The Funniest Decade

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Author Garry Berman gives readers a history lesson in comparing and overlapping the mediums of radio artists and film comedies during the decade of the 1930s. In doing so he has not only created a new format he has brought in fresh perspectives of the people that made the magic.  </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> - Bill Cassara author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Nobody's Stooge</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> and </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Edgar Kennedy: Master of the Slow Burn.</em></p><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </em></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> It is a thorough and fascinating study filled with interesting details. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>- James Neibaur author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Arbuckle & Keaton</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> and </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Charley Chase Talkies</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Garry Berman has done a stellar job. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>- Michelle Morgan author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>.</span></p><p> </p><p>If there was ever a Golden Decade of American comedy it was the 1930s. At the dawn of that remarkable laugh-filled era comedians had for the first time three performing venues available to them: the stage radio and talking films (plus in the final year of the decade the arrival of television) resulting in this ten-year span producing the finest performances by the greatest comedians ever to make audiences laugh. In film comedy titans Laurel & Hardy The Marx Brothers and W. C. Fields all reached their creative peaks as did Mae West Our Gang (a.k.a. The Little Rascals) the Three Stooges and less-remembered teams such as Wheeler & Woolsey Clark & McCullough and the Ritz Brothers. </p><p><br></p><p>At the same time radio became a major entertainment force allowing vaudevillians Jack Benny Eddie Cantor Fred Allen Ed Wynn George Burns & Gracie Allen Edgar Bergen Bob Hope and Abbott & Costello to become national stars.</p><p><br></p><p>On the stage comedians including Bert Lahr Fannie Brice Jimmy Durante and Wynn all thrived while expanding their respective careers into films and radio.</p><p><br></p><p><em>The Funniest Decade</em> devotes one chapter to each calendar year of the 1930s covering the landmark comedy films radio programs and stage performances of each year while focusing on the individual comedians and comedy teams at key moments in their professional careers including their first major creative and popular breakthroughs. Dozens of photos too!</p><p> </p><p>Entertainment historian Garry Berman has been writing about pop culture−especially television music and films−for over twenty years. He has contributed to <em>Nostalgia Digest</em> magazine <em>History</em> magazine and <em>Beatlefan. </em>He has also written and/or published several comedy scripts and humorous short pieces. This is his sixth non-fiction book.</p>