Baggy pants comedy
Subtitle: burlesque and the oral tradition
By: Andrew Davis
Series: Palgrave studies in theatre and performance history
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780230116795
Subjects: Stand-up comedy; PERFORMING ARTS / Storytelling; Burlesque (Theater); PERFORMING ARTS / Comedy; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies; Comedy sketches; History
Description: "Baggy Pants Comedy takes readers inside the burlesque houses of Depression-era America to explore the role of comedy in a show remembered mostly for strip-tease. It examines how burlesque comics, straightmen, and talking women approached the craft of comedy, working in a genre that relied not on scripts but on a remembered tradition of comedy bits that circulated orally. The book opens a long-neglected area of American folklore, presenting dozens of fondly-remembered routines like "Who's On First" and "Niagara Falls (Slowly I Turned)," as well as long-forgotten classics in print for the first time"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.