It was all about tale telling at the Society of Illustrators’ “From the Borscht Belt to Seinfeld: The Evolution of Jewish American Comedy.” With welcoming comments by Society’s executive director Anelle Miller, panelists included Yiddish scholar and Jewish comedy maven Prof. Edward Portnoy, “comedy writer Tom Leopold (“Seinfeld,” “Cheers”), Drew Friedman, whose amazing caricature illustrations…
While many comedians make other people laugh while fretting about their ability to do so, Eugene Mirman has always had a unique perspective on comedy. “I wanted to be a professional comedian,” the Russian-born, Brooklyn-based comedian explains, “whatever that entailed.” To hear him tell it, this attitude may not actually be so rare. In fact,…
It’s been 100 years since four brothers — Leonard, Arthur, Julius and Milton — sat down at a table and, with the assistance of a fellow vaudevillian, reinvented themselves as Chico, Harpo, Groucho and Gummo. The centennial anniversary of that comic rebirth will be celebrated with Marxfest, a month-long series of screenings and discussions taking…
A popular form of entertainment is watching comics analyzing comedy — a subject that doesn’t easily lend itself to analysis. Simply: What’s funny is what makes the lady in the third row laugh. You cannot tell her she’s wrong; if she doesn’t laugh it isn’t funny, she does and it is. End of story. Still,…
(JTA) — Attention all Bostonians looking for a good, old-fashioned, R-rated outgoing voicemail message: Sarah Silverman and Keshet, an organization that advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jews, might be able to help. Attendees of the Keshet Cabaret on March 27 will have the opportunity to bid on a personal voicemail from the raunchy…
RIP Egon Spengler. Jewish actor, writer and director Harold Ramis, known for “Ghostbusters,” and “Stripes,” and “Groundhog Day,”has died. He was 69 years old. News of his death rattled Hollywood, with many colleagues, friends and admirers taking to Twitter to share their shock and grief, and pay tribute to his work. Deeply saddened to hear…
Sid Caesar, who has died at the age of 91, was more than just a pioneer of TV comedy. As his memoirs “Where Have I Been: An Autobiography” (Crown Publishers, 1982) and “Caesar’s Hours: My Life in Comedy, With Love and Laughter” (PublicAffairs, 2003) recount, his achievement was a blend of second generation immigrant Jewish…
Comic showman Sid Caesar, a Jewish pioneer of American television sketch comedy as the star and creative force of “Your Show of Shows” during the 1950s, died on Wednesday at age 91, according to his friend and former collaborator Carl Reiner. Reiner told Reuters he learned of Caesar’s death from a mutual friend, actor and…
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