Comedy

What Happened to Pieing Powerful People in the Face?

by Rossi Anastopoulo

For three decades beginning in the 1970s, political groups used the time-honored comedy move as a way of humbling the powerful and (mostly) non-violently resisting bigotry. Why have public pieings nearly vanished? 

Are Conservatives Really Pulling Ahead in the Comedy Race?

Does a ratings boost for Greg Gutfeld's late-night show mean that today's conservatives are the funny ones and liberals are too "woke" to laugh? Answering the question means looking past party loyalty to ask what makes humor, says humor historian Teresa Prados-Terreira. 

The Writer of "The Onion" SCOTUS Brief Takes Parody Seriously

The satirical newspaper's brief employed the rhetorical mode to lay out the free speech implications of a case involving a man who faced retaliatory arrest for making a parody facebook account for his local police department. 

Mel Brooks Delivers 500 Pages on His Favorite Subject – Himself

"The stuff that hasn’t been public, or at least is tough to find, makes the book worthwhile."

‘We Had a Little Real Estate Problem’: Native American Comedians Get Their Due | Book review

Charlie Hill’s TV debut, making him the first Indigenous comedian in prime time, is one of the milestones that Kliph Nesteroff chronicles in We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, an illuminating and stereotype-busting history of Native Americans and comedy.

Carl Reiner’s Life Should Remind Us: If You Like Laughing, Thank FDR And The New Deal

Reiner’s brother saw a small ad in the New York Daily News about free acting lessons being offered in lower Manhattan by the Works Progress Administration. Reiner had never contemplated acting before in his life, but his brother insisted, so he went.

Finding the Funny: Historians’ Lectures Provide Material for Improv Comedians

A Philadelphia improv comedy group has been inviting historians to collaborate for years in performances mixing historical lecture and improvised reenactments.  

In Jerry Stiller, the Rage of Jewish Fathers Found a Hilarious Outlet

Jerry Stiller mined a rich comedic vein that was rooted in cultural conflict between Jewish immigrants and their American-born children.