{{Short description|Form of comedy characterized by cynicism, social criticism, and political satire}} {{About|a late-50s stand-up comedy style|gross or sexual humor|Off-color humor}} '''Sick comedy''' was a term originally used by mainstream news weeklies ''Time'' and ''Life'' to distinguish a style of comedy/satire that was becoming popular in the United States in the late 1950s.<ref name="LuttazziBruce">{{cite book |authorlink=Daniele Luttazzi |last=Luttazzi |first=Daniele |language=Italian |location=Milano |year=1995 |title=Come parlare sporco e influenzare la gente |trans-title=How to Talk Dirty and Influence People |editor-last=Bruce |editor-first=Lenny |chapter=Preface |publisher=Bompiani |isbn=8845224457}} Foreword to the 1995 Italian edition of Bruce's book.</ref>{{Request quotation|date=September 2014}} Mainstream comic taste in the United States had favored more innocuous forms, such as the topical but (for the time) inoffensive one-liners in Bob Hope's routines. In contrast, the new comedy favored observational<!-- Is this right? --> monologues, often with elements of cynicism, social criticism and political satire.
{{Quote box |quote = The kind of sickness I wish ''Time'' had written about, is that school teachers in Oklahoma get a top annual salary of $4000, while Sammy Davis Jr. gets $10,000 for a week in Vegas. |source = Lenny Bruce, "The Tribunal". ''I am not a nut, elect me!'' (LP). Fantasy. 7007 |align = right |width = 40% }} As a guest at the first airing of the ''Playboy's Penthouse'' show in 1959, Lenny Bruce objected to a ''Time'' article indiscriminately grouping seven new comedians, labeling them as "sick comics".<ref name="BrucePlayboy">{{Cite AV media |title=Lenny Bruce on Playboy's Penthouse (Part 3) |people=Hefner, Hugh (Interviewer); Bruce, Lenny |date=October 24, 1959 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrQuL2O8AfY?t=25s |accessdate=24 September 2014 }} Also appears on the 2004 Bruce anthology ''Let The Buyer Beware'', Disc One, last track ''Lenny On Playboy's Penthouse (with Hugh Hefner & Nat "King" Cole)''.)</ref> (These were Lenny Bruce, political satirist Mort Sahl, Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and Tom Lehrer.)<ref name="Sicknicks">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,869153,00.html |title=The Sickniks |magazine=Time |date=July 13, 1959 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080925141012/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,869153,00.html |archivedate=25 September 2008}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20080926020303/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,869153-2,00.html p.2 of 3] [https://web.archive.org/web/20080926020309/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,869153-3,00.html p.3 of 3]</ref>
Stand-up comedian Daniele Luttazzi says: "the term sick comedy then ended up being used to encompass a bit of everything: the humor of the ''Mad'' magazine as Jules Feiffer, the cartoons by Charles Addams as the monologues by Mike Nichols and Elaine May, the traditional comedy by Shelley Berman and the hipster comedy of Dick Gregory."<ref name="LuttazziBruce"/> The first published (1958) collection of Feiffer cartoons was entitled 'Sick, Sick, Sick..'
==See also== * Beat Generation * Black comedy
==References== {{reflist}}
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Category:Comedy genres Category:1960s fads and trends Category:Stand-up comedy