The Laugh Industry

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 4th Year

Issue

Issue No.

4

Date Released

1938

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Holidays with Pay
2. 2The Laugh Industry
3. 3One Million Missing

Story

Story No. within this Issue

2 / 3

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: Inner secrets of the business of radio comedy - and it is a big business today - are revealed in this episode by such great comics as Eddie Cantor, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll (Amos and Andy); Phil Baker, Fred Allen and Jack Benny. The famous funny men enact for the March of Time cameras some of the problems that confront them in their efforts to concoct gags which may be relied upon to amuse audiences of all types. Fred Allen tells his staff: "In these hectic days of radio I should say the average comedian tells as many jokes in six months as a famous stage comedian like Raymond Hitchcock told in an entire lifetime." Eddie Cantor works outdoors under the warm Palm Springs sun checking and rechecking with a script-writer to work up to a climax of laughter. Phil Baker with his aides runs off an electrical transcription of his last broadcast, while the bursts of laughter are checked against each gag and the gag analyzed to determine its fundamental, psychological elements of humour for study and improvement of future technique. Jack Benny’s script is never finished. He is still working on it at the very moment of going on the air, which perhaps is the reason he averages 75 laughs in thirty minutes of broadcast time. Amos and Andy, in white-face, test their gags and dialects upon one another, not for mutual laughter but for technical effect. In this same episode is an amusing sequence depicting the development of the gag-factory, the joke libraries which have resulted from radio’s tremendous demand for comedy. Eugene Conrad, leading professional gagster, displays the elaborate filing system whereby he keeps track of his collection of 750,000 new and old jokes, ranging from "It seems there were two Irishmen" all the way up to wheezes of such recent vintage as "That wasn’t no lady -" etc.

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.4 No.5 of the US edition.

Keywords

Entertainment and leisure; Science and technology

Written sources

Fielding, Raymond. The March of Time 1935-1951 (New York, 1978)   p185.
The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.