Laughing Matters:: On Writing M*A*S*H, Tootsie, Oh, God!, and a Few Other Funny Things - Hardcover

Gelbart, Larry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067942945X ISBN 13: 9780679429456

Publisher: Random House, 1998

Synopsis

Larry Gelbart is the comic genius who developed M*A*S*H for TV, one of the longest-running, most beloved series in history; he was a much-admired member of that memorable gaggle of writers who worked for Sid Caesar, which also included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Woody Allen, and Neil Simon; and he's written successful movies like Tootsie and Oh, God!, smash hits for Broadway, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and City of Angels, TV comedy-dramas like Barbarians at the Gate and Weapons of Mass Distraction, and more.
        His book now adds to the fun. Part memoir, part sampler, part love letter, Gelbart tells of writing radio comedy at age sixteen for Danny Thomas--and later for Bob Hope, Jack Paar, and Red Buttons; he offers behind-the-set stories about Milton Berle, George C. Scott, and George Burns, "Klinger" and "Radar" and "Father Mulcahy"; and he lets us know about the places he's lived and how he's lived and what he's learned while doing so.
        Not everything is played for laughs. Some of Laughing Matters is serious--Gelbart is a wit, not a gag writer, and he cares deeply about writing. Some is touching--for instance, his account of the last days of M*A*S*H. His sketches of comedy performers and writers are "elegant," said Publishers Weekly in an early review, his sense of form original.
        He's won Emmys, Tonys, and Peabody awards, he's twice been nominated for an Academy Award, and now, in print, he may well win your heart.
        A lot of funny things happened on the way to this book--and you'll be hugely entertained.

About this title

Review:

After five decades in the funny business, Larry Gelbart has done it all. And what he hasn't done, he's obviously avoiding. You probably know him as the man who developed the television series M*A*S*H; it's his crowning achievement, but hardly his only claim to fame. Gelbart also wrote Oh, God!, Tootsie, City of Angels, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, along with innumerable gags for Bob Hope, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar, and a pantheon of others. But he hasn't written anything specifically for print--until now.

Laughing Matters is a look back, sometimes in anger, but mostly in appreciation, at Gelbart's spectacular career. The book is not an autobiography nor is it a collection of fugitive pieces. It also doesn't qualify as a selection of greatest hits from radio, stage, and screen. There just isn't a proper descriptor for what Laughing Matters is, except entertaining. Gelbart comes off as the witty, caustic, intelligent fellow everyone says he is. The Hollywood system, however, does not fare so well, and neither do meddling TV executives and certain actors and other associates, both nameless and named.

Because M*A*S*H will likely be what Gelbart is most remembered for--and according to the book, appears to be the experience of his that most nearly approached creative perfection--an extract dealing with that show seems most appropriate:

It is estimated that the vast store of M*A*S*H episodes to be rerun in syndication will keep the series around well into the twenty-first century, long after I am gone. A nice compilation, to be sure, but I'd give anything to have it the other way around. Thinking of the possibility of M*A*S*H playing so far into the future leads me to hope, paraphrasing Winston Churchill, that if America and its television audience should last a thousand years, people will say this was their finest half hour.

Laughing Matters provides many fine half hours, too.

From the Back Cover:

"Of all the books on writing for the screen, stage, television, etc., that I have ever read, none are as intelligent, informative, insightful, and pungent as Gelbart's.

It also doesn't hurt that he is one of the greatest writers of comedy to have graced the arts in this century. Laughing really does matter, and Larry makes us know it."
--Jack Lemmon

"Many people know that Larry Gelbart is one of the funniest men in America. Some people know that he is one of the nicest. Now everybody will know that he is one of our most engaging historians of comedy--a history he has helped to make himself."
--Robert Brustein

"At a preview years ago of Forum, a man sitting in front of Larry Gelbart laughed so hard that finally all he could do was throw his raincoat up in the air. I wasn't wearing one when I read this wonderful, funny, wise, and generous book, but I would have tossed it up in a mayhem of gratitude if I had been. He's given us so much over the years. This may be his best third act yet, and that's saying quite a lot."
--Christopher Buckley

"Larry Gelbart is the wittiest man in the entire world. After reading Laughing Matters, I'd say this also includes other places."
        --Neil Simon

"A funny book by a funny man who has gathered fifty years of wound stripes. Larry's footnotes, parenthetical asides, and throwaways are funny; he simply cannot

help making people laugh."
--John Gregory Dunne

"Larry Gelbart allows us into his mind--a place I've wanted to visit for years--and makes clear how the owner of this intricate piece of machinery came to be and how he so brilliantly does what he does, combining his unique gifts of storytelling and satire with equal portions of honesty and a sense of humanity."
        --Carl Reiner

"Gelbart all the way! Crammed with sparkling humor and wonderful insights,
this is a must-read for everyone in (and out of) show business."
--Mel Brooks

"Larry Gelbart, master of laughter that matters, has written a miracle of a memoir that is by turns robust, hilarious, critical, admiring, candid, cautionary, and even at times sobering--a triumph of kaleidoscopy enhanced throughout by a delightful interplay between author and editor. No other writer today so deftly uses language as a great playground, or says more with such sure-handed economy."
        --Norman Corwin

"Wise, funny, surprising, true, intelligent, human, witty, and profound. The thesaurus in my brain has run out of adjectives, but many others that clearly refer to the talent of Larry Gelbart definitely apply."
        --Stanley Donen

"There is no funnier, wiser, more original, compassionate, and often furious writer working today than Larry Gelbart. I could turn out a 300-page

appreciation of his 300 pages."
--Hal Prince

"Larry's presence and timing are immaculate. He's terribly funny; that's why I'm so happy that he has confined his talents to the written word rather than

stage performance . . . for a lot of us would have been out of work."
--Bob Hope

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 067942945X
• ISBN 13: 9780679429456
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 276