Sam Levenson: I told jokes naturally

Ladies and Gentlemen this is Alan Grier presenting another comic artist close up.

I have written very few jokes. My my special brand of

war is that I copied down the folklore of the people around me and I repeat it.

Michigan State University radio presents the comic arts and essay unsolved

on the humor of our times featuring the comic the humorist the joke writer the

clown the Dauntless individuals who work in the world of comedy.

There is no comedian in America today who better carries on a traditional folk

humor of Mark Twain or Will Rogers than Sam Levenson teacher

turned performer trading the blackboard and pointer for stage lights and a microphone.

Now I may well boast a classroom of millions of Americans. He shares with

us a moment of truth that is sometimes painful but always humorous as Mr.

Levinson tells his stories on stage we nod and smile at recalling a shared

experience. Be it that broken arm or the family picnic. Or maybe that

unforgettable first day of school.

The comic arts takes a close up now of storyteller and humorist Sam Levinson

one of the one of the favorite clichés or at least sayings of amongst

comic personalities and humor writers and joke tellers of all sorts is

that there is no such thing as a new joke. They are all in

some form or manner a rewrite and they

don't want to believe that yet.

Well I don't really believe that it's like saying you a

bad man basing Evey's only man and that's all there is it's true

and I'm sure that that Shakespeare's stories have been told

by other people but it's the manner in which they had told them the new significance is given to a

situation. I have written very few jokes.

My special brand of work is that I copy down the folklore of the

people around me and I repeat it. I rarely have had to create a

joke as such. Once in a while I do I found that

I created a joke in this era for example where every

town you come to has read the Red Feather campaign of the

community chess draw and they this has become of American folklore every town has

to have its drives and I was sitting through a drive once.

And they were calling cars in homage to this one going to given homes that were going to give you

some you don't want to me how much of this I had heard in the last 10 15 years you know how much will

this farm donate and donate an organ give and give and I got up and I said The time will come.

And this was really off the cuff. Just a comment that the teacher will

call the roll in class and just say you know like Joey Gibson he will say I

give a hundred dollars as an almost reflex action of anybody

calling your name.

So from a cut out and they laughed. Bad joke has

become a joke. It was picked up at that dinner

and carried around I have read it three times in different publications.

So I know that I just I just happened to create that on the spot. The reason that it

took well is because the situation is authentic. And that's why. And for

me as long as life can absorb

this joke as a reflection of itself that joke will hang around when the

situation changes. Like there's no point in getting up and telling old Ford

jokes. You know the old for you. Nobody's interest.

They were great jokes in their time their little joke books around that used to sell

call on a slow train or a club

car wit and humor and they just died.

See there's nothing there's there's no social scene that includes this

anymore. Now you're getting the space jokes. They have

Asian jokes are what you call hot today because they have significance

today.

Well this is saying that in essence that humor must be

contemporary It must belong to a time and a space.

If you were professionally an educator before you entered the entertainment

field and several aspects were you. Yes here we have an interesting

relationship too. When you come out on the national television

stage and begin to recount some experiences.

Audiences across the country find this enormously amusing has a great common

denominator there at the school. This has been your basic setting hasn't

it.

School is your common denominator. You know everybody goes to school in America some go

you know part of the way some go all the way and some go beyond all the way. But that's the

basic common denominator.

And if you say teacher everybody meekly gets an image of some teacher

in the same way I have limited to my material to the family.

They say limited in quotes because what is broader than the family what is more

interesting family you guys there you must strike home. Man had a mother

and a father in the family and the minute you say you talk about your mother's cooking everybody's

mouth has the water.

Did you. My question is in that relationship

did you employ this type of approach.

That is the use of humor in the educational situation with why did you just. I did

I did. You couldn't do as much of it they had to get a certain amount of work done. But

I saw humor in the class and I drew a humor from the classroom situation.

I used that extensively I found it kept interest very high.

Do you think this is something that perhaps more teachers in the great broad field of education could

employ to better advantage of the way that well it's like musical ability some

people have and others don't.

You can tell every every person to sing some sing naturally Well I told jokes

naturally.

You know you think as in the case of saying somebody with respect to music is tone

deaf that some people are just deaf.

Definitely there's no doubt about it you can get a whole audience sometimes a brotherhood that seems to joke

death and you can't explain why there are such moments there are such

moments.

I try not to ever not ever to blame an audience or try to find some other explanation.

But in one room like a nightclub I don't do those now but I used Monday

night you did pretty much the same act. And they were dull Tuesday night they were

wonderful Wednesday they did Saturday night they're always good.

Though there are other elements in this that are very important I think Will Rogers or some

of those.

No joke is so great that waiters dropping a tray of dishes cannot

destroy. Absolutely there are other elements that go into this

the attention the time the place the mood of the people. If a great

man died and you're working in a nightclub that night you are not going to get great laughs

same jokes will not be good that night. Each audience has a different mood.

Definitely definitely the predominance of sexual predominance of men over

women.

Women are better lives than men.

I wonder why this might be I don't know exactly either but I know it's to return I know it's true.

Given a choice between two audiences I would rather take an all women's group rather than any time there rather than

Normans.

I don't know it's interesting it's interesting.

Yes and like most professionals Sam

Levinson is interested in the psychology of a good joke or story and one

of the comic talent. Is it a goal or a gift.

Mr. Levenson talks about training in the comic art concerning

training for the for doing this you can perfect that ability as you can

perfect any other ability. You can learn how to set up a joke that it

took me a long time before I found out what it was about that I was doing.

I knew I was getting laughs and my timing was kind of

instinctive. But then later I began to try to analyze what it was that I was

doing. And you learn that if you plaze the

punchline the proper sequence it doesn't much better within the

punchline itself.

A word sometimes is better move to the end say. And it

is a at that point it becomes a literary fabrication

where word order or sequence and diction does count. It

does kind of a great deal. You picked the wrong word and a whole joke can be

distorted. And sometimes I'd come home and worry about it because I know it's a good joke but

why doesn't it come more off. And I let it wait a while and then

come back to it and try it again. New wording a new sequence a

logic you know.

A man walks in the door opens this way therefore this and this happens

sometimes.

You can start with the punchline. You know that he fell. Now what happened that sometimes works

too. You can wire backwards put the factory in front of act one way and

sometimes some jokes are almost tell a proof they're so funny that no matter

how you tell them they come out funny. But there is all the

elements a lot of there is pun in many jokes to set up the pun right

you have to know what you say so this becomes quite an interesting kit for

dramatics writing imagination and logic because

jokes are based upon illogic. So you have to know which logic to set up

to arrive at the illogic as a way to get the surprise ending you leave their mind

in one direction and then you twist. That's one of the exposure why people

laugh. You know that they expect one ending but get another surprise a surprise

ending so that you have to know how to set it up to get that surprise then. That's a pretty

intricate business as you're indicating here sometimes a surprise comes back on the comic.

Oh yes oh yes oh yes you can get up with all that that experience you can get a big

big nothing I once told a joke on TV but

it was on Mother's Day and I told this joke and audiences listening

by this millionaire was sitting there talking. What good is it.

Oh my yachts and my golf clubs you know and my seven

Cadillacs with my poor mother starving in a garret.

So he and I thought this is a very funny concept

I must have done it too well because everybody nodded and wiped away her tears. They said that rotten

heart and. His mother's darling again they didn't say

that's not ok at all you know that's one of those things is a little too close to

home.

That's Hutchence out there was of a person whom we so didn't get a

REPL didn't get a REPL.

I saw that with your mouth and you can hear the fans harming you know that moment

isn't it.

There's me another question that's too painful to remember

concerning your professional your own professional career.

A question about about your beginnings.

Actually in entertainment did you. Did you set out specifically

to be a monologist or to be an entertainer comedian.

This is one of those strange stories as a. Tangential

kind of thing. It just went off. I did it in school. I did

it for the faculty. I did it at the end term luncheon for the

faculty I was used to review of the events of the year. You know the funny things that

happen teachers love that we had a lot of fun until I found myself doing it

outside of school and then I got out of control.

I found out I was making more money on the side as they say than I was making in.

So I thought I'd take a chance at it. And I never went back.

Well it certainly has. Succeeded very well for you and

as a concomitant result for a lot of other people particularly the teaching profession has benefited from

your success.

I hope I've yeah I've been where I can

do good by bringing attention to school situations and salaries and other

things. The teachers themselves are a little bit timid about talking about those things you know it's

conduct unbecoming of a teacher to ask for food. But

what I'm not ashamed to ask for is.

And that's food for thought. It is certain that Sam Levinson will never run short of

material. He draws from life in the real situation a folkie immersed

in the true sense reflecting the American Comic Spirit. Certainly one of America's most

beloved humorists.

Iconic artist close up featured comedian and humorist Sam Levinson portions were

prerecorded This is Al McGuire for the comic arts.

The comic arts series with al the wire is produced by Michigan State University

Radio in cooperation with the humor societies of America program

consultant George Q. Lewis the music by Jerry Tillman. Your announcer can be

charter.

For.

This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.