History is determined by who is doing the storytelling. A good storyteller of history can make you feel like you are right there with them filling in the details and the context of a time and a place that a staid history book cannot do. There have been numerous books about modern comedy during its different eras from Jack Benny on the radio to when the Ed Sullivan Show on television brought stand up comedy to audiences everywhere all the way up till now when comedy is exploding on Netflix with new stand-up specials premiering seemingly every week.
So it seems appropriate during this standup comedy glut to look back at where it all began and out of that comes The History of Standup podcast hosted by veteran comedian Wayne Federman.
Wayne is an adjunct professor at USC teaching standup comedy and a self-professed "comedy nerd" and in his six-episode podcast series (plus two bonus episodes), he makes connections between the way things were in comedy and how they came to be the way they are today. Most of the people he discusses are big names that would be familiar to the average listener like Richard Pryor and Johnny Carson, but he also introduces some lesser-known lights that are just as important like Frank Fay. He describes Fay as stepping out of the shadows of the Marx Brothers who did big physical comedy to show that you can be just a guy on stage telling jokes. Wayne says his style was the closest to what we now call modern standup comedy although he was quickly overshadowed by Bob Hope. But since then, Wayne says, standup hasn’t really changed all that much since it began, it's still just one person telling jokes and trying to make people laugh.
In addition to using his own research and recollections, Wayne uses relevant audio and short interview clips to further bring these stories to life. Some of the earliest tales on the show are second hand but interesting such as the origin of the word "stand-up". Pop culture historian Kliph Nesteroff who wrote a book on American comedy said actor Dick Curtis told him it came from the Mafia. They controlled the early night clubs that comedy was shown in and relied on comedians to perform the exact amount of time they were given so guests wouldn't be distracted from gambling; a comedian who could do that was a real "standup guy" or so the story goes, a standup comedian.
Producer Andrew Steven co-hosts the show and also functions as Wayne's student helping to flesh out Wayne's stories and asking questions in a relaxed conversational style about why things work that way or why something is relevant to stand up.
They started working together a few years ago when Andrew was producing and hosting a comedy podcast for Seeso, the now-defunct streaming comedy service, and he brought Wayne in to talk about Johnny Carson. In a conversation over the phone Andrew related that in the back of his head he had this idea that Wayne teaching him about comedy could be a great podcast and shortly after that Wayne got the job at USC and so it seemed like perfect timing.
I had a conversation with Wayne over the phone to talk about the format of the show and how he first got into doing standup comedy as a class and how he came to know so much about standup.
I asked him if a joke he repeated on the show about there only being six different jokes that are told endlessly was kind of true. He said that "Our podcast really focuses on the history of stand up without really breaking down what stand up comedy is and joke structure and all of that. We're more interested in what happened." But that makes sense in the greater comedy ethos after all and is summed up in something he says in the show, "If you have to explain comedy it dies on the operating table."
One thing Wayne took away from doing the show was seeing how important technology was to the growth of comedy and how different eras of comedy grew alongside new technology like the record player, television, film, and now streaming video. This enabled more and more people to enjoy standup beyond the small audiences who could go to see the big comics in New York City or in older times the Catskills. New technology also enabled one young Wayne Federman who moved to New York in 1977 to become knowledgeable about comedy history because the Museum of Broadcasting had just opened and he became a member and devoured the archives of old tv and radio shows.
Another aspect of technology's effect on comedy is that it has forced comics to work harder. Wayne describes in the show how comics used to be able to travel for years with the same 20 or 30 minute set without having to worry that the next audience had heard their jokes on television or the internet. "Comedy is about surprise," Wayne reminded me. "That's the germ of it all and once audiences are aware of where you're going (with a joke), it's harder to get laughs so comics have to work harder to surprise people with their punchline."
On What He's Learned from Teaching Stand-Up
- There's a difference between being funny in real life and being funny as a profession. I think if you're a funny person, and if you have to be funny, you're gonna be funny. You just can't help it.
- Some people take years to find their voice or their point of view, and other comedians get it really early. I don't think there's any hard rules like, Oh, you have to do this 70 years before you can even think about whether you're good at it or not. That just doesn't apply.
- I've always been very skeptical about stand up comedy classes, but I brought in Jeff Ross, who's the Roastmaster General and Margaret Cho to my classes at USC and they both said they took stand up classes when they were starting to figure out how to do it.
Despite his years of success as a comedian Wayne says there's nothing he can teach anyone that's better than getting up on stage and doing it for yourself.
Fortunately, Wayne is still needed to teach the history of stand-up and they're planning on a second season looking at places across the US where stand up has helped inform and shape movements that have spread throughout the rest of the country.
When asked if they were going to visit Katz's Deli in New York City, home of the famous line from When Harry Met Sally "I'll have what she's having", Wayne asked a question back.
"You know who said that line?" Wayne wanted to know. Andrew and I, of course, had no idea.
"That was Estelle Reiner who was Carl Reiner's wife," Wayne said, "which is something you might learn if you took my standup comedy class."
Class is in session now on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
