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Funny Business: A Stand-Up Life, The History Of Stand-Up Comedy As Its Told While We Follow Rising Comic Al Lubel's Quest To Get The Most Important Gig Of The Heyday Of Stand-Up Comedy: An Appearance On The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson On December 11, 1991! Features Performance Clips By Bob Hope, Robin Williams, Joan Rivers, Lenny Bruce, Milton Berle, Mort Sahl, Jerry Seinfeld, Paula Poundstone, Richard Jeni And Burt Reynolds, And Exclusive Interviews With Alan King, Bob Hope, Joan Rivers, Al Lubel, Al Lubel's Mother Linda Lubel, Milton Berle, Paula Poundstone, Jim McCawley, Mort Sahl, Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Jeni, Burt Reynolds And Special Appearance By Johnny Carson, All Presented In The Highest DVD Quality MPG Video Format Of 9.1 MBPS As An MP4 Video Download Or Archival Quality All Regions Format DVD! (Color, 1992, 49 Minutes.)
Stand-Up Comedy is a comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up. Stand-up comedy consists of one-liners, stories, observations or a shtick that may incorporate props, music, magic tricks or ventriloquism. It can be performed almost anywhere, including comedy clubs, comedy festivals, bars, nightclubs, colleges or theatres.
The History Of Stand-Up Comedy: The roots of modern stand-up comedy began in 1840s minstrel shows that perpetuated racist stereotypes in the United States. American vaudeville emerged around the same time and along with the later developed Chitlin' Circuit, produced the founders of this form of entertainment. Early stand-up comedians spoke directly to the audience as themselves without props or costumes, which distinguished these acts from vaudeville performances. These comics stood in front of the curtain during their shows, like early 20th century "front cloth" stand-up comics in Britain and Ireland whose numbers allowed the stage behind them to be re-set for another act. Aside from American and British versions in the early 1900s, other nations did not establish comedy scenes until decades later. Despite a history of staged comedy acts from the 16th and 17th centuries, modern stand-up in India emerged in the 1980s. Although a few performers in Spain and Brazil introduced stand-up comedy in the 1950s and 1960s, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and Germany were not considered to have developed stand-up traditions until the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the Tonight Show franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, 1992. Ed McMahon served as Carson's sidekick and the show's announcer. For its first decade, Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show was based at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, with some episodes recorded at NBC Studios in Burbank, California; on May 1, 1972, the show moved to Burbank as its main venue and remained there exclusively after May 1972 until Carson's retirement. The show's house band, the NBC Orchestra, was led by Skitch Henderson, until 1966 when Milton Delugg took over, who was succeeded by Doc Severinsen less than a year later. The series has been ranked as one of the greatest TV shows of all time in polls from both 2002 and 2013.
From Al Lubel's website allubel.com: "Al Lubel became a lawyer to please his mother and a year later became a standup comedian in order to displease her. Getting stage time is hard for a new comic so Al, unannounced, would suddenly stand up in the middle of restaurants while people were in the middle of eating dinner and do his five minutes. As Al says, "And I almost always got big laughs because, looking back on it, I think they were scared that I was insane." Al began getting work at comedy clubs and within a year won the $100,000 Comedy Grand Prize on television's Star Search. Doing the Tonight Show was a childhood fantasy so he auditioned and luckily became one of the last comics to appear with Johnny Carson. He then went on to make a bunch of appearances on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Late Show with David Letterman. In 1992, Al was the subject of A Standup Life, directed by Peter Lydon for the BBC. A documentary about American standup comedy, it features Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope, Mort Sahl and Joan Rivers. In 1990, Al played an attorney on the Blake Clark HBO Comedy Hour and in 2002 played basketball superstar Bill Walton's sidekick in the the ESPN series, Bill Walton's Long Strange Trip. Al's solo show, Mentally Al, won the Amused Moose Award Judges Prize as the best one person show in the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Two years later he was nominated for best performer of a one person show by the Barry Awards at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2016, Al was Marc Maron's guest on WTF and a year later moved to London where he did standup for three years in the UK and Europe. But Al does admit to missing the practice of law. "I'd like to have just one more trial, something serious like a murder trial because right before I give closing argument and my client's fate hinges on every word I say I want to see his face when I turn to him and whisper, I'm a comedian!" (Last updated: 2022) Al Lubel has appeared On: The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson; The Tonight Show with Jay Leno 6 times; and The Late Show with David Letterman 5 times. He won the 1988 StarSearch Comedy Grand Prize, and the Amused Moose - Edinborough 2013. "Unimaginable neuroses, spiraling self-reflection, towering mother issues, all of your favorites.. but boy does he bring it all together in one truly brilliant comedy show." - Londonisfunny.com. "Al Lubel is Mentally Al - His performance is like an elongated beat poem" - Julian Hall, The Independent. " Al Lubel has one of the funniest jokes I have ever heard" - Jerry Seinfeld.
"A terrifically funny comedian" - David Letterman. Al Lubel is especially known for Funny People (2009), Mentally Al (2020) and Comedy Factory (1999).