Books in Brief: Laughing Matters

Laughing Matters: A Celebration of American Humor, selected and edited by Gene Shalit (Doubleday, 622 pp., $24.95)

Gene Shalit, who is a pretty funny fellow himself on the Today show, here collects scores of cartoons, pieces of movie scripts, poems, essays, and short stories in a fine, fat omnibus. He does not strive for completeness, but includes only what he likes, which is nearly the same thing. Benchley, Perelman, Dorothy Parker, Woody Allen, Bob & Ray—the staples of anthologies of this kind—are all represented, along with cartoonists Ed Koren, Jeff MacNelly, James Thurber, and George Booth. He also reprints a few harder-to-find items, like Mark Twain on “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” Frank Sullivan’s cliché expert, and Casey Stengel’s congressional testimony; in an inspired act, he pairs Russell Baker’s “Francs and Beans” with the piece that inspired it, Craig Claiborne’s “Just a Quiet Dinner for Two in Paris: 31 dishes, nine wines, a $4,000 check.” The Baker piece earns its place in any pantheon like this, and incidentally excuses any and all political columns he might write for the rest of his life. Shalit wisely excludes old wheezes like Irvin Cobb and Artemus Ward, but he does miss a few humorists of the top chop. There is no Jean Shepherd, for instance. And no George Ade. And no P. J. O’Rourke. Surely, we could have done with a little less Fran Lebowitz, or Garry Trudeau, or Garrison Keillor in exchange. Aside from those few flaws, however, Laughing Matters is packed with yuks, many of them of the out-loud variety, which is the measure of success of any humor anthology.

JM

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Joe Mysak

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Laughing Matters: A Celebration of American Humor, selected and edited by Gene Shalit (Doubleday, 622 pp., $24.95)

Gene Shalit, who is a pretty funny fellow himself on the Today show, here collects scores of cartoons, pieces of movie scripts, poems, essays, and short stories in a fine, fat omnibus. He does not strive for completeness, but includes only what he likes, which is nearly the same thing. Benchley, Perelman, Dorothy Parker, Woody Allen, Bob & Ray—the staples of anthologies of this kind—are all represented, along with cartoonists Ed Koren, Jeff MacNelly, James Thurber, and George Booth. He also reprints a few harder-to-find items, like Mark Twain on “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” Frank Sullivan’s cliché expert, and Casey Stengel’s congressional testimony; in an inspired act, he pairs Russell Baker’s “Francs and Beans” with the piece that inspired it, Craig Claiborne’s “Just a Quiet Dinner for Two in Paris: 31 dishes, nine wines, a $4,000 check.” The Baker piece earns its place in any pantheon like this, and incidentally excuses any and all political columns he might write for the rest of his life. Shalit wisely excludes old wheezes like Irvin Cobb and Artemus Ward, but he does miss a few humorists of the top chop. There is no Jean Shepherd, for instance. And no George Ade. And no P. J. O’Rourke. Surely, we could have done with a little less Fran Lebowitz, or Garry Trudeau, or Garrison Keillor in exchange. Aside from those few flaws, however, Laughing Matters is packed with yuks, many of them of the out-loud variety, which is the measure of success of any humor anthology.