Customer Reviews

Inside Shelley Berman

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This is my favorite comedy album of all time. My parents owned it, and my sister and I listened to it about a hundred times. There are a ton of funny little catch phrases that we still laugh about: "Care for a pillow?" might not sound funny to you, but after listening to this album it will be!

"This is your Captain speaking, we will be traveling non-stop to, uh, ... uh................. ...Los Angeles"

Great stuff, and it is wonderful to have it available on CD -- I haven't had a record player in years, and it was fantastic to be able to hear this masterpiece once again. It was just as good as I remembered it!

His piece on "The Morning After The Night Before" is an all-time classic that just brings me to tears of laughter. "In the shape I was in it was lucky the only thing I threw through the window was the cat... hah haha... oh really, who?"

Like the previous reviewer, my family also had this album on LP and we listened to it until it wore out, most of the time crying with laughter. I was delighted to find it on CD and love it just as much now, 20 odd years later, as I did then. Mr Berman talks about everyday stuff from a very funny perspective that we all can relate to, and there's not a swear word in sight, a nice change. Although the original recording was done in 1959, the material is still timely, truly funny and something you'll want to listen to over and over again.

In the mid-1950s, Chicago-born Shelley Berman went from acting school to a comedy troupe that became known as THE SECOND CITY. While there he developed a "sit-down" solo comedy act and premiered it in 1957 at Mister Kelly's. Berman was the first stand-up comic to play Carnegie Hall, also the first to win a Grammy for a non-music recording.

The best-selling INSIDE SHELLEY BERMAN (1959, VERVE) was his recording debut.

Never mean-spirited or vulgar, on this album the gentle comedian offers several scenarios, occasionally pausing for droll digressions. His is a universal humor, a sort that 50 years later hasn't become at all dated.


Related CD:
OUTSIDE SHELLEY BERMAN (1960) is the follow-up VERVE album.


PROGRAM--

SIDE ONE
[20:09] Child Psychologists * Airline routine (digression: plurals) * Phoning a dept. store (woman on 10th floor ledge)

SIDE TWO
[5:38] Buttermilk * Zen * The Nostalgics Game
[7:30] The Morning After the Night Before (phone call)
[9:26] Small Embarrassing Moments
[3:33] Talking to a youngster on phone

TOTAL TIME: 46:16

In the mid-1950s, Chicago-born Shelley Berman went from acting school to a comedy troupe that became known as THE SECOND CITY. While there he developed a "sit-down" solo comedy act and premiered it in 1957 at Mister Kelly's. Berman was the first stand-up comic to play Carnegie Hall, also the first to win a Grammy for a non-music recording.

The best-selling INSIDE SHELLEY BERMAN (1959, VERVE V6-15003) was his LP debut.

Never mean-spirited or vulgar, on this album the gentle comedian offers several scenarios, occasionally pausing for droll digressions. His is a universal humor, a sort that 50 years later hasn't become at all dated.


Related LP:
OUTSIDE SHELLEY BERMAN (1960) is the follow-up VERVE album.


PROGRAM--

SIDE ONE
[20:09] Child Psychologists * Airline routine (digression: plurals) * Phoning a dept. store (woman on 10th floor ledge)

SIDE TWO
[5:38] Buttermilk * Zen * The Nostalgics Game
[7:30] The Morning After the Night Before (phone call)
[9:26] Small Embarrassing Moments
[3:33] Talking to a youngster on phone

TOTAL TIME: 46:16

I had heard this album when in Junior High school many years ago. This CD appears to represent the album as I remember it.

Shelley Berman is often overlooked for others such as Bob Newhart, Lenny Bruce, etc.

While these (later) comediens were funny and talented, it was Berman who paved the way, in style, material, boundaries, subject matter and method.

While some may think his humor is just not funny to "modern day" listeners, if the listener considers the time that this material was presented and recorded, it is EXTREMELY funny and extremely groundbreaking.

While a fan of Bob Newhart, after listening to Berman's phone-skits, Newhart suddenly appears to be a cheap copy. I love Newhart, but Berman did it first.

As far as risque goes, Berman was pushing the boundaries of public performance and comedy in these recordings. This and his second Lp covered a few subjects that were extremely toungue-in-cheek metaphorical and caught me completely off guard. He was doing this stuff in 1959. If youre not a thinker you wont get it.

That much is true.

Ordered this CD for my 70 year-old relative. He recalls Shelly Berman from back then when he was performing. Very funny!!

Until I purchased this record at a rummage sale, I had never heard of Shelley Berman. Berman did a one-person nightclub act where he performed a monologue lampooning events in the world as he saw them. This record is a live recording of one of his performances.
The humor is very much in the style of the fifties and early sixties; it is soft, in no way risqué, even for those times. Some of his topics are:

*) Being an airline passenger
*) Small embarrassing moments, such as when the lit end of your cigarette falls off in your lap while driving.
*) Calling someone and having a child answer the phone.
*) A man calling a department store to report a woman dangling from a l0th floor ledge. He is transferred from department to department.

His comedy is a bit more cerebral than most acts of this type, it does require a bit of thought in order to comprehend it. The modern person will quite likely not find the album funny at all. Unlike some other comedians who do monologues, (such as Bob Newhart) Berman does not regularly evoke detailed mental images of the situation, which is critical to the success of his style of comedy.