“HUMOR can be dissected, as a frog can,” E. B. White once
warned, “but the thing dies in the process and the innards are
discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.” Until recently, many American humorists obeyed that caveat by looking
the other way when the subject was raised, or treating the whole thing
as a joke. Robert Benchley spoke for most of his colleagues when he
lampooned the scientific students of humor with his dictum: “We
must understand that all sentences which begin with W are funny.”
Well, something unfunny has happened to American humor. Today the
humorists are outexamining the examiners, some of them even making
second careers as commentators who probe and pontificate on the radio
and TV panels that ceaselessly sift American manners, morals and mores. The reason for all the talk is that the nature, quality and targets of
American humor are undergoing considerable change. Bob Hope and
Columnist Russell Baker both believe that the change is for the better,
and Carol Burnett proclaims: “Humor has gotten braver; we're doing
nuttier, wilder things.” S. J. Perelman, on the other hand, says
unequivocally: “I have never seen so much ghastly work, even in
television, as this year.” And as far as Playwright
