Sick Comedy
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Sick Comedy
Sick comedy was a term originally used by mainstream news weeklies ''Time'' and ''Life'' to distinguish a style of comedy/satire that was becoming popular in the United States in the late 1950s. Foreword to the 1995 Italian edition of Bruce's book. Mainstream comic taste in the United States had favored more innocuous forms, such as the topical but (for the time) inoffensive one-liners in Bob Hope's routines. In contrast, the new comedy favored observational monologues, often with elements of cynicism, social criticism and political satire. As a guest at the first airing of the '' Playboy's Penthouse'' show in 1959, Lenny Bruce objected to a ''Time'' article indiscriminately grouping seven new comedians, labeling them as "sick comics". Also appears on the 2004 Bruce anthology ''Let The Buyer Beware'', Disc One, last track ''Lenny On Playboy's Penthouse (with Hugh Hefner & Nat "King" Cole)''.) (These were Lenny Bruce, political satirist Mort Sahl, Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winte ...
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Time (magazine)
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on March 3, 1923, and for many years it was run by its influential co-founder, Henry Luce. A European edition (''Time Europe'', formerly known as ''Time Atlantic'') is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa, and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition (''Time Asia'') is based in Hong Kong. The South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney. Since 2018, ''Time'' has been published by Time USA, LLC, owned by Marc Benioff, who acquired it from Meredith Corporation. History ''Time'' has been based in New York City since its first issue published on March 3, 1923, by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce. It was the first weekly news magazine in the United States. The two had ...
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Elaine May
Elaine Iva May (née Berlin; born April 21, 1932) is an American comedian, filmmaker, playwright, and actress. She has received numerous awards including an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Grammy, and a Tony. She made her initial impact in the 1950s with her improvisational comedy routines with Mike Nichols, before transitioning as a groundbreaking film director starting in the 1970s onward. In 1955, May moved to Chicago and became a founding member of the Compass Players, an improvisational theater group. She began working alongside Nichols and in 1957, they both quit the group to form their own stage act, Nichols and May. In New York they performed nightly in clubs in Greenwich Village alongside Joan Rivers and Woody Allen as well as on the Broadway stage. They also made regular appearances in television and radio broadcasts. They released multiple comedy albums and received four Grammy Award nominations winning Best Comedy Album for '' An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May'' in 1962 ...
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Comedy Genres
Comedy may be divided into multiple genres based on the source of humor, the method of delivery, and the context in which it is delivered. These classifications overlap, and most comedians can fit into multiple genres. For example, deadpan Deadpan, dry humour, or dry-wit humour is the deliberate display of emotional neutrality or no emotion, commonly as a form of comedic delivery to contrast with the ridiculousness or absurdity of the subject matter. The delivery is meant to be blun ... comics often fall into observational comedy, or into black comedy or blue comedy to contrast the morbidity, or offensiveness of the joke with a lack of emotion. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Comedic Genres ...
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Black Comedy
Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discuss. Writers and comedians often use it as a tool for exploring vulgar issues by provoking discomfort, serious thought, and amusement for their audience. Thus, in fiction, for example, the term ''black comedy'' can also refer to a genre in which dark humor is a core component. Popular themes of the genre include death, crime, poverty, suicide, war, violence, terrorism, discrimination, disease, racism, sexism, and human sexuality. Black comedy differs from both blue comedy—which focuses more on crude topics such as nudity, sex, and Body fluids—and from straightforward obscenity. Whereas the term ''black comedy'' is a relatively broad term covering humor relating to many serious subjects, ''gallows humor'' tends to be used more ...
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Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s, better known as Beatniks. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration. Allen Ginsberg's '' Howl'' (1956), William S. Burroughs' '' Naked Lunch'' (1959), and Jack Kerouac's '' On the Road'' (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.Charters (1992) ''The Portable Beat Reader''. Both ''Howl'' and ''Naked Lunch'' were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States.Ann Ch ...
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Dick Gregory
Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) was an American comedian, civil rights leader, business owner and entrepreneur, and vegetarian activist. His writings were best sellers. Gregory became popular among the African-American communities in the southern United States with his "no-holds-barred" sets, poking fun at the bigotry and racism in the United States. In 1961 he became a staple in the comedy clubs, appeared on television, and released comedy record albums. Gregory was at the forefront of political activism in the 1960s, when he protested the Vietnam War and racial injustice. He was arrested multiple times and went on many hunger strikes. He later became a speaker and author, primarily promoting spirituality. Gregory died of heart failure, aged 84, at a Washington, D.C., hospital in August 2017. Early life Gregory was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Lucille, a housemaid, and Presley Gregory. At Sumner High School, he was aided by ...
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Hipster (1940s Subculture)
240px, The "classic quintet": Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter, Miles Davis">Tommy_Potter.html" ;"title="Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter">Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach performing at Three Deuces in New York City. Photograph by William P. Gottlieb (August 1947), Library of Congress. Hipster or hepcat, as used in the 1940s, referred to aficionados of jazz, in particular bebop, which became popular in the early 1940s. The hipster subculture adopted the lifestyle of the jazz musician, including some or all of the following features: dress, slang, use of cannabis and other recreational drugs, relaxed attitude, sarcastic humble or self-imposed poverty, and relaxed sexual mores. History The words ''hep'' and '' hip'' are of uncertain origin, with numerous competing theories being proposed. In the early days of jazz, musicians were using the ''hep'' variant to describe anybody who was "in the know" about an emerging, mostly African-American s ...
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Charles Addams
Charles Samuel Addams (January 7, 1912 – September 29, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his darkly humorous and macabre characters, signing the cartoons as Chas Addams. Some of his recurring characters became known as the Addams Family, and were subsequently popularized through various adaptations. Early life Addams was born in Westfield, New Jersey. The son of Grace M. (née Spear; 1879–1943) and Charles Huey Addams (1873–1932), a piano company executive who had studied to be an architect, he was known as "something of a rascal around the neighborhood" as childhood friends recalled. Addams was distantly related to U.S. presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, despite the different spellings of their last names, and was a first cousin twice removed to noted social reformer Jane Addams. Addams would enjoy the Presbyterian Cemetery on Mountain Avenue in Westfield as a child, where – according to author, and Addams expert Ron MacCloskey – he would wo ...
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Cartoon
A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images intended for satire, caricature, or humor; or a motion picture that relies on a sequence of illustrations for its animation. Someone who creates cartoons in the first sense is called a '' cartoonist'', and in the second sense they are usually called an '' animator''. The concept originated in the Middle Ages, and first described a preparatory drawing for a piece of art, such as a painting, fresco, tapestry, or stained glass window. In the 19th century, beginning in ''Punch'' magazine in 1843, cartoon came to refer – ironically at first – to humorous artworks in magazines and newspapers. Then it also was used for political cartoons and comic strips. When the medium developed, in the early 20th century, it began to refer to animate ...
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Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer (born January 26, 1929)''Comics Buyer's Guide'' #1650; February 2009; Page 107 is an American cartoonist and author, who was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 as North-America's leading editorial cartoonist, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. He wrote the animated short ''Munro'', which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1961. The Library of Congress has recognized his "remarkable legacy", from 1946 to the present, as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children's book author, illustrator, and art instructor. When Feiffer was 17 (in the mid-1940s) he became assistant to cartoonist Will Eisner. There he helped Eisner write and illustrate his comic strips, including '' The Spirit''. In 1956 he became a staff cartoonist at ''The Village Voice'', where he produced the weekly comic strip titled ''Feiffer'' until 1997. His cartoons became nationally s ...
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Mad (magazine)
''Mad'' (stylized as ''MAD'') is an American humor magazine first published in 1952. It was founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines, launched as a comic book series before it became a magazine. It was widely imitated and influential, affecting satirical media, as well as the cultural landscape of the 20th century, with editor Al Feldstein increasing readership to more than two million during its 1973–74 circulation peak. The magazine, which was the last surviving title from the EC Comics line, publishes satire on all aspects of life and popular culture, politics, entertainment, and public figures. Its format included TV and movie parodies, and satire articles about everyday occurrences that are changed to seem humorous. ''Mad''s mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, was often on the cover, with his face replacing that of a celebrity or character who was being lampooned. From 1952 to 2018, ''Mad'' published 550 regular magazine issues, as well as scores of reprin ...
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Daniele Luttazzi
Daniele Luttazzi (; born Daniele Fabbri on 26 January 1961) is an Italian theater actor, writer, satirist, illustrator and singer. His stage name is an homage to musician and actor Lelio Luttazzi. His favourite topics are politics, religion, sex and death. Biography Luttazzi was born in Santarcangelo di Romagna, province of Rimini. He began his comic career performing satirical monologues in theatre shows and writing comedy books. In 1988, his monologue won an award in a comedy contest held at Rome's Teatro Sistina. From 1989, he began working in TV variety shows: ''Fate il vostro gioco'' (1989, Rai 2), ''Banane'' (1989, Telemontecarlo), ''Magazine 3'' (1993, 1994, Rai 3), ''Mai Dire Gol'' (1996, 1997, Italia 1). In 1998, he hosts his own late night show, ''Barracuda'' ( Italia 1). Luttazzi did monologues about recent news, interviews with famous showbiz and political personalities, and skits for adult audiences. The same formula was then adopted for his next TV show, ...
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