Woody Allen
--Woody Allen: a Biography, John Baxter (1998).
-- Interview with Annenberg/CPB. | |
|
--Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s , Gerald Nachman (2003).
Erma Bombeck (1927-1992)
--From erma's life: growing up on www.ermamuseum.org. |
|
Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)
--Greatest Pages of American Humor (1936).
--Interview on the occasion of Bob Newhart being awarded The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2002. |
|
S. J. Perelman. Once describing himself as “wafer-thin, razor-sharp, and button-cute,” S(ydney) J(oseph) Perelman (1904–1979)
was one of the great parodists of the twentieth century. He wrote mostly for the
New Yorker throughout his long career.
His style was complex, almost surreal. The typical Perelman essay begins with a short quote from an advertisement or a newspaper article that has sparked his imagination (or more likely raised his ire). Soon the prose vectors off in unexpected directions, with intellectual terms bumping against low slang. Perelman's prose shines like a diamond: he was a slow writer, often spending hours honing just one or two sentences. Benchley, praising his friend and colleague, S. J. Perelman, once said:
--From the introduction to The most of the most of S. J. Perelman, p. vi. Robert Benchley, another of the twentieth century's great parodists (perhaps the greatest of all, many say, though Max Beerbohm would have to be included in any twentieth century parody smackdown), had a style distinct from Perelman's in many ways. Benchley is easy to read aloud, for example, but Perelman is more challenging: the tight, convoluted sentences usually work best when read silently. For all that, Perelman could create masterful comic dialog: he wrote the scripts for the Marx Brothers’ comedies, Monkey Business and Horsefeathers, and later wrote the script for Around the World in Eighty Days. Like so many other writers seduced by Hollywood, though, he was unhappy during his tenure there. Perelman’s essays are crammed with obscure references to art, literature, geography (he was a peripatetic world traveler), music, philosophy, religion, and popular culture. For example, the first few pages of “The Avant-garde Vernacular,” a typical Perelman essay (if there is such a thing), contain references to Truman Capote, Modigliani, Dolly Madison ice cream cones, Oaxaca, Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Capricorn,” and Arnold Schoenberg! Still, the prose remains light and breezy. Many modern humorists owe a debt to S. J. Perelman, most notably Woody Allen and Britain’s Alan Coren. One also sees the Perelman influence in the writings of Wolcott Gibbs and E. B. White. Coren is perhaps the greatest living exponent of the Perelman style (with a British twist), though Allen’s books, Getting Even and Without Feathers, are paeans to Perelman. [Above entry courtesy of Mr. Christopher Morgan, RBS Archivist.]
--from Benchley's obituary in the New York Times (November 22, 1945). |
|
Will Rogers (1879-1935)
--from Benchley's column in Life magazine (February 15, 1923).
Jean Shepherd (1921-1999)
-- "Veni, Vidi, Vidiocy" The Village Voice (December 5, 1956) |
|
H. Allen Smith (1906-1976) [
Fan Site ] [
Another Fan Site ]
--Desert Island Decameron (1945)
James Thurber (1894-1962)
|
Copyright ©2003-2005 Robert Benchley Society, Boston, Mass. All Rights Reserved.
Design: David Trumbull