Stand-up Comedy

Martini

"This is the best job ever, I'm paid to make people happy" - David Korsman, stand-up comedian.

Major periods in American Comedy:

Vaudeville- Some of the most famous comedians from this periods include Abbot & Costello, and the marx brothers. A good rescource on the history of vaudeville is

http://english.cla.umn.edu/GraduateProfiles/KSurkan/4403/ville.html

Slapstick- This category of comedy started approximately in the 1930's, and continues to be funny today. One of the pioneers of slapstick is Milton Berle. Some slapstick movies include Monty Python movies, and any Three Stooges. For a list of funny slapstick movies check out:

http://www.adarastore.com/cgi-bin/imf/scan/se=master/sf=master_record/se=dhsuggests.gif/sf=movie_dhsuggests/se=Slapstick/sf=genrelist/co=yes/sp=comedy_search/ml=300

Dirty Comedy-

Dirty comedy was very popular in the 1970's and 1980's. Some of the funniest "Dirty" comedians include Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and Andrew Dice Clay.

click above for information on becoming a stand-up comedian

History of Stand-up comedy:

Stand-up comedy is said to be derived from comedians/storytellers from the medeival times. In medeival times people would travel from city to city telling stories, they would be paid money depending how good they are at telling stories. They would also play music for cities, that was how music was first spread. Some people think this is reflected in stand-up comedians now, with comedians traveling from city to city telling jokes and humorous stories. When these storytellers from medeival times, they served the purpose of spreading information/jokes/music from city to city.

For a list of todays funniest stand-up comedians visit this website:

http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/S.html

Any comments on this website please email dagwooddp@yahoo.com