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Ladies and Gentlemen this is Alan Grier presenting another comic artist close up. Your memory is helpful. It's a helpmeet therapy of living and I might believe that the more you are we have there happier we will be. Michigan State University radio presents the comic arts and essay in sound on the humor of our times featuring the comic the humorist the joke writer the clown the Dauntless individuals who work in the world of comedy. If there is any one man in America who is concerned day and night with a national sense of humor and its condition. That man is George to Lewis he is founder and director of an extensive complex of humor oriented organizations including the humor exchange network the National Association of gag writers and the New York comedy workshop. He
specializes exclusively in the promotion and development of humor related activities and his motto is did you make someone laugh today. George kewl thank you wow. I'd like to mention at this point Mr. Lewis is the author and editor of a book which is titled The greatest jokes of all time. And how did you know the title of the title is The Better bad joke of all time but they of course they write the greatest jokes of all time the best jokes of all time I haven't tell them. And these jokes really are the best jokes that we've found over a period of years. They were just as good in 1976 as they were in one thousand twenty six. So to be just as good a New Year 2000 26 as they were 19 20 I think they have the ability of remaining constant because they're basic. We've compiled them in many ways of course we send out notes to our image Jay's network members
and to submit jokes and I of course receive thousands and thousands of jokes each year which I sort of like fly away and I find that there are basic jokes which keep popping up time and time again the same jokes. And because they are constant we choose them as the kind of jokes that people like most. Well this is probably a bad example but as to what you mean by a basic joke the familiar the mayor Lyda Who was that lady I saw you with last night. That was the lady that was my wife. Yes there is a formula for doing jokes there are we have listed in the book 150 categories actually are probably would be perhaps five of the categories that you can go with from A to Z. You know from or will be able to zoos and the job sort of like fit but basically they're almost the same when you think of that legend that Mark Twain is sort of credited with that there are only
three basic jokes or seven basic jokes. We feel that's truly a joke is set up with a sort of what we call a straight line and we have Mr. direction and the punch line to get the laugh. And these are all set up that way they all tell a little story about the currents and then they give you what we call a mis direction to get your reaction. In the business of glass and working with the laughing arts and the humor media of course. The basic commodity is the joke or the gag or perhaps leave the site that the visual joke. These are things all these dying to reach our funny bone to touch our recent bill of these and yet we perceive an anybody who is in the business quickly comes to learn that the professional practitioners are very serious about this business you have a comment on why cavity people are so serious about their own field that it's been so tough that
they appreciate how necessary it is to apply yourself. Like they say it's no joke. So actually it's been said time and time again that comedy is a serious business because it is a business you are going out to try to get some sort of a payment for your efforts and when you get into the professional aspects of the business you have to study at it and you have to learn it. It's a job it's a tough job it's not easy to get up in front of people to do anything whether you're a salesman or a butt or anything at all but when you are a comedian you're selling yourself. You're trying to sell something new. And the insecurity of the business is such that people become tense and therefore they become serious. A man starting out as a clerk later forgets Alice herself. Oh well when you get into any business is competitive with this you must
find at the top that this first of all there's no in the business of the world that pays a million dollars a year to people for just so little work. Actually So the competitive society channelers the great people into this communication and the people who are the best are paid off. There's always a search for the for the new people and this of course is what encourages of the youngsters that go into the business. Now you take an example like Woody Allen which is maybe 10 years ago I was making about $50 a week as a press agent and you know this year or next year he's reputed to be very good and over a million dollars. Now that's pretty good for a little guy who doesn't weigh more than 250 pounds. He can't do a box. He can't beat cashews clay. So actually when you come down to it
it's such a tremendous business where the opportunity of making a fortune. It is open to a great many people. There's a Jerry Lewis and the Bob Hope and big Crosby. So many people who are making a million dollars a year so that people if they don't actually want to try to make myself. What you say what segments of society are whereabouts like what segment seem to discover the rising or emerging comic artist first that you kept on with perhaps the college students that you know married adults teenagers and so on to a position of general popularity. Well in the past that used to be what we call the poverty stricken Eastside kids would be the comic because he was always trying to develop superiority through laughter he would laugh at life and therefore he became so overly clown of his neighborhood. Today though it's primarily the college kids who have the time to spend at development four or five years in college as a
member of a dramatic group or a comedy group or perhaps with a You magazine is the training ground today for the youngsters. Do you think that that there is an area in which the educational field can make a better use for its own purposes of humor or some aspect of humor. Do you think possibly this has been an overlooked subject in the area of pick higher education. I'm glad you asked that question. Yes actually I do I feel that we are overlooking the responsibility in the elementary and secondary schools of providing the school children with a sense of humor. Everyone sort of feels that your memory is so personal that we can't do anything about it we should try to avoid it and I don't share that view I think that we should try if we can to focus attention on it. Humor is helpful. It's a healthy
therapy of living and not my belief is that the more you are we have the happier we will be and I think if we just overlook it and put our heads in the sand and say well no one can do anything about it we're not taking a proper view of what can education do about it specifically. Well I think for one thing I think if we could encourage the youngsters to learn jokes why not. Jokes are to degrade truth in a human wrist. You point there and you were a container so this bacon you can learn an awful lot from humor if it helps you and communicating it helps you and get me a better attitude among your fellow students and fellow man in for trying. If our goal in life is survival and the pursuit of happiness. When I started early and become aware of it why ignore it until you're 21.
Many of the universities of course have extensive dramatic and the ethical courses in which a college student can major from what you observed at best you think they are giving it up attention to having the right of the ethical. No they aren't and that's only because they have become aware of how difficult it is to be creative in your memory. It's much easier to do revivals like Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw than it is to do a human risk contemporary play there are so few numbers contemporary plays on Broadway and examples that the great producers of our day don't know what's funny. David Merrick Alex Cohen and they have troubles. Now they have troubles. See how great the trouble would be for someone who's not this much involved who has got a million dollars back. George as you know I have used myself in the capacity of a
guinea pig as we might say in the comedy field too to discover some of things in the course I have been interested in that basically with or without this particular series. But I have come to New York and with your guidance and the help of a great many people here. You were put me through the mill of the comedy workshop and had me do a routine. Now what would be your your critique Could you repeat some of the critique that your client thought you were sort of like. Will Rogers with a cigar. And I thought what you should do is take the humor of the bucolic you were a guest of the room Rogers that universal type of soft you were a blend it with the George Burns is. Cigar and Ian both together would give you an image that I think could be a winning one. I think when you try to merge yourself after a Bob Hope you find
your be failing because Bob Hope has his own image and it's very difficult to do his type of human or a strong sock jokes unless you have as he has eight or ten writers working for you he paid his writers $2000 a week. Most young comics I know can afford it. I should say all young comics can't afford it or not most. Even if you're a London lady and you have a very rich father you would hesitate about spending that much money when you're supported by a network and you are sort of like America's number one comedian and you can have well everybody probably in the in the country would like to write for Bob Hope because he is and is the mission. You can't do that you can't afford to do that so you must try to find your own style. After a while back I think though there is nothing like experience and experiment the only way you can find out anything is to
face it. Not too many people develop delusions of grandeur about their abilities and they don't go out and face the every day sort of customer and find out whether or not they can sell him. When you find out and you know whether or not you're on the right road would you say that I or a person like me has a feel for this type of copy that year. Yes it is in there somewhere. I do but I think again you must become aware of your audience and try to you can to serve the audience that wants you. Rather than go out into a nightclub and try to face a sort of a demanding audience at once Henny Youngman you should try to find your audience and they're probably not your millions of people I would like to know about you that like everything else you have to merchandise your type of humor. This comic artist close up has featured the man who devotes his full time and energy to the
discovery and development of the future funny men and women of America makes it his business to encourage the creative comedy artist a coordinator for comedy and the people who pursue it. George to Lewis. Portions of this program were pre recorded for the comic arts. The comic arts series with Alan wire is produced by Michigan State University Radio in cooperation with the humor societies of America program consultant George Q. Lewis the music by Jerry Tillman. Your announcer can be checker. For. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.
Series
The comic arts II
Episode
George Q. Lewis
Producing Organization
Michigan State University
WKAR (Radio/television station : East Lansing, Mich.)
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-mp4vnq1q
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/500-mp4vnq1q).
Description
Series Description
For series info, see Item 3529. This prog.: George Q. Lewis: Did You Make Someone Laugh Today?
Date
1968-11-08
Topics
Humor
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:14:54
Embed Code
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Credits
Producing Organization: Michigan State University
Producing Organization: WKAR (Radio/television station : East Lansing, Mich.)
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 68-29-10 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:14:38
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Citations
Chicago: “The comic arts II; George Q. Lewis,” 1968-11-08, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-mp4vnq1q.
MLA: “The comic arts II; George Q. Lewis.” 1968-11-08. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-mp4vnq1q>.
APA: The comic arts II; George Q. Lewis. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-mp4vnq1q