Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America. [Hardcover]
by Laurence Maslon and Michael Kantor
384 pages, $ 45.00
ISBN-10: 0446505315
Non-fiction
Review by Steven King, MBA, MEd
Who doesn’t love a good joke? TV shows and radio specials have proven one thing: people love to laugh. Laughter has long been held to be the best medicine. Laughing, or at least finding humor in not-so-obvious places, drives us all. As Mark Twain opined, “against the assault of laughter nothing can resist.”
Laurence Maslon and Michael Kantor have written a phenomenal book on Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America, accompanying the PBS series of the same name. In their introduction, these two ingenious authors state that they are on a quest to discover what has made America laugh for the past 100 years and, more importantly, why. At roughly 365 pages, you’ll read why comedy has exploded in America in roughly five decades. It’s refreshing to read a detailed dissection of the comedy and comedians that collectively made us laugh.
Masterfully divided, these two comedy surgeons have something for everyone (and all ages, too), whether you define comedy as the insane antics of Lucille Ball; the Billy Crystal parody; or the comic mastery of Robin Williams. Perhaps the most refreshing read, however, is about his analysis of the comedians of yesteryear: like WC Fields and Charlie Chaplin.
During your wanderings through this book, you will reveal interesting facts:
* Charlie Chaplin’s salary with Mutual Film Corporation was $ 670,000 in 1916, making him the highest paid actor in human history.
* Jim Carrey, whose comic brilliance is approaching gigantic proportions, was originally part of a sitcom that collapsed in 1984 called The Duck Factory.
* Carol Burnett burst into comedy by wooing President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, with a song professing her adoration for him.
The lore contained in this book will captivate any trivia fan for a long time.
You will not read this masterpiece in one go, it is too large – a large table book. Instead, you’ll read it in bite-sized portions, maybe three to six pages at a time. That way, you will get a very comprehensive look at the comedy and the personalities behind it. Who knows? Perhaps the liberal readings in this book prove the maxim that laughter is really the best form of medicine.
It is also peppered with jokes. You won’t stop laughing …