Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life) - Hardcover

Cohen, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611682568 ISBN 13: 9781611682564

Publisher: Brandeis University Press, 2013

Synopsis

In Overweight Sensation, Mark Cohen argues persuasively for Sherman's legacy as a touchstone of postwar humor and a turning point in Jewish American cultural history. With exclusive access to Allan Sherman's estate, Cohen has written the first biography of the manic, bacchanalian, and hugely creative artist who sold three million albums in just twelve months, yet died in obscurity a decade later at the age of forty-nine. Comprehensive, dramatic, stylish, and tragic, Overweight Sensation is destined to become the definitive Sherman biography.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Allan Sherman was instrumental in helping me with my career." -Bill Cosby

"Allan Sherman was the original. . . . Before Forbidden Broadway, before 'Weird Al' Yankovic, there was Allan Sherman--brilliant wit, satirist beyond compare, and stand-up comic with a melody." -Jason Alexander

"Allan Sherman is one of my biggest inspirations and all-time musical heroes."
-"Weird Al" Yankovic

"I love Allan Sherman's work. Allan was funny and clever, and he touched my heart. He was more than just a writer of song parodies. He was an extraordinarily gifted word-weaving rhymester, and this is a definitive look at this talented, complicated, conflicted little munchkin." -Tommy Smothers

"Allan Sherman's parodies were sheer genius. To this day I can never hear 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' without thinking of Sherman's 'where the drapes of Roth are stored.' He was droll, and under that nerdy exterior lurked a wicked talent."
-Theodore Bikel

From the Inside Flap:

Allan Sherman was the Larry David, the Adam Sandler, the Sacha Baron Cohen of 1963. He led Jewish humor and sensibilities out of ethnic enclaves and into the American mainstream with explosively funny parodies of classic songs that won Sherman extraordinary success and acclaim across the board, from Harpo Marx to President Kennedy. For the first time since vaudeville, Jewish dialect humor spread to mainstream culture and led to fame and fortune.

Ethnicity was back.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brandeis University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1611682568
• ISBN 13: 9781611682564
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320