ENGLISH LIT 344 / COMEDY & SATIRE Who's Who in American Comedy
Introduced a style of "intellectual" stand-up comedy based on contemporary events; influenced Lenny Bruce, Nichols and May, Dick Gregory, Woody Allen, and most recently, Bill Mahr. Prior to his coming, comics wore suits or tuxedos and told jokes (e.g. My wife is so big that when she sits around the house she sits around the house.)Sahl wrote speeches for John F. Kennedy. Here he is in an appearance on a Playboy show episode.
[For more details on these people, check their listing in Wikipedia, but note--this is one of the rare times I can accept the use of Wikipedia as a source. I have found that most of the information there about these people is reliable.]
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