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The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy Paperback – November 8, 2016

by Kliph Nesteroff (Author)

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Jokes change from generation to generation, but the experience of the comedian transcends the ages: the drive, jealousy, heartbreak, and triumph. From the Marx Brothers to Milton Berle to George Carlin to Eddie Murphy to Louis CKcomedy historian Kliph Nesteroff brings to life a century’s worth of rebels and groundbreakers, mainstream heroes and counterculture iconoclasts, forgotten stars and workaday plodders in this essential history of American comedy.

Beginning with the nationwide vaudeville circuits that dominated at turn of the twentieth century, Nesteroff describes the rise of the first true stand-up comediana variety show emcee who abandoned physical shtick for straight jokes. The end of Prohibition ushered in a surprising golden age of comedy, as funnymen were made into radio stars and the combination of the "Borscht Belt," the "Chitlin Circuit," and Mafia-run supperclubs furnished more jobs and money than ever before. Those were the days of the Copacabana, tuxedos, and smoking cigars onstage, when insulting the boss could result in a hit man at your door and obscenity charges could land you in jail. In the 1950s, late-night television cemented the status of the comedy establishment while young comics rebelled, arriving on the beatnik coffeehouse scene with cerebral jokes and social angst. They soon found their own way to fame through comedy records that vied with top musicians for Billboard spots. Then came the comedy clubs of the coke-fueled 1970s and 80s, Saturday Night Live and cable TV, and with the internet, a whole new generation of YouTube stars, podcast personalities, and Twitterati. Through the decades, Nesteroff reveals the contradictions between comedians’ public and private personas and illuminates the often-seedy underbelly of an industry built on laughs.

Based on over two hundred original interviews and extensive archival research, The Comedians is a sharply written and highly entertaining look at one hundred years of comedy, and a valuable exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture along the way.

Print length

448 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Grove Press
Publication date

November 8, 2016
Dimensions

6 x 1.3 x 8.9 inches
ISBN-10

0802125689
ISBN-13

978-0802125682
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Comedians:

Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, National Post, and Splitsider

Entertaining and carefully documented . . . I thought I knew a lot about the history of American comedy. But this book located gaps in my knowledge I never knew were there and filled them with jaw-dropping anecdotes that made my eyes spin in different directions . . . This book is a real treat.”Merrill Markoe, Wall Street Journal

In the past decade, there have been several superb history books about comedy . . . but none will entertain comedy nerds as much as Kliph Nesteroff’s The Comedians . . . sprawling and savvy . . . comedy’s answer to Luc Sante’s Low Life.”New York Times Book Review

An antic history of U.S. comedy . . . Nesteroff writes with insider perception . . . With his encyclopedic knowledge, a talent for vivid anecdotes and tireless gusto . . . [The Comedians is] an insightful overview of the most independent and subversive entertainment genre of the last century.”Washington Post

[An] excellent book.”New York Times

The Comedians . . . is right up there with I’m Dying Up Here, Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live and Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant, Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon, in terms of thoroughness, engagement and lasting significance.”L.A. Weekly (Best Local Comedy Author)

An informative and engaging account . . . Nesteroff provides a clear through-line from vaudeville to the New Millennium. Yet it’s the anecdotes about personality and style that elevate the book beyond mere history.”USA Today

The Comedians is everything it should be, including very funny. This historically rich history of comedians in America is fascinating . . . If you’re a comedy nerd you’ll love this book.”Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If you think you know a lot about stand-up comedy, this book will expose you as the fraud you secretly reckoned you were. Remember Frank Fay? Exactly.”Norm MacDonald

Kliph Nesteroff and this book are devoted to what I truly lovethe art of comedy.”Mel Brooks

Kliph Nesteroff is a comedy nerd’ in the deepest sense of the word . . . He is the preeminent historian of modern comedy.”Marc Maron

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read about show business . . . [Nesteroff] has amassed a dishy, informal, and knowledgeable history of comedy . . . This is straight talk about largely undocumented areas of show business and it is utterly fascinating. I feasted on this book and look forward to a possible sequel.”Leonard Maltin, Indiewire (Holiday Book Roundup)

Comedy tends to disappear, either into the boozy corners of a night club, or onto countless lost videotapes of TV variety shows that may never even make it to Netflix. That's what makes The Comedians so essential. No one charts the connections between the Jewy-old-masters of the TV age of comedy to the gay woman telling jokes into your ear right now on a podcast quite like [Kliph Nesteroff].”John Hodgman, contributor to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Beginning in the always smoky, often dilapidated vaudeville theaters of the early 20th century and spanning over a hundred years, Nesteroff meticulously details the lives and careers of forgotten and famous comics . . . Nesteroff’s exhaustive research is evident and historians will appreciate his thoroughness.”Associated Press

A definitive volume. A lively, raucous, and immensely entertaining love letter to funny business.”Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Both pop culture enthusiasts and entertainment scholars will relish this important history of American comedy.”Library Journal (starred review)

Indispensable.”Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

So flipping entertaining.”Cleveland Plain Dealer

A great book.”Splitsider

The Comedians is as good as they come. Nesteroff hits all the highlights and lowlights of this constantly evolving art form.”Portland Mercury

Comedy buffs will find a treasure chest of trivia . . . But Nesteroff’s aims are far more ambitious. He weaves comedians into the larger American story, from racism . . . and blacklisting to the counterculture and the anti-war movement . . . An interesting, satisfying read.”Dallas News

Extraordinary . . . wildly, crazily revealing, and readable.”Buffalo News

The definitive history of the comedy business . . . downright majestic.”Forward

One of the most comprehensive and accessible accounts of the art form to date.”Flavorwire

Immensely entertaining, a fast read that’s also a deep dive.”Ken Tucker, Yahoo TV

A valuable book . . . a compulsively readable history of American comedy . . . The book provides terrific insights into how the comedy greats of cinema created their personae and their acts . . . The book is also, no surprise, funny . . . My only complaint about the book? It’s too short.”Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com

Highly recommended.”Longform

A rollicking history.”Macleans (Canada)

About the Author

Kliph Nesteroff is a former stand-up comic turned writer. A longtime contributor to WFMU, writing about the history of comedy, Nesteroff’s latest project is hosting the Classic Showbiz Talk Show, a live series in Los Angeles that has welcomed comedy luminaries like Mel Brooks, Fred Willard and Laugh-In creator George Schlatter.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press; Reprint edition (November 8, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802125689
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802125682
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.3 x 8.9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #106,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #145 in Comedy (Books)
- #270 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #1,042 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies

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Jon Hunt

Wonderfully informative

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2016

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"The Comedians", by Kliph Nesteroff, offers a terrific look at comedy from its earliest days. As I finished the last pages I thought to myself, "wow!" What makes this book so fascinating is the breadth of the author's writing. From Vaudeville to the current day, Nesteroff gives the reader so much as he delves into every aspect of what it must be like and what it must have BEEN like to be a comedian. On the one hand, the book could be subtitled, "Booze, drugs, rejection and stealing" (other comedians' material) because that is a central feature of the book. That, coupled with how many comedians felt about each other, (voiced here) adds a human dimension to those who have made us laugh over the years.

What I particularly liked about the book was that on almost every page, it seems, a new name was introduced and it made me stop and think about my memory of that particular comedian. The chapters are nicely arranged and it's fun to read how certain comedians got their start in the business. Of course, the more well-known of the group are discussed, such as Bob Hope, Milton Berle and Johnny Carson, but how many of us remember Godfrey Cambridge, Corbett Monica or Stanley Myron Handelman?

There are some surprises and I was amazed at Nesteroff's description of the "Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts". Never would have guessed. "The Comedians" is a remarkable tribute to the comedy "industry" and those who have served it. I highly recommend it as it's thoroughly enjoyable from cover to cover.

7 people found this helpful

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M Tucker

American Comedy Overview

Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2018

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Comedian and historian of comedy Kliph Nesteroff has written an informative, entertaining, fantastic, outstanding, surprising and sometimes shocking history of American comedy. I am very excited about this book, I could not put it down, I tell everyone I know about it, it was thrilling from the opening pages. Kliph is a walking encyclopedia of comedy history knowledge, he did a mass of research and conducted hundreds of interviews to put this book together.

This is an excellent and engaging book but it is not a complete history of American comedy. The actual history is too big to be covered in 400 pages, some will be overlooked. Starting with vaudeville the author immediately misses Mark Twain, the most iconic figure of American comedy. I think the author is trying to identify important groundbreaking performers and acts, who they influenced and how that style or genre is appreciated today. So, of course some performers will be overlooked or hardly mentioned. I think the biggest miss is the author’s treatment of Bob Hope.

He is mentioned but his early enormous successes are minimized while his later failures and difficulties were accentuated. Hope gets a minor mention in the chapter about vaudeville. He is completely ignored in the chapter on radio. That was a monstrous mistake. What made Hope important to the history of comedy is, as Richard Zoglin points out in his book Hope: Entertainer of the Century, the development of the topical monolog. Five nights a week Hope would deliver a monolog covering current events, poking fun at fellow entertainers or life situations. Jack Benny and Fred Allen did not do that. Hope on radio, in the movies (the Road Pictures!) and later with the troops during World War II deserves a bigger mention. As it turned out the author decided to put all of that in the chapter Hippie Madness at Decade’s End. Yeah, Hope killed any appeal he had to the generation of the 60s by 1969. His career should not be judged by how it ended.

Others I think important get no mention or are mentioned in passing. The Bickersons come up but I don’t think the author saw fit to name the stars: Don Ameche and Francis Langford. Bob and Ray are shamefully neglected. If you aren’t going to mention Bob and Ray you sure as hell are not going to mention Coyle and Sharpe. Mal Sharpe is still around. For me, Bob and Ray and Coyle and Sharpe were much more significant than Firesign Theater. Sorry, but that is the cold fact of the matter.

Kliph began this project wanting to look at the connection between the Mob and comedy. He expanded the focus but I’m glad he did not leave out that significant moment in history; the anecdotes are fascinating. When the story moves into the 60s and 70s Kliph is fascinated by the influence LSD had on so many of the comedians. That fascination stays with him and he has said his next book will be about how LSD influenced the entire entertainment industry.

Kliph traces the beginnings of standup to Frank Fay. A man in a suit standing in front of an audience talking. But he was not talking about current events or anything that personally impressed or dismayed him. For Richard Zoglin it was Bob Hope who did exactly that 5 nights a week on his radio show. Neither Jack Benny nor Fred Allen did that. That was different. According to Zoglin it had not been done before…except for Will Rogers. He is the one I think of when I think of a man on stage humorously examining current events and playfully making fun of himself. Sure he used props, a lariat. He was a vaudeville star and not mentioned once in Kliph’s wonderful book. But Hope, with the fast banter and wisecracks, developed that style into a real comedy act. So, the reader will get a very good look at the history of comedy from vaudeville to today but must keep in mind significant contributions will be missed and some important figures will be ignored completely.

I did enjoy this book but it seemed to end abruptly and the overlooked comedians piled up. A few I thought should have gotten a mention: Greg Giraldo and Patrice O'Neal. It also seems to me that quite a few female comics were not mentioned in the final chapter The New Millennium.

Overall this is a wonderful book but the misses bring the rating down to 4 stars. But it is a solid and enjoyable 4 stars.

7 people found this helpful

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Jeff Alexander

The Comedians -- a serious, invaluable guide to the evolution of comedy.

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2015

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Kliph Nesteroff's "The Comedians" is an invaluable historic document, chronicling the evolution of comedy - mostly standup - over the past several decades. It is not a dry encyclopedic rendering of a list of comedians; nor does Nesteroff expound on one form of comedy over another. It is a straightforward compilation of facts mingled with interviews Nesteroff conducted himself of many well-known comics and some lesser known or even forgotten ones on his blog, [...].
Nesteroff maintains his impartiality throughout - at the end, I was hard-pressed to say who his favorite comic of all time might be. That's because while the book mentions household names such as Bob Hope, Jack Benny, George Burns, George Carlin and others, he also gives equal time to more obscure comics such as B.S. Pully, Jean Carroll, Sammy Shore and others.
This is the type of book which, when you are finished, you won't put it back on your bookshelf and forget about it. You'll want to leave it readily available to flip through to re-read certain passages. I had a difficult time, as I read it straight through, to avoid skipping ahead or checking the index for any information on comedians which popped into my head as I was reading it.
I highly recommend it for any student of comedy -- whether amateur or professional.

49 people found this helpful

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Kyle Burles

Amazing history

Reviewed in Canada on April 2, 2023

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Nesteroff is a brilliant and informative historian. This is THE book you want if you are looking at the history of comedy and comedians.

Bernie Gourley

A wildly insightful look into comedians and the comedy industry

Reviewed in India on March 12, 2024

Verified Purchase

This book presents a fascinating history of standup comedy and the various ancillary activities that comedians have taken on to make ends meet, to advance their careers, and - in a surprising number of cases - to pay for drugs -- e.g. from writing to radio and television performances to hosting interview shows. The book's exploration runs from the days of Vuadville to today's world of Twitter and podcasts.

The book reveals a great deal about which readers may be unaware. If you, like me, watched "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" and wondered whether the mob was really that involved in the entertainment industry, turns out, they were. In fact, Nesteroff addresses the violence and threats experienced by comedians in a way that is much more explicit than in that TV show. There are tales of early insult comedians running afoul of wiseguys who were in the audience unbeknownst to the comedian. There is even a chapter devoted to the building of Las Vegas to meet certain needs of organized crime, as well as discussion of the mob's decline (or, perhaps, legitimization) in the industry.

Another discovery that was interesting to me was how wild some of the early comedians were, both in their stage and in their personal lives. There were a number of names that were familiar to me from re-runs of highly censored network television programs. I'd wrongly assumed that these individuals were as bland and wholesome as their on-air personas. Buddy Hackett is a prime example of someone who wasn't at all what I expected.

It's remarkable to see how many ups and down standup comedy has had in its relatively short life span -- cycles of boom and bust.

If you're interested in standup comedy and how comedy has progressed as a form of entertainment in America, I'd highly recommend this book.

Ivamney Augusto Lima

Entenda a história da Comédia Stand Up

Reviewed in Brazil on October 27, 2020

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Me ajudou a entender a historia da Comédia Stand Up

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elizabeth tait

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2017

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Very happy with the book. Thank you.

Beatrice M.

The comedians

Reviewed in Italy on November 11, 2016

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Sto leggendo questo libro per la tesi.
E' un libro molto bello e completo sulla storia della standup comedy, dal vaudeville ai grandi comedians del XX secolo.
L'unica pecca del libro è la poca organizzazione delle note.
Anziché a piè pagina, sono a fine libro, quindi c'è molta difficoltà.
Ad ogni passaggio, si è costretti a sfogliare un sacco di pagine.

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