WAVE OF THE COMEDY FUTURE

No, not me. Well...maybe me. But in this particular case, the "new wave" is going to be the return of the comedy duo. Don't think Sandler & Schneider, but more along the lines of Burns & Allen, Abbott and Costello, Laurel & Hardy, etc.

Or at least so says Lawrence Epstein in an interview with [don't laugh, New Yorkers] Cleveland.com.

Laughing matters to Epstein, an English professor and lecturer on popular culture, and he takes it seriously. He just wrote "Mixed Nuts," a book summed up in its subtitle: "America's Love Affair With Comedy Teams from Burns & Allen to Belushi & Aykroyd." "I wrote the book because I missed them," he said. "I wanted to celebrate their careers and introduce them to people who hadn't heard of them before they're completely forgotten" - acts like Weber & Fields, the vaudeville duo whose routines were echoed, if not copied, by Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello.

Part of me likes to know this "history of comedy" stuff--I think studying the forms and trends of comedy past is vital to creating an informed, nuanced comedy presence in the present. But then, whenever someone announces that a professor has something to say about it, I can't help it... another part of me yawns. It's an involuntary response, I'm sure. Like a mild allergy to academic study; instead of a sneeze, it's a yawn. Hmm. Maybe that's worth an academic study. [Yawn.]

WAVE OF THE COMEDY FUTURE

No, not me. Well...maybe me. But in this particular case, the "new wave" is going to be the return of the comedy duo. Don't think Sandler & Schneider, but more along the lines of Burns & Allen, Abbott and Costello, Laurel & Hardy, etc.

Or at least so says Lawrence Epstein in an interview with [don't laugh, New Yorkers] Cleveland.com.

Laughing matters to Epstein, an English professor and lecturer on popular culture, and he takes it seriously. He just wrote "Mixed Nuts," a book summed up in its subtitle: "America's Love Affair With Comedy Teams from Burns & Allen to Belushi & Aykroyd." "I wrote the book because I missed them," he said. "I wanted to celebrate their careers and introduce them to people who hadn't heard of them before they're completely forgotten" - acts like Weber & Fields, the vaudeville duo whose routines were echoed, if not copied, by Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello.

Part of me likes to know this "history of comedy" stuff--I think studying the forms and trends of comedy past is vital to creating an informed, nuanced comedy presence in the present. But then, whenever someone announces that a professor has something to say about it, I can't help it... another part of me yawns. It's an involuntary response, I'm sure. Like a mild allergy to academic study; instead of a sneeze, it's a yawn. Hmm. Maybe that's worth an academic study. [Yawn.]