On Mort Sahl

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on June 27th, 2007

AP is running a story by John Rogers on the occasion of Mort Sahl‘s 80th birthday. In it Sahl is reminded that he was once “comedy’s angry young man.” Sahl denies it, offering that he might have been disappointed or heartbroken, and that, “‘Since I talked about social and political hypocrisy I guess that was considered angry,’ he says now.”

Or, since the media made up their minds that you’re angry, then, by golly, angry you shall be! (In fact, the Daily Southtown headlined the story, “Once-angry comedian looks at life at 80.” Nice!)

We saw Sahl perform a couple years back at the State Theater in Easton, closing out a show that featured Bill Dana, Dick Gregory, Prof. Irwin Corey, Shelley Berman and was hosted by Dick Cavett. He closed and it was as fine a standup performance as any we’ve seen.

From the AP interview:

He also helped break the mold for standup comedy, taking it from what actor-comedian Albert Brooks calls “the world of Henny Youngman and badda-boom” one-liners to a topical form in which comics suddenly began talking about things that mattered.

“Every comedian who is not doing wife jokes has to thank him for that,” says Brooks. “He really was the first, even before Lenny Bruce, in terms of talking about stuff, not just doing punch lines.”

Unfortunate that Brooks cites Youngman as someone whose approach might somehow be considered inferior to Sahl’s. Why the new(er) style must supplant the other– and mustn’t be allowed to co-exist– is puzzling.

To this day, Sahl excels at making both sides laugh, an art that seems to be lost. Or perhaps purposely discarded.

“Every comedian who is not doing wife jokes” certainly may have Sahl to thank, but every comedian who is doing wife jokes, owes a debt to both Sahl and Youngman. Let’s face it– nearly all of us are descendants of both, hybrids so to speak.

From Gerald Nachman’s “Seriously Funny” comes this quote from Woody Allen:

Allen, who expresses “tremendous affection” for the Borscht Belt school of comics, explained his method: “I always said I was doing wife jokes and coward jokes and the same jokes Bob Hope or Henny Youngman were doing– exactly. I’m doing the same thing as “My room’s so small you had to step outside to change your mind.” I would just do my version of it– it could be the identical joke. But I would say it in a way as if I’m conversing with someone– other than like some guy who’s sitting across from you at Lindy’s giving you the one-liners with a cigar.”

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