Some Wisdom on Wit

“Y ou wouldn’t believe, to look at this Jewish fellow, that he’s over a hot tub canning tomatoes,” said Shelley Berman, on the phone last week. For a comedian who was part of a watershed era in comedy that featured the likes of Mort Sahl and Nichols and May, vegetables are just a sidelight.

But these days, in addition to acting, teaching and performing, Berman, 75, raises tomatoes and jalapenos at his Bell Canyon home. He is ambitious to a point--he has stopped short of packaging a salsa as something called Berman’s Own.

As part of the city of Beverly Hills’ Plaza Sweets summer series, Berman performs Saturday at 8 p.m. When he’s not performing (this includes two weeks a year at Harrah’s in Las Vegas) or acting (last seen on Comedy Central’s “That’s My Bush!”) or canning, Berman teaches humor writing in the master’s of professional writing program at USC.

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Question: Is there some overriding principle you emphasize in your humor writing classes?

Answer: The thing I emphasize is how the so-called joke becomes unavoidable. How you structure it so that it happens. I’m pretty longhaired about it. We start by talking about Aristotle.

Q: Where is humor today versus the 1960s?

A: Today it’s become more antisocial than it was, say, in just the previous generation for comedians. For example, George Carlin and Richard Pryor were antiestablishment. They had a target. Godfrey Cambridge had a target. Dick Gregory had a target. And in fact, while Don Rickles was a very good comedian, it was only during the ‘60s that he became a superstar. The expression of his anger was overt. Buddy Hackett, similarly. Suddenly, they sprung to greater prominence because they said things that upset us. In the ‘60s we had a war that nobody liked.... We don’t have the similar focus of our anger that we did in another time.

Q: What changed?

A: When the war ended, and black people started to get more of a chance, the focus of the anger settled down. We don’t even have the USSR to poke fun at. So what are we poking fun at? Our bedroom behavior. That’s not social. That’s antisocial.

Q: So we need evil empires and establishments to make us funny?

A: The previous comedy disturbed us. It disturbed us righteously. [There was] a righteous anger.... Road rage is a recent phenomenon. Because we’re mad at each other and we don’t know why. Today, I hear Jews asking me, “What do you think of ‘The Producers’? We’re making fun of the past, we’re making fun of history.” But [Mel Brooks] is making fun of ... the person who did the Holocaust. He’s making fun of that. And he did it well.

Q: Speaking of Brooks’ Broadway hit, what lesson if any do you take from its success? Given that it’s considered “politically incorrect.”

A: There’s nothing that I can think of to take away from it. What’s wonderful is that it’s written, produced and created by an older man. I love it. I’ll champion that any old day. Because I have known for the past 10 to 15 years that I am utterly useless--as a writer, as an actor, as a comedian.

Q: So what can audiences expect to hear at your performance?

A: I tell my audience my show is a mixture of old material and older material. But I’m hoping I have something new to tell them.

* Shelley Berman performs with singer Noel Harrison at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Beverly Hills Civic Center Plaza, 450 N. Rexford Drive. Free. (310) 285-1045.