The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Just a quarter of a century ago, you could see gay comedians on TV but never really knew they were gay. Then came Bob Smith. Smith was the first openly gay man to perform stand-up on The Tonight Show, as well as star in his own HBO half-hour comedy special. …
He could have been Gilligan, but Jerry Van Dyke wanted to be his own comedic self. That self, the younger banjo-playing happy-go-lucky, stammering brother of Dick Van Dyke, Jerry (six years Dick’s junior) managed to enjoy a lengthy TV career that started in the 1960s, peaked in the early 1990s …
Danny Breen made his mark in front of the camera as a cast member for eight seasons on HBO’s sketch comedy series, Not Necessarily The News. But Breen also won multiple Emmys for his work behind the scenes on a producer for Ellen and The Wayne Brady Show. An alum of …
Rose Marie, a vaudeville star at 3 and hit radio singer at 5, who performed opening night at Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingto resort in Las Vegas and is best known now for her co-starring role as TV comedy writer Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show, has died. She was …
It’s rather remarkable that most all of the funny nonagenarians profiled in this year’s HBO documentary, If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast, managed to make it through 2017 unscathed. But several other comedy legends passed away in 2017, old and not-so-old. Let us take one more look back …
Jim Nabors, best known in his younger years for playing country bumpkin Gomer Pyle on two different hit TV sitcoms, and in his later years for singing — particularly at the opening of every Indy 500 — has died. He was 87. Nabors died in his home in Hawaii, his …
Before Saturday Night Live, before The Groove Tube even, Ken Shapiro was making funny faces on television with Chevy Chase when nobody knew their faces. Shapiro and Chase performed sketches together on Channel One, then on PBS as the first people seen on-air on The Great American Dream Machine, before …
Irish comedian Sean Hughes was only 24 when he won the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s top prize for his 1990 showcase, “A One Night Stand with Sean Hughes.” Hughes returned to Edinburgh this past August with friends for an improvised showcase, “Sean Hughes’s Blank Book.” Hughes broke through young, and he …
Ralphie May, a larger than life stand-up comedian who won the hearts of America if not also their votes in the very first season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, has died. May was 45. Though battling pneumonia for the past week, May continued to show up for his 2017 residency …
Joey Edmonds had an impact on the comedy world twice, first as half of the duo Edmonds and Curley, then for future generations of stand-up comedians performing at colleges across America as agent/manager of Joey Edmonds Presents. Edmonds died over the weekend. Born Joe Putzer, he grew up in Oshkosh, …
