Laughter Is Still the Most Valid Currency of Comedy

Apparently the debate continues to rage over whether comedians can still be funny in their later years. I respect and admire Ernest Chambers, but his remarks recently in Calendar seem to indicate that “old Ernie” might not have aged as well as some of the comics (“The Joke’s on Comics Who Don’t Change,” Counterpunch, Nov. 24).

Anyone who has recently seen Jackie Mason, Norm Crosby or Red Buttons would immediately begin to dispute the “deterioration” philosophy. Henny Youngman and Milton Berle are in their 90s. Not as fast, but just as funny.

While Berle could no longer tap-dance as fast as he did with the Dunhills or take the pratfalls he did with Martha Raye, there is not one of the young comics who could ever do all that he could do, and it’s not all in the past. Berle is a helluva lot funnier today than Andrew Dice Clay, and he can still do an hour-and-a-half whether you want him to or not.

I love the new breed of comics and have been somewhat intimately involved in the careers of many of them. Some of the young comedians do indeed open with “a few well-placed obscenities.” Red Skelton appeared regularly in concert up until he was 80, and even then he was hysterical. Victor Borge is still on tour and has released some of the best and biggest-selling videos ever. Neither one of them, to my knowledge, has ever uttered an obscenity on stage.

We just aired the “American Comedy Honors.” The final honoree was Tim Conway. Not only did he get a standing ovation for the clip package, but everyone agreed that his acceptance speech was as funny as anything said by any of the new comics.

Good comedians, young or old, continue to change and update their material and their persons. Most of the time moving into the legend or icon stratosphere of stardom means only that the audience expects more, and in my experience, I have seldom seen them disappointed. Until the day Danny Thomas died, everyone always wanted to hear him do “hang up your end . . . it’s hot in the boots,” and there isn’t an audience alive that wouldn’t like to hear Jonathan Winters revisit Maude Frickert.

Not too long ago, I saw Don Rickles in concert in San Diego. There wasn’t a “celebrity, an Arab or a Jew” in sight, and Rickles was still as funny, as fast and as sharp as he was when he opened at the Slate Brothers in 1902 or thereabouts. I would still go anywhere to hear Jack Carter, Jan Murray, Shecky Greene, Rodney Dangerfield, Irwin Corey, Sid Caesar, Shelley Berman, Bill Dana or even some of the younger fellows like George Carlin, Tom Dreesen and the Smothers Brothers.

Chambers was right that some comics run out of steam. But some of the more mature comics who have performed on stage, on television, in theater, in films, in concerts are still full steam ahead and can go toe to toe with any of those comics who find it necessary to open with “a few obscenities.” The race wouldn’t even be close.

To me, comedy and comedians defy the kind of analysis in comments like “Are these guys still funny?” Yes, some of their movies haven’t done well lately. Most of the comics mentioned in both of these articles are performers who develop their own style, their own material, delivery and personality. Ninety percent of the time that never failed them.

What apparently is failing them now is the “committee control” over their performance in films. Robin Williams in “Good Morning Vietnam” was Robin Williams with no one around to second-guess him. Whether films starring comedians work or not cannot be blamed on the comedian nearly as much as on studios’ going back to the same well that was dug by Buster Keaton, Abbott & Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Martin and Lewis and Peter Sellers.

At their best, comedians are not controlled by committees or told what to do by first-time directors. Stand-up comedians usually do their own material and have for many years made major contributions to films. Many of the network television schedules would have been in shambles for the last 10 years without the contribution of the stand-up comedian. I love these people and get a little bent out of shape when the failure of a film or a sitcom is blamed on them.

Comedy is the most fragile of all art forms. Brilliance comes from making it look easy. Longevity is the result of keeping it funny. Funny is not determined by age but rather by laughter. All of these “old guys” still make me laugh.

GEORGE SCHLATTER, Los Angeles

(Editor’s note: Schlatter is the producer of “American Comedy Awards” and produced “Laugh-In.”)