HUMOR
The real trouble with todayâs humor industry is simply that they donât make âem like they used to. Shallow writers with no cultural memory congratulate themselves for âinventingâ hip shtick that Steve Allen and his stock company were performing adroitly nearly 40 years ago. The pantomimic genius of a Jackie Gleason can find no worthy successor, because todayâs hot comics either spew obscenities or provide inept social commentary on a world they donât understand.
Surely the only levity engendered by this bunch is to be found on Olympus, where, no doubt, Benchley, Thurber, Perelman and their ilk gather regularly to look down and laugh at us, not with us.
JOSEPH F. LAREDO
San Diego