intrigued to discover that the
highly successful comedian is frequently amazed at the impact he has achieved.
He cannot believe that he is as good as he apparently is. He is almost shocked at
the adulation people bestow. He is surprised that so many significant people want
to associate with him. Tommy Smothers gave us the impression that when he and
his brother became phenomenally successful he was rather awed by the ''heavy
people-presidents of the network, senators, and stuff like this-and I was
talking to them like this-a one to one relationship which I'd never had before."
There is a good deal of similar material in Chaplin's autobiography. He could
never get used to the idea that other famous people like Einstein and Churchill
were interested in meeting him. He tells a really poignant story about the fairytale
way in which he discovered that he had become an almost mythically admired
figure. After he had released a number of his early successful films he got on a
train, going from California to New York. En route he was mobbed by crowds
that met him at every stop. He was stunned by the masses of people who wanted
to pay him homage. He remarks in his book at one point (Chaplin, 1966, p. 187):
"I kept thinking the world had gone crazy! If a few slapstick comedies could
arouse such excitement, was there not something bogus about all celebrity? I had
always thought I would like the public's attention, and here it was-
paradoxically isolating me with a depressing sense of loneliness." Laurel and
Hardy (McCabe, 1974) had a similar experience when they undertook a tour of
Europe and were greeted by massive crowds everywhere. They were over-
whelmed and really unbelieving that people held them in such super esteem.
9 His feelings on that occasion are vividly expressed in his own prose (Chaplin, 1966, p. 92):
After the first couple of jokes the audience started throwing coins and orange peels and stamping
their feet and booing. At first I was not conscious of what was going on. Then the horror of it filtered
into my mind. I began to hurry and talk faster as the jeers, the razzberries and the throwing of coins
and orange peels increased. When I came off the stage ... I went straight to the dressing room ...
left the theater and never returned, not even to collect my music books.
It is also apparent, however, that after a period of adaptation many famous

comedians get hooked on adulation and feel lost without it. Milton Berle (1974)
relates in his autobiography how driven he was, especially when he felt down or
frustrated, to go to public places like night clubs where people would recognize
him and shower him with attention. Jack Benny (Fein, 1976) could not stand
taking a vacation in Cuba because people there were not acquainted with him and
he was just another anonymous figure. Further, we were struck with the sadness
of several famous but aging comedians we interviewed who felt that they were
declining in public recognition. They seemed to be desperately looking for ways
to rejuvenate their careers. Of course, the pain of decline is not unique to come-
dians. But what we saw in these aging comedians paralleled the pervasive con-
cern we sensed in all of the comedians we got to know, that they might not be
able to stir their next audience to laugh.
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Pretend The World Is Funny and Forever

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This edition published 2014 by Psychology Press

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Copyright© 1981 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

ISBN- 13: 978- 1-315-80294-7 (ebk)

1. Where and How do Comedians Surface? 1

2. Exploring the Comic Personality 17

3. Comics, Angels, Devils, and Anarchists 36

4. There Is a Little Lie in Everything 73

5. Feeling Small and Down 90

6. The Child Schlemiel 109

7. Amateur Humor Producers 132

8. Being an Actor: The Time Integrators 149

9. Performers, Entertainers, and

10. Perspectives 189

Author Index 247

Subject Index 251

1. He made fun of a prominent politician.

3. He highlighted a number of common difficulties and paradoxes that occur

He obviously bombarded his audience with his perspectives on a wide gamut of

we bridge contradictions in our lives; how we make occupational choices to fit

First and foremost, we wish to express our appreciation to the comedians,

EARLY SCHOOL EXPERIENCES

Tommy Smothers, a well-known stand-up comic, gave us a great deal of

circus performers (Joe E. Brown). It is important to keep in mind that most

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES AMONG COMICS

similarity. It would be hard to verbalize what similarity we expected to find.

THE COMIC'S RESILIENCE

Although, in general, we have minimized similarity with reference to how com-

device, to these comics and we also failed to detect a significant surplus of

COMIC'S VIEW OF THE AUDIENCE

It is interesting to look at some of the images that comics construct of their

Your routine is a way of approaching. A facade. A mask .... You put on a

It is also apparent, however, that after a period of adaptation many famous

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