Richard Zoglin, a former colleague of mine at Time magazine, has written an excellent piece of history of entertainment history called Comedy At The Edge, about stand-up comedy in the 1970s. Not only has Richard been a longtime observer of the stand-up scene, but he is a top-notch reporter, and the book captures the broad history of this phenomenon, while offering rich and insightful details about the comics themselves. In this interview for Playboy.com, Richard answers some:
PLAYBOY: Your book is subtitled How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America. Okay—what was so special about what happened in the 1970s, and how did it change America?
ZOGLIN: I think the stand-ups of the late ’60s and ’70s really articulated and even helped shape the attitudes that we identify with the social and cultural revolution of the time: suspicious of authority, expressing a new freedom of language and sex, calling into question the hypocrisy and outmoded morality of old ’50s-era America – all the hits of the counterculture years. How did these comedians change America? They reshaped our sense of humor — and our sense of humor is what defines us today, provides the framework for how we look at the world and at ourselves.
PLAYBOY: Like a lot of writers who’ve looked at comedy during this period, you give a lot of credit to Lenny Bruce for laying the groundwork for so many of those who Followed. However, unlike many critics, you don’t think he was quite as funny as those who followed in his footsteps. Care to elaborate?
ZOGLIN: I really tried to take a fresh look at Lenny. I’ve never really laughed that much at his stuff, and I still don’t. I don’t think he was a great craftsman of comedy the way Carlin or Klein were – guys who tackled some of the same subjects Bruce was talking about and really shaped them into sharper satiric bits. But the more I listened to Bruce, the more I realized why he was such a monument for the younger guys. First he showed that a comedian could be a social commentator and a rebel; the stuff he did about race and sex and middle-class morality and such was just so advanced for the time. It was really an inspiration. And second, he showed that stand-up comedy could be intensely personal – not just a guy telling jokes, but a guy providing a raw, uncensored look inside his psyche. And I think that was a revelation for the younger comics and something they decided to build on.
PLAYBOY: Many critics believe Richard Pryor to be the most brilliant comic of his generation. Do you agree? If so, wherein did his genius lie? If not, who deserves that honorific?
ZOGLIN: I think Pryor was the greatest at some things. As a performer he was without peer – his characters and evocations of his ghetto childhood are really breathtaking. And he set the standard for the stand-up as a self-revealing artist; no one could dig inside himself the way Pryor could and turn the pain into comedy. Was he my personal favorite? No. His comedy didn’t have the verbal brilliance of Carlin at his best. And I think Albert Brooks, who really invented the whole ironic, self-parodying style, was a genius.
PLAYBOY: Robert Klein has been such a comfortable presence in our lives for so long that it’s hard to think of him as new and innovative. Is he underestimated?
ZOGLIN: Definitely underestimated. He was the first stand-up who really expressed the new-generation spirit, and didn’t have to transform his image to do so. Unlike Pryor and Carlin, who were short-haired, Ed Sullivan-friendly comics before they reinvented themselves, Klein was a hip, long-haired guy who had all the right attitudes from the start – about government, corporate exploitation, TV commercials, whatever. He just struck a chord. And people today don’t realize how that style of his – the fast-paced mix of jokes and characters, one-liners and improv – set the template for so many of the comedians that came after. After Lenny Bruce, Klein is the guy most often mentioned as an influence by the younger comics.
PLAYBOY: I guess Letterman and Leno will always be paired. What was it that enabled each to break through, and that has subsequently helped each to last so long on such a prominent stage?
ZOGLIN: It’s funny how symbiotic their careers were. They were both big at the Comedy Store in LA in the mid-70s – though Leno was much more experienced, and Letterman looked up to him. I think what linked them was their ironic, everyman attitude toward experience. They showed that you didn’t need a carefully crafted one-liner to point out the absurdity of things. All you had to do was look at it through their eyes and you’d see how stupid it was! Somehow that was incredibly relatable for the audience (even though neither of them were very self-revealing comics), and they managed to make huge careers out of it.
PLAYBOY: I’d like to toss out some names now. Please do the near-impossible, and summarize the brilliance of each in a couple of line. First, Robin Williams:
ZOGLIN: He took the Lenny Bruce free-association style and took it to its extreme. It was stand-up turned into performance art. Robin made everybody realize there were no boundaries, and helped liberate stand-up even further.
PLAYBOY: Steve Martin
ZOGLIN: He was the great satirist of our entertainment-drenched culture. He was poking fun at himself, at all of show business, and at the audience too: Look at what people will do onstage to get a laugh, he was saying — and what you idiots will laugh at it! And I think at his peak he may have been the greatest laugh-getter of all.
PLAYBOY: Andy Kaufman
ZOGLIN: He was the furthest extension of the self-parody that Albert Brooks and Steve Martin had brought to stand-up. And a great, uncompromising conceptual artist, who explored just how much an audience would sit still for in the name of “entertainment.”
PLAYBOY: Sam Kinison
ZOGLIN: His screaming shtick was just a brilliant and fresh way to make people sit up and take notice. And after years in which stand-ups were beginning to think all the taboos had been broken, he found a whole bunch of new ones.
PLAYBOY: Sometimes when I watch stand-up today, I feel that I see a lot of comedians who are trying to top their predecessors by being more sexual, more profane, more outrageous, more postmodernly conceptual, but who are not succeeding in actually being funny. Who makes you laugh now?
ZOGLIN: When I go to the clubs in New York, I usually get a little depressed. Everyone seems so similar, and so desperate in their effort to push the boundaries. But I like Greg Geraldo’s political humor, and some of Lewis Black’s rants. And I’ve liked some of the younger guys I’ve seen lately. I’ll paraphrase one line I liked recently. Bill Burr, complaining about having to go to a street fair with his girlfriend: “Golng to a street fair is a typical girlfriend’s idea. It sucks. And it’s gonna take all Saturday.” That made me laugh.