05-15-2016, 11:25 PM
Resuscitated from the Obituaries Forum on the old T4T Forum
The Silent Generation will be best known in American culture for comedy which is well recorded because the whole adult lifespan of the Silent is largely recorded. Good comedy remains useful to life. With comedy, something that people just don't do well late in life because when the timing goes so does the comedy... it really is over.
With the Silent, comedy is largely self-effacing, and it is exactly what people need if life is to avoid becoming unduly formal. Think not only of Johnny Carson, but also Andy Griffith, John Winters. Leslie Nielsen, Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, Joan Rivers, Alan King, Tim Conway, George Carlin, Jerry Lewis, Flip Wilson, Bill Cosby, Mary Tyler Moore, Christopher Lloyd, Mel Brooks, Dom DeLuise, Woody Allen, Michael Palin, Graham Cleese, Richard Pryor... they kept America from being excessively reverential to flawed GIs and as shrill and strident as Boomers. As they die off or can no longer do comedy, we get more in-your-face stuff characteristic of Boomers and Generation X. Such can be funny, but it is unlikely to create empathy.
To be sure there were great GI comedians (Morey Amsterdam, Minnie Pearl, Gracie Allen, Henny Youngman, Lucille Ball, Don Knotts, Bill Dana, Don Adams)... but the next Golden Age of Comedy is likely to appear soon after the 4T ends.
Howe and Strauss didn't catch it or at least didn't write about it. The disappearance of the Silent from the comedy stage likely ensures that comedy will not smooth such gaps of generation and region as there now are.
Addendum: Don Rickles could really needle people. Of course I would never encourage anyone to try his sort of comedy in a public setting; it fits people tending to get too big for their britches, as in Hollywood.
The Silent Generation will be best known in American culture for comedy which is well recorded because the whole adult lifespan of the Silent is largely recorded. Good comedy remains useful to life. With comedy, something that people just don't do well late in life because when the timing goes so does the comedy... it really is over.
With the Silent, comedy is largely self-effacing, and it is exactly what people need if life is to avoid becoming unduly formal. Think not only of Johnny Carson, but also Andy Griffith, John Winters. Leslie Nielsen, Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, Joan Rivers, Alan King, Tim Conway, George Carlin, Jerry Lewis, Flip Wilson, Bill Cosby, Mary Tyler Moore, Christopher Lloyd, Mel Brooks, Dom DeLuise, Woody Allen, Michael Palin, Graham Cleese, Richard Pryor... they kept America from being excessively reverential to flawed GIs and as shrill and strident as Boomers. As they die off or can no longer do comedy, we get more in-your-face stuff characteristic of Boomers and Generation X. Such can be funny, but it is unlikely to create empathy.
To be sure there were great GI comedians (Morey Amsterdam, Minnie Pearl, Gracie Allen, Henny Youngman, Lucille Ball, Don Knotts, Bill Dana, Don Adams)... but the next Golden Age of Comedy is likely to appear soon after the 4T ends.
Howe and Strauss didn't catch it or at least didn't write about it. The disappearance of the Silent from the comedy stage likely ensures that comedy will not smooth such gaps of generation and region as there now are.
Addendum: Don Rickles could really needle people. Of course I would never encourage anyone to try his sort of comedy in a public setting; it fits people tending to get too big for their britches, as in Hollywood.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.