Author Mike Sacks is a staff writer at Vanity Fair, and his byline in all the best magazines inspires envy in most writers. Here he gathers up 21 of America’s funniest writers, accompanied by great drawings showing the often hidden character behind the humor.
As analysis of humor goes, And Here's the Kicker is a reference book at its funniest. Turn it inside out and it's still funny. But you'll also get a dose of inspiration and learn how these well-respected writers can sit around and tease a few words until they result in spontaneous laughter.
Unlike interviewers who get in the way, Sacks holds his questions to one-liners and then steps aside, so the comedy writers are tricked into revealing the truth about their art.
The variety of these illuminating interviews gives us a broad sense of the art of humor through the decades.
When Dick Cavett started out in the 1960s, he finally got the chance to perform on the Ed Sullivan show. “And as I stood in the wings, it felt as if I had come through the looking glass. It felt like my younger self was lying down on a couch in the basement of my house in Lincoln, Nebraska, with some peanut butter and graham crackers, watching my older self perform on television. It was like an out-of-body experience.”
Buck Henry, creator of original TV shows in the 1970s and screenplays for The Graduate and Catch 22, also wrote for Saturday Night Live in its greatest years.
When asked if luck played a big part in his career, he reflects: “In spite of what’s said, there is a great writer out there whose work no one has discovered, and there is a great painter out there whose work nobody has seen or will see. But, for the most part, if you’re talented, I think somebody will find you."
Article comments
1 - Christy Corp-Minamiji
Hmmm...I love to laugh and I love to write. Okay, you've convinced me. Nice review.