Being Funny

How the pathbreaking comedian got his act together

By Steve Martin
Smithsonian magazine, February 2008, Subscribe

(Joe McNally)

(Page 2 of 4)

On May 6, 1969, I wangled an audition for Steve Allen's two producers, Elias Davis and David Pollock. They accepted me with more ease than I expected, and for my first appearance on "The Steve Allen Show"—which was also my first appearance on television as a stand-up—I wore black pants and a bright blue marching-band coat I had picked up in a San Francisco thrift shop. Steve's introduction of me was ad-libbed perfectly. "This next young man is a comedian, and..." he stammered, "...at first you might not get it"—he stammered again—"but then you think about it for a while, and you still don't get it"—stammer, stammer—"then, you might want to come up onstage and talk to him about it."

The "Steve Allen" appearance went well—he loved the offbeat, and his cackle was enough to make any comedian feel confident. Seated on the sofa, though, I was hammered by another guest, Morey Amsterdam of "The Dick Van Dyke Show," for being unconventional. But I bore no grudge; I was so naive I didn't even know I had been insulted. The "Steve Allen" credit opened a few doors, and I bounced around all of the afternoon shows, juggling material, trying not to repeat myself.

I recently viewed a musty video of an appearance on "The Virginia Graham Show," circa 1970. I looked grotesque. I had a hairdo like a helmet, which I blow-dried to a puffy bouffant, for reasons I no longer understand. I wore a frock coat and a silk shirt, and my delivery was mannered, slow and self-aware. I had absolutely no authority. After reviewing the show, I was depressed for a week. But later, searching my mind for at least one redeeming quality in the performance, I became aware that not one joke was normal, that even though I was the one who said the lines, I did not know what was coming next. The audience might have thought what I am thinking now: "Was that terrible? Or was it good?"

From these television appearances, I got a welcome job in 1971 with Ann-Margret, five weeks opening the show for her at the International Hilton in Vegas, a huge, unfunny barn with sculptured pink cherubs hanging from the corners of the proscenium. Laughter in these poorly designed places rose a few feet into the air and dissipated like steam, always giving me the feeling I was bombing. One night, from my dressing room, I saw a vision in white gliding down the hall—a tall, striking woman, moving like an apparition along the backstage corridor. It turned out to be Priscilla Presley, coming to visit Ann-Margret backstage after having seen the show. When she turned the corner, she revealed an even more indelible presence walking behind her. Elvis. Dressed in white. Jet-black hair. A diamond-studded buckle.

When Priscilla revealed Elvis to me, I was also revealed to Elvis. I'm sure he noticed that this 25-year-old stick figure was frozen firmly to the ground. About to pass me by, Elvis stopped, looked at me and said in his beautiful Mississippi drawl: "Son, you have an ob-leek sense of humor." Later, after his visit with Ann-Margret, he stopped by my dressing room and told me that he, too, had an oblique sense of humor—which he did—but that his audience didn't get it. Then he said, "Do you want to see my guns?" After emptying the bullets into his palm, he showed me two pistols and a derringer.

The plum television appearance during the '60s and '70s was "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." Bob Shayne, who in the late '60s booked "The Steve Allen Show," had moved over to "The Tonight Show" and mentioned me to its producer, Freddy De Cordova. Bob showed Freddy a kinescope of my appearance on "The Steve Allen Show," and Fred replied, "I don't think he's for us." But Bob persisted, and Johnny saw the kinescope and said, "Let's give him a try." I was booked on the show in October 1972.

There was a belief that one appearance on "The Tonight Show" made you a star. But here are the facts. The first time you do the show, nothing. The second time you do the show, nothing. The sixth time you do the show, someone might come up to you and say, "Hi, I think we met at Harry's Christmas party." The tenth time you do the show, you could conceivably be remembered as being seen somewhere on television. The 12th time you do the show, you might hear, "Oh, I know you. You're that guy."

But I didn't know that. Before the show, as I stood in the backstage darkness behind the curtain of "The Tonight Show," hearing the muffled laughter while Johnny spoke and waiting for the tap on the shoulder that would tell me I was on, an italicized sentence ticker-taped through my head: "I am about to do 'The Tonight Show.'" Then I walked out onstage, started my act and thought, "I am doing 'The Tonight Show.'" I finished my act and thought, "I have just done 'The Tonight Show.'" What happened while I was out there was very similar to an alien abduction: I remember very little of it, though I'm convinced it occurred.

I did the show successfully several times. I was doing material from my act, best stuff first, and after two or three appearances, I realized how little best stuff I had. After I'd gone through my stage material, I started doing some nice but oddball bits such as "Comedy Act for Dogs" (first done on "Steve Allen"), in which I said, "A lot of dogs watch TV, but there's really nothing on for them, so call your dog over and let him watch because I think you're going to see him crack up for the first time." Then I brought out four dogs "that I can perform to so I can get the timing down." While I did terrible canine-related jokes, the dogs would walk off one at a time, with the last dog lifting his leg on me. The studio audience saw several trainers out of camera range, making drastic hand signals, but the home TV audience saw only the dogs doing their canine best.

Another time I claimed that I could read from the phone book and make it funny. I opened the book and droned the names to the predictable silence, then I pretended to grow more and more desperate and began to do retro shtick such as cracking eggs on my head. I got word that Johnny was not thrilled, and I was demoted to appearing with guest hosts, which I tried not to admit to myself was a devastating blow.

For the next few years, I was on the road with an itinerary designed by the Marquis de Sade. But there was a sexy anonymity about the travel; I was living the folkie myth of having no ties to anyone, working small clubs and colleges in improvised folk rooms that were usually subterranean. In this netherworld, I was free to experiment. There were no mentors to tell me what to do; there were no guidebooks for doing stand-up. Everything was learned in practice, and the lonely road, with no critical eyes watching, was the place to dig up my boldest, or dumbest, ideas and put them onstage. After a show, preoccupied by its success or failure, I would return to my motel room and glumly watch the three TV channels sign off the air at 11:30, knowing I had at least two more hours to stare at the ceiling before the adrenaline eased off and I could fall asleep.

When necessary, I could still manage to have a personality, and sometimes I was rescued by a local girl who actually liked me. Occasionally the result was an erotic tryst enhanced by loneliness. Perhaps the women saw it as I did, an encounter free from obligation: the next day I would be gone. I had also refined my pickup technique. If I knew I would be returning to a club, I tweaked my hard-learned rule, "Never hit on a waitress the first night," to "Never hit on a waitress for six months." I came off as coolly reserved, as I would harmlessly flirt on my first visit; by my next visit, everything was in place. Soon the six months caught up with me, and I always had someone I could latch onto as I rolled from town to town.

In the late 1960s, comedy was in transition. The older school told jokes and stories, punctuated with the drummer's rimshot. Of the new school, Bill Cosby—one of the first to tell stories you actually believed were true—and Bob Newhart—who startled everyone with innovative, low-key delivery and original material—had achieved icon status. Mort Sahl tweaked both sides of the political fence with his college-prof delivery. George Carlin and Richard Pryor, though very funny, were still a few years away from their final artistic breakthroughs. Lenny Bruce had died several years earlier, fighting both the system and drugs, and his work was already in revival because of his caustic brilliance that made authority nervous. Vietnam, the first televised war, split the country, and one's left or right bent could be recognized by haircuts and clothes. The country was angry, and so was comedy, which was addressed to insiders. Cheech and Chong spoke to the expanding underground by rolling the world's largest doobie on film. There were exceptions: Don Rickles seemed to glide over the generation gap with killer appearances on "The Tonight Show," and Johnny Carson remained a gentle satirist while maintaining a nice glossary of naughty-boy breast jokes. Tim Conway and Harvey Korman, two great comic sketch actors working for the affable genius Carol Burnett, were deeply funny. The television free-for-all called "Laugh-In" kept its sense of joy, thanks in part to Goldie Hawn's unabashed goofiness and producer George Schlatter's perceptive use of her screw-ups, but even that show had high political content. In general, however, a comedian in shackles for indecent language, or a singer's arrest for obscene gestures, thrilled the growing underground audience. Silliness was just not appropriate for hip culture. It was this circumstance that set the stage for my success eight years later.

In a college psychology class, I had read a treatise on comedy explaining that a laugh was formed when the storyteller created tension, then, with the punch line, released it. I didn't quite get this concept, nor do I still, but it stayed with me and eventually sparked my second wave of insights. With conventional joke telling, there's a moment when the comedian delivers the punch line, and the audience knows it's the punch line, and their response ranges from polite to uproarious. What bothered me about this formula was the nature of the laugh it inspired, a vocal acknowledgment that a joke had been told, like automatic applause at the end of a song.

A skillful comedian could coax a laugh with tiny indicators such as a vocal tic (Bob Hope's "But I wanna tell ya") or even a slight body shift. Jack E. Leonard used to punctuate jokes by slapping his stomach with his hand. One night, watching him on "The Tonight Show," I noticed that several of his punch lines had been unintelligible, and the audience had actually laughed at nothing but the cue of his hand slap.

These notions stayed with me until they formed an idea that revolutionized my comic direction: What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh.

To test my idea, I went onstage and began: "I'd like to open up with sort of a 'funny comedy bit.' This has really been a big one for me...it's the one that put me where I am today. I'm sure most of you will recognize the title when I mention it; it's the "Nose on Microphone" routine [pause for imagined applause]. And it's always funny, no matter how many times you see it."

I leaned in and placed my nose on the mike for a few long seconds. Then I stopped and took several bows, saying, "Thank you very much." "That's it?" they thought. Yes, that was it. The laugh came not then, but only after they realized I had already moved on to the next bit.

Now that I had assigned myself to an act without jokes, I gave myself a rule. Never let them know I was bombing: this is funny, you just haven't gotten it yet. If I wasn't offering punch lines, I'd never be standing there with egg on my face. It was essential that I never show doubt about what I was doing. I would move through my act without pausing for the laugh, as though everything were an aside. Eventually, I thought, the laughs would be playing catch-up to what I was doing. Everything would be either delivered in passing, or the opposite, an elaborate presentation that climaxed in pointlessness. Another rule was to make the audience believe that I thought I was fantastic, that my confidence could not be shattered. They had to believe that I didn't care if they laughed at all and that this act was going on with or without them.

I was having trouble ending my show. I thought, "Why not make a virtue of it?" I started closing with extended bowing, as though I heard heavy applause. I kept insisting that I needed to "beg off." No, nothing, not even this ovation I am imagining, can make me stay. My goal was to make the audience laugh but leave them unable to describe what it was that had made them laugh. In other words, like the helpless state of giddiness experienced by close friends tuned in to each other's sense of humor, you had to be there.

At least that was the theory. And for the next eight years, I rolled it up a hill like Sisyphus.

My first reviews came in. One said, "This so-called 'comedian' should be told that jokes are supposed to have punch lines." Another said I represented "the most serious booking error in the history of Los Angeles music."

"Wait," I thought, "let me explain my theory!"

In Los Angeles, there were an exploding number of afternoon television talk shows: "The Della Reese Show," "The Merv Griffin Show," "The Virginia Graham Show," "The Dinah Shore Show," "The Mike Douglas Show" and my favorite, "The Steve Allen Show." Steve Allen had a vibrant comedy spirit, and you might catch him playing Ping-Pong while suspended from a crane a hundred feet in the air, or becoming a human tea bag by dropping himself in a tank of water filled with lemons. In his standard studio audience warm-up, when he was asked, "Do they get this show in Omaha?" Steve would answer, "They see it, but they don't get it."

In Los Angeles one week, I opened the show for Linda Ronstadt at the Troubadour club; she sang barefoot on a raised stage and wore a silver lamé dress that stopped a millimeter below her panties, causing the floor of the club to be slick with drool. Linda and I saw each other for a while, but I was so intimidated by her talent and street smarts that, after the ninth date, she said, "Steve, do you often date girls and not try to sleep with them?" We parted chaste.

At the end of my closing-night show at the Troubadour, I stood onstage and took out five bananas. I peeled them, put one on my head, one in each pocket and squeezed one in each hand. Then I read the last line of my latest bad review: "Sharing the bill with Poco this week is comedian Steve Martin...his 25-minute routine failed to establish any comic identity that would make the audience remember him or the material." Then I walked off the stage.

The consistent work enhanced my act. I learned a lesson: it was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the circumstances. Performing in so many varied situations made every predicament manageable, from Toronto, where I performed next to an active salad bar, to the well-paying but soul-killing Playboy Clubs, where I was almost but not quite able to go over. But as I continued to work, my material grew; I came up with odd little gags such as "How many people have never raised their hands before?"

Because I was generally unknown, I was free to gamble with material, and there were a few evenings when crucial mutations affected my developing act. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, I played for approximately 100 students in a classroom with a stage at one end. The show went fine. However, when it was over, something odd happened. The audience didn't leave. The stage had no wings, no place for me to go, but I still had to pack up my props. I indicated that the show had ended, but they just sat there, even after I said flatly, "It's over." They thought this was all part of the act, and I couldn't convince them otherwise. Then I realized there were no exits from the stage and that the only way out was to go through the audience. So I kept talking. I passed among them, ad-libbing comments along the way. I walked out into the hallway, but they followed me there too. A reluctant pied piper, I went outside onto the campus, and they stayed right behind me. I came across a drained swimming pool. I asked the audience to get into it—"Everybody into the pool!"—and they did. Then I said I was going to swim across the top of them, and the crowd knew exactly what to do: I was passed hand over hand as I did the crawl. That night I went to bed feeling I had entered new comic territory. My show was becoming something else, something free and unpredictable, and the doing of it thrilled me, because each new performance brought my view of comedy into sharper focus.

The act tightened. It became more physical. It was true I couldn't sing or dance, but singing funny and dancing funny were another matter. All I had to do was free my mind and start. I would abruptly stop the show and sing loudly, in my best lounge-singer voice, "Grampa bought a rubber." Walking up to the mike, I would say, "Here's something you don't often see," and I'd spread my mouth wide with my fingers and leap into the air while screaming. Or, invoking a remembered phrase from my days working in a magic shop, I would shout, "Uh-oh, I'm getting happy feet!" and then dance uncontrollably across the stage, my feet moving like Balla's painting of a Futurist dog, while my face told the audience that I wanted to stop but couldn't. Closing the show, I'd say, "I'd like to thank each and every one of you for coming here tonight." Then I would walk into the audience and, in fast motion, thank everyone individually.

The new physicality brought an unexpected element into the act: precision. My routines wove the verbal with the physical, and I found pleasure trying to bring them in line. Each spoken idea had to be physically expressed as well. My teenage attempt at a magician's grace was being transformed into an awkward comic grace. I felt as though every part of me was working. Some nights it seemed that it wasn't the line that got the laugh, but the tip of my finger. I tried to make voice and posture as crucial as jokes and gags. Silence, too, brought forth laughs. Sometimes I would stop and, saying nothing, stare at the audience with a look of mock disdain, and on a good night, it struck us all as funny, as if we were in on the joke even though there was no actual joke we could point to. Finally, I understood an E. E. Cummings quote I had puzzled over in college: "Like the burlesque comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement." Precision was moving the plot forward, was filling every moment with content, was keeping the audience engaged.

The act was becoming simultaneously smart and stupid. My version of smart was to imbue a hint of conceptualism into the whole affair: my singalong had some funny lyrics, but it was also impossible to sing along with. My version of stupid: "Oh, gosh! My sh
oelace is untied!" I would bend down, see that my shoelace was not untied, stand up and say, "Oh, I love playing jokes on myself!"

I had the plumber joke, which was impossible to understand even for plumbers: "OK, I don't like to gear my material to the audience, but I'd like to make an exception, because I was told that there is a convention of plumbers in town this week—I understand about 30 of them came down to the show tonight—so before I came out, I worked up a joke especially for the plumbers. Those of you who aren't plumbers probably won't get this and won't think it's funny, but I think those of you who are plumbers will really enjoy this. This lawn supervisor was out on a sprinkler maintenance job, and he started working on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom seven-inch gangly wrench. Just then this little apprentice leaned over and said, 'You can't work on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom seven-inch wrench.' Well, this infuriated the supervisor, so he went and got Volume 14 of the Kinsley manual, and he reads to him and says, 'The Langstrom seven-inch wrench can be used with the Findlay sprocket.' Just then the little apprentice leaned over and says, 'It says sprocket, not socket!' [Worried pause.] "Were these plumbers supposed to be here this show?"

Around this time I smelled a rat. The rat was the Age of Aquarius. Though the era's hairstyles, clothes and lingo still dominated youth culture, by 1972 the movement was tired and breaking down. Drugs had killed people, and so had Charles Manson. The war in Vietnam was near its official end, but its devastating losses had embittered and divided America. The political scene was exhausting, and many people, including me, were alienated from government. Murders and beatings at campus protests weren't going to be resolved by sticking a daisy into the pointy end of a rifle. Flower Power was waning, but no one wanted to believe it yet, because we had all invested so much of ourselves in its message. Change was imminent.

I cut my hair, shaved my beard and put on a suit. I stripped my act of all political references. To politics I was saying, "I'll get along without you very well. It's time to be funny." Overnight, I was no longer at the tail end of an old movement but at the front end of a new one. Instead of looking like another freak with a crazy act, I now looked like a visitor from the straight world who had gone seriously awry. The act's unbridled nonsense was taking the audience—and me—on a wild ride, and my growing professionalism, founded on thousands of shows, created a subliminal sense of authority that made members of the audience feel they weren't being had.

Between 1973 and 1975, my one-man vaudeville show turned fully toward the surreal. I was linking the unlinkable, blending economy and extravagance, non sequiturs with the conventional. I was all over the place, sluicing the gold from the dirt, honing the edge that confidence brings. I cannot say I was fearless, because I was acutely aware of any audience drift, and if I sensed trouble, I would swerve around it. I believed it was important to be funny now, while the audience was watching, but it was also important to be funny later, when the audience was home and thinking about it. I didn't worry if a bit got no response, as long as I believed it had enough strangeness to linger. My friend Rick Moranis (whose imitation of Woody Allen was so precise that it made Woody seem like a faker) called my act's final manifestation "anti-comedy."

In Florida one night, I was ready to put my experience at Vanderbilt into effect. The night was balmy and I was able to take the audience outside into the street and roam around in front of the club, making wisecracks. I didn't quite know how to end the show. First I started hitchhiking; a few cars passed me by. Then a taxi came by. I hailed it and got in. I went around the block, returned and waved at the audience—still standing there—then drove off and never came back. The next morning I received one of the most crucial reviews of my life. John Huddy, the respected entertainment critic for the Miami Herald, devoted his entire column to my act. Without qualification, he raved in paragraph after paragraph, starting with HE PARADES HIS HILARITY RIGHT OUT INTO THE STREET, and concluded with: "Steve Martin is the brightest, cleverest, wackiest new comedian around." Oh, and the next night the club owner made sure all tabs had been paid before I took the audience outside.

Roger Smith had told me that when he came to Hollywood from El Paso to be an actor, he had given himself six months to get work. The time elapsed, and he packed up his car, which was parked on Sunset Boulevard, where his final audition would be. Informed that he was not right for the job, he went out and started up his car. He was about to pull away, away to El Paso, when there was a knock on his windshield. "We saw you in the hall. Would you like to read for us?" the voice said. He was then cast as the star of the hit television show "77 Sunset Strip." My review from John Huddy was the knock on the window just as I was about to get in my car and drive to a metaphorical El Paso, and it gave me a psychological boost that allowed me to nix my arbitrarily chosen 30-year-old deadline to reenter the conventional world. The next night and the rest of the week the club was full, all 90 seats.

I continued to appear on "The Tonight Show," always with a guest host, doing material I was developing on the road. Then I got a surprise note from Bob Shayne: "We had a meeting with Johnny yesterday, told him you'd been a smash twice with guest hosts, and he agrees you should be back on with him. So I think that hurdle is over." In September 1974, I was booked on the show with Johnny.

This was welcome news. Johnny had comic savvy. The daytime television hosts, with the exception of Steve Allen, did not come from comedy. I had a small routine that went like this: "I just bought a new car. It's a prestige car. A '65 Greyhound bus. You know you can get up to 30 tons of luggage in one of those babies? I put a lot of money into it....I put a new dog on the side. And if I said to a girl, 'Do you want to get in the back seat?' I had, like, 40 chances." Etc. Not great, but at the time it was working. It did, however, require all the pauses and nuance that I could muster. On "The Merv Griffin Show," I decided to use it for panel, meaning I would sit with Merv and pretend it was just chat. I began: "I just bought a new car. A '65 Greyhound bus." Merv, friendly as ever, interrupted and said, "Now, why on earth would you buy a Greyhound bus?" I had no prepared answer; I just stared at him. I thought, "Oh my God, because it's a comedy routine." And the bit was dead. Johnny, on the other hand, was the comedian's friend. He waited; he gave you your timing. He lay back and stepped in like Ali, not to knock you out but to set you up. He struggled with you too and sometimes saved you.

I was able to maintain a personal relationship with Johnny over the next 30 years, at least as personal as he or I could make it, and I was flattered that he came to respect my comedy. On one of my appearances, after he had done a solid impression of Goofy the cartoon dog, he leaned over to me during a commercial and whispered prophetically, "You'll use everything you ever knew." He was right; 20 years later I did my teenage rope tricks in the movie ¡Three Amigos!

Johnny once joked in his monologue: "I announced that I was going to write my autobiography, and 19 publishers went out and copyrighted the title Cold and Aloof." This was the common perception of him. But Johnny was not aloof; he was polite. He did not presume intimate relationships where there were none; he took time, and with time grew trust. He preserved his dignity by maintaining the personality that was appropriate for him.

Johnny enjoyed the delights of split-second timing, of watching a comedian squirm and then rescue himself, of the surprises that can arise in the seconds of desperation when the comedian senses that his joke might fall to silence. For my first show back, I chose to do a bit I had developed years earlier. I speed-talked a Vegas nightclub act in two minutes. Appearing on the show was Sammy Davis Jr., who, while still performing energetically, had also become a historic showbiz figure. I was whizzing along, singing a four-second version of "Ebb Tide," then saying at lightning speed, "Frank Sinatra personal friend of mine Sammy Davis Jr. personal friend of mine Steve Martin I'm a personal friend of mine too and now a little dancin'!" I started a wild flail, which I must say was pretty funny, when a showbiz miracle occurred. The camera cut away to a dimly lit Johnny, just as he whirled up from his chair, doubling over with laughter. Suddenly, subliminally, I was endorsed. At the end of the act, Sammy came over and hugged me. I felt like I hadn't been hugged since I was born.

This was my 16th appearance on the show, and the first one I could really call a smash. The next day, elated by my success, I walked into an antiques store on La Brea. The woman behind the counter looked at me.

"Are you that boy who was on "The Tonight Show" last night?"

"Yes," I said.

"Yuck!" she blurted out.

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Comments (56)

What a load of smug, pseudo-intellectual, middlebrow horn-tooting. It certainly explains why he was never very funny to begin with, and today is not funny at all, making mainstream pablum movies and instead getting his creative outlet with middlebrow pursuits in art and writing. He wants us to believe that he was so sophisticated that no one understood his academic experiment. In fact, all he was doing was offering up tame, housebroken surrealism so middle-class cowards and naive college kids could have a safe, faint taste of the truly surreal (and otherwise groundbreaking) comedy of the time; just as today, he has tamed even that, simply pulling silly faces in terrible movies to make the intellectually lazy chuckle. He should have stopped at the insight that people will laugh mindlessly at anything--or nothing at all.

Posted by jk on September 27,2012 | 03:31 AM

I was there that night at Vanderbilt as well. You forgot to mention that Steve was hitching hiking...while still wearing the now trademark arrow through the head and fake nose and glasses. Yea, nobody stopped. But the bit with telling the Dean of Housing his name was Carmichael Towers was the most stunningly brilliant bit of improv I've ever seen.

Posted by david braman on April 29,2012 | 10:19 PM

Steve, Very good article, but I have to correct you. I was one of the 100 Vanderbilt students that would not leave the Different Drummer in the basement of Carmichael Towers, where you performed. That night we did not find a swimming pool. I'm sure the swimming pool happened during another night. You first told us all to hide behind the bushes while you tried to hitchhike. We were told to jump in the car when somebody stopped. No one stopped. We did go cross the street and filled a Krystal's. You ordered 6,000 hamburgers, but later changed the order to 1 french fry to go. You also did an encore of a magic trick with a paper napkin for the ladies behind the counter. On our way back to campus we were stopped by an University Dean, who had been contacted about a band of students terrorizing the Krystal. When asked for your name and student ID, you informed the Dean that your name was Carmichael Tower. It was one of my best memories of college. Thanks.. Steve!!

Posted by Robert Balaka on March 21,2011 | 02:20 PM

Jeff (post on March 5, 2010) -- they've invented this thing called the You Tube. Please post that radio show. Please.

Posted by Maddy Mud on April 25,2010 | 12:22 PM

I had the unique pleasure of being at the show at Vanderbilt University. I worked for the campus radio station WRVU and, after Steve's performance, convinced him to take phone calls on the air back at the station. He did about 45 minutes. I still have the recording. Priceless.

Posted by Jeff on March 5,2010 | 03:28 PM

I can't count the number of times your humor and sensibility has fired my neurons (occasionally burning them into ash, some would say) over the years, Steve. I've read your books, all worthy of deep enjoyment and reflection, I might add, and just wanted to say a sincere "Thank you."

You know, it's a pretty great thing to so develop a skill or facility that inspires so many to elevate both thinking and feeling, in synchrony; it's the evidence of a brain well-developed and cared for, in response to life's chaotic twists and mundane banalities. It makes me think that you would make be an amazing teacher, a lens for concentrating the passion of learning. It would not surprise me to discover that you have found this as a next great adventure. If you haven't, please go for a swim :)

Thanks again, Steve. We need more people like you. But of course, that can't happen!

Posted by Mike on February 19,2010 | 12:32 PM

I first saw Steve Martin when I was around 14 yrs old. He was at the Richfield Colusium in OH. I went with a church group that my brother belonged. They had an extra ticket, so I got to go. It was fantastic !! I had seen Mr. Martin on Saturday Night Live, but never thought I'd get to see him in person. What a treat !!! I've alway been a fan. I have "King Tut" on a 45rpm and the album. My mom even saved and still has, an original 'arrow', pink feathers still attached. If, Mr. Martin, you are reading this, Please tell Mr. Mull that North Ridgeville still looks the same !!

Posted by Patty on November 27,2008 | 11:13 AM

What an absolutely wonderful article ! Steve Martin has always been one of the funniest guys around. And to see how he worked so hard for so long, stuck to his own integrity, and still made it in the industry is a real inspiration, I think, to anybody in any industry.

Posted by JoJo on November 19,2008 | 01:01 AM

My first recollection of Steve wasa television appearance,I think it was Merv Griffen's show, white suit,bent arrow... hysterical, but.... i said to myself this guy is so funny he should ditch the props & distractions,just come out dressed in a plain professional suit....next time i see him he's in a plain suit, i must have been priviliged to see him at that transition point in his career.Jerry Modene's comment, loved it .i can just imagine,wish i'd seen you deliver that intro. Steve's dramatic roles as solid as his comedy. the mans a treasure.

Posted by mike on October 4,2008 | 06:10 PM

Hey, Netpuppet (above), I was at that Fronton show too! It was the spring of 1978. I hurt from laughing afterwards. I first remember seeing Steve Martin on what must have been the Midnight Special. It was fall 1974, and he did the "grab-the-mouth-and-jump-up-and-down" routine, as well as demonstrate how to impress women at parties: look off casually into space, drink in hand, and say, "Yeah, I make a lot of money." I also remember seeing him in an episode of the mid-'70s TV series "Doc," which takes place in New York City and stars Barnard Hughes as a kindly family practitioner. Martin plays Doc's visiting son, a Catholic priest who wants to try his hand at stand-up comedy. Which he does, banjo and all (including half of "Dueling Banjos"), in a local club. He's well-received; only his parents sit still, unhappily pondering their son's desertion of his vocation. The next morning Martin appears in their kitchen, dressed in his Roman collar and recommitted to the priesthood. I've never heard anyone refer to that guest spot.

Posted by Andy on October 3,2008 | 08:13 PM

What in the heck is a bango??? A banjo spelled wrong. I was just in such a hurry to sing the praises of Steve Martin and I should have said the Mark Twain Award at the Kennedy Center.

Posted by martha on October 1,2008 | 06:29 PM

Thank goodness for old Smithsonian Magazines in hospital waiting rooms...while my husband was in surgery I spotted the article by Steve Martin and lost myself in it, even laughing out loud...especially the encounter with Elvis. The Jerk is my favorite movie. I would have so liked to have been at the Kennedy Center Honors. Love the bango and during my 60 years Steve has always been one of the bright spots in my life. Many thanks!

Posted by Martha on September 9,2008 | 06:24 PM

This article is wonderful. It has truly brightened up a not so bright day. I will be referencing this to several of my friends. I have loved Mr. Martins movies & standup for years. What I do love is how you can relate (esp. in his movies) certain events or lines to other movies. He just seems to be himself in his movies and not acting. Thank you for this article.

Posted by Nichole on June 27,2008 | 11:30 AM

Page 71 of the 2/08 magazine says to see steve martin on the tonight show go to smithonsian.com/martin. It did. But there is no obvious link to view it.

Posted by stanley weinberg on March 23,2008 | 01:26 PM

oh my gosh!!! this guy is hillarious!! infact, he is my new hero, and my mom kicked me out of the house because of it, because of it!!!! i love soap opera's and my favorite is Rebelde, the girl with red hair is sooo hot!!!! love you allll! hahaha

Posted by JOJO on March 12,2008 | 02:45 PM

Dear Mr. Martin, Thank you so much for this article! I'm 35, taking a level 2 Improv workshop focused on long-form, and we have our show in less than 2 weeks. I'm nervous as all get out! You've given me a lot of good stuff to think about and, at the same time, re-enforced something I already knew about myself: I need to let go, dammit! Thanks for being the bravely funny guy you are! -Yuckin' it up in San Jose

Posted by Susan R. on March 7,2008 | 01:27 PM

As another guy on a 30 year quest to make it being funny, I can honestly say I wouldn't be on this boat ride if I hadn't purchased Steve Martin's 'Let Get Small' on 8 Track to play on my very first Radio Shack Stereo. The best part of that fact is that I *heard* Steve's act before I *saw* it. I knew it was funny, without consciously understanding *why*... which probably explains why my sense of humor developed along those lines. Wittgenstien (did I spell that right? I was a theater major so I'm calling a 'bye' on that) wrote that laughter was a release from mechanical thinking - we laugh at things because of a moment that dislodges us from the day to day linear pattern. Steve Martin's comedy *has* an internal logic, and I'm grateful that he spelled it out here, thus proving I am not, in fact, totally insane. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Thank you so much.

Posted by Matthew Legare on March 7,2008 | 08:21 AM

My fav.....ever since I first saw you at the Birdcage Theatre, long time ago. GG grad.

Posted by Mark on March 4,2008 | 09:48 PM

DO KING TUT!

Posted by Put on February 26,2008 | 08:42 PM

Just listened to the book, friggin awesome. (I'm 55 bty) I laughed and cried, beautiful simply beautiful. On Letterman last night you were great loved the bit.

Posted by Steven on February 22,2008 | 08:36 PM

The biggest mistake my sisters ever made was to give me a copy of "Wild and Crazy Guy" for Christmas 25 years ago. I played the album until the grooves had worn through, memorizing every pause, inflection and nuance. At the time, I had no idea why it was funny that a woman's vocal teacher might want her to "sing from her diaphram," but the audience on the record thought it was hysterical so I did too. I performed Steve's act in my room, at dinner, at soccer practice, walking the dog, in school, brushing my teeth, everywhere. Now a college professor, I still use his jokes, and I always show a clip of King Tut, performed on SNL, to begin my lectures on Egypt. No entertainer has had a larger impact on me and my sense of humor than Steve Martin. My sisters still regret their decision.

Posted by Arne on February 19,2008 | 09:09 AM

what interested me about this excerpt was the similarity of the steve martin vanderbilt concert to jim morrison's miami concert, both of which occurred about the same time. both were similar in that they blurred the distinction between performer and audience. for those who don't remember, morrison at the miami concert (this was the one for which he was later arrested for indecent exposure) was an much an anti-concert as martin's vanderbilt concert was anti-comedy. morrison was drunk at the miami concert; he would start a song, then forget the words in the middle, stop and then engage the audience in a philosophical diatribe while the instruments of the other members of the doors were mute. this process repeated itself over and over until he finally jumped off the stage mosh pit style and walked out of the miami auditorium, followed by the mostly teeny bopper audience, leading them out into the night as some sort of altamont age pied piper. i immediately thought of the morrison concert when i read martin's interesting concept of tension and release and the way he utilized it at the vanderbilt concert, which i had never heard of before reading this excerpt. of course morrison died about six months after this concert so we will never know how he might have developed his innovation. (and it was an innovation, not the result of drunkenness; the sugarman biography indicates that he had been planning this sort of anti-concert idea well before the miami concert occurred). i guess if you subscribe to the thomas kuhn theory of scientific revolutions concest, as i do, this would indicate a parallel discovery process as in newton and leibniz's simultaneous discovery of calculus, e.g., ideas germinated and nurtured by the prevailing tide of the times rather than the product of independent rational thought.

Posted by jay on February 18,2008 | 12:11 AM

Steve, You're an inspiration. I'm working on writing a comic, (yes, I'm lousy) but have added you, your life, and your lessons learned into my "stew", the mix of special things I call my own experiences...that I'll hopefully one day draw from. I respect you and am a better person from seeing all you've created. That's pretty much all I need in life. That's all I need........... that... and this chair... just you're inspiring creations and this chair..... (thank you)

Posted by jim johnson on February 18,2008 | 11:31 PM

I first saw Steve Martin at the old Playboy Club in Chicago in the 70's. He reminded my husband and me so of a very good friend. We talked about how ridiculous(ly) silly and funny he was for days. We told our friend about the similarity between Martin and him and kept saying, "We wonder if anybody knows about this guy with the arrow through his head and his tongue through a napkin!?" Just a few days later, he appeared on The Tonight Show. We didn't know or I now don't recall if it was his first or fifteenth appearance. We just roared and howled, stopping only long enough to telephone our friend to have him flip on the show!! You're a great artist, writer, humanitarian, and, it seems, all-around nice guy whose kept it clean and not angry and still makes us laugh. Your physical humor is among THE best ('Father of Bride' movies come to mind). Thanks for the good times and keep 'em coming!

Posted by Vivian on February 17,2008 | 07:41 PM

A funny, sensitive, shy being that you are Steve, remember seeing you on the Tonight show and SNL, your films and book reveal intelligence and "a wild and crazy guy" - thank you, thank you never stop "Dirty Rotten Scoundral"! Love you.

Posted by Antoinette Atanasoff on February 16,2008 | 12:23 PM

Steve just kills me! Always has, always will. My favorite "Steve" is when he was Ruprecht the Monkey Boy in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", skipping around, banging a pot with a spoon, and yelling Oklahoma Oklahoma Oklahoma. As an ex-Okie, I thought I was going to croak from laughter!! Thanks Steve, you rule!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Bruce on February 14,2008 | 06:07 PM

My wife and I first saw Martin at the end of a Tonight Show; we had no idea who he was. "Dueling Banjos" was making everyone who loved bluegrass music rethink our decision, and this serious guy comes out with a banjo. "Oh God, not Dueling Banjos," we both said. Martin explained that he wanted to play "Dueling Banjos," but he was a solo act, so we'd have to imagine the guitar part. With a completely straight face he did his half of the "duel," pausing (and nodding appreciatively) to his invisible counterpart with each succeeding turn. By the end we were rolling on the floor. I've never seen a clip of that appearance again, yet I remember it as if I saw it yesterday. I have been a fan ever since. If anyone has the clip, I would love to see it. BTW, he plays a mean banjo.

Posted by Don on February 13,2008 | 03:09 AM

banjo, magic, juggling, comedy, story-telling: I had to do it all too because of Steve Martin. Too bad I wasn't funny. Planes, Trains and Automobiles makes me cry every time and I watch it every year on Thanksgiving. When John Candy died, I grieved the loss of a good friend. Steve, you are an amazing man who has not only made us laugh but you have made us think, feel and sometimes cry. Your humanity is a gift to all. Thanks bro!

Posted by another steve on February 12,2008 | 04:29 PM

It is apparent that Mr. S. Martin is eulogizing Mr. J. Carson. The love shows as he continued to use the approval of Johnny as a continuing thread in this story. I have loved both Johnny and Steve's work throughout my life and surely will continue to the end.

Posted by rickeagle on February 11,2008 | 01:23 AM

After reading this article, I immediately bought Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life. A great read. Love his writing and will likely buy his other books.

Posted by Mike on February 11,2008 | 03:27 PM

I saw Steve Martin in KC, Mo. back in the 70's at Kemper Arena. Steve, you might remember me I was the kid screaming: STEEEEEEEEEEEEVE! STEEEEEEEEVE! STEEEEEEEVE! HEY STEEEEEEEEEVE! Oh! Oh! STEEEEEEEEEEVE! six inches from your ear as you walked by. Sorry about that, I was a kid. Good show. S-

Posted by skcblues on February 10,2008 | 06:27 PM

Wow! What a great article. Steven Wright........you are the best comedian ever.

Posted by Antonio on February 9,2008 | 09:31 PM

This article is great. I read it after having watched PBS 50 years of television comedy. I know understand Steve's humor better and why my son bought all of his records in the 70's.

Posted by C Martin on February 9,2008 | 01:39 PM

Picture this: a middle-aged woman, who represents a Fortune 250 company, walks into a five star Belgian restaurant sur La Grande Place, is escorted to a private diningroom for a meal with colleagues at the close of a conference, and proceeds, by the end of the evening, to have turned into Steve Martin (sort of, but not even a reasonable facsimile)revealing that "those French have a different word for EVERYTHING!" True story (except I left out the part about also telling them that that lead me to the French-English dictionary to discover the meaning of a certain feminine hygiene product -- geez, do they really need to make 40 different kinds of beer in Brussels?) You haven't lived until you have seen the tears running down the faces of French and Dutch speaking hosts, laughing w/ Steve, with me, with each other, but definitely not with the French. Thanks, Steve, for everything, funny and serious. You certainly aren't finished and won't be for a long time!

Posted by Karen Martin (no relation) on February 8,2008 | 10:43 AM

Mr. Martin's comedy had always struck the same subversive chord in me that the Looney Tunes shorts did when I was in elementary school. Wherever grim Logic was King, Steve and Bugs were the tag-team court jesters. Even the parts you were too young to get at 10 or 11 just sank in anyway and waited until you were ready to appreciate them. On sleepovers, my friends and I would re-enact our favorite bits from " A Wild And Crazy Guy" and then try out our own impromptu material. Then I'd drive them insane from replaying the cassette under my covers all night long. The best advice for any artist of any discipline I heard Mr. Martin give in an interview with Charlie Rose. He said, "Be so good, they can't ingore you." Deceptively simple, stirringly elegant. Much like the man himself.

Posted by mark on February 8,2008 | 03:00 AM

King Tut did it for me! and the movie with Lily Tomlin, All of Me.... Steve Martin might be my favorite comedian ever. and actor and storyteller, and right, the banjo!

Posted by Karen on February 7,2008 | 04:22 PM

In commenting on the first comment way up there: I worked at a special education school for a while and was impressed at how highly developed were the kids' sense of humor. As two of my students were handicapped by speech, they made up for it with slapstick. Their sense of timing and tension were really clever. After reading Mr. Martin explain how much of his humor would come not from the joke, but the 'end of his finger,' I can better appreciate their unconventional humor. Cheers to all artists who push the boundaries of expression. And thank you Mr. Martin for Parenthood, the Jerk, and all the jokes...

Posted by Micah Carbonneau on February 7,2008 | 03:34 PM

What I like most about your work is that you help the audience take a step back and look at the silly rituals that make up our life and our world. You force us to take a hard look at what we consider "normal" and why. LA Story is still my alltime favorite movie and I still cry everytime I see it.

Posted by AmyHJ on February 7,2008 | 03:11 PM

STEVE'S MAGIC ACT...I THINK IT WAS "THE GREAT MARTINI"...ON THE TONIGHT SHOW (SHOWN AGAIN WHEN HE RECEIVED THE MARK TWAIN AWARD A FEW YEARS AGO)...HOW CAN I GET (OR VIEW) A COPY?? STEVE, YOU'RE THE GREATEST...

Posted by HOWARD on February 7,2008 | 02:37 PM

Oh, Mr. Martin, how do I love thee? Let's count the ways: The hysterical memory of my then 5 year-old cousin perfectly reciting your bit about cat-juggling, our whole family teary-eyed & sick with stomach cramps from laughing at your Wild & Crazy Guy on Saturday Night, the joy of sitting in the dark theater for "The Jerk"... I'm a receptionist and send an all staff email for folks when the new phone books arrive...It reads: "The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!" with accompanying Jerk clip art, and thus begins smiling rememberances with every phone book fetch. You're part of us, Stevie. Thanks, and keep it comin'! w

Posted by Fran on February 6,2008 | 06:12 PM

I have always been a fan of Steve's comedy, even though he caused me professional embarrassment once. I was, in the late 70's, the weekend anchor at KPLC-TV in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and just before I'd do the "teaser" for the 10pm news, there'd be a short promo for "Saturday Night Live" (a show that our station didn't even carry; I had to stand in the control room and watch the network feed on a backroom monitor to see the show). Anyway, one week Steve Martin was the guest host, and I'm sitting there, staring at the camera (no teleprompter that night, so I'm seeing what's on the air) and he suddenly goes into his "happy feet" routine - and then bam! I'm on the air. And, trying desperately not to, and failing not to, crack up, I read "Violence in the Middle East. Violence at Kent State. And Violence in Lake Charles. Next on Seven News." It's one of the few times I ever broke up on the air, and this one was all Steve's fault - and that's why I love him.

Posted by Jerry Modene on February 6,2008 | 03:14 PM

I first remember Steve Martin when he was on Johnny Carson in May 1977 (I remember because I'd just finished high school.) A girlfriend and I had gone to the beach and we were watching him, and we were rolling on the floor laughing! I nearly wet my pants! I cannot remember the act now, but we both agreed he was funnier than Johnny! I loved reading this article--so much intelligence has gone into his comedy! Who would've known? Another friend of mine and I still crack each other up when we say, "He spoke French!" and we do a good bit of the "hhkkkchch" sound of the French language. Steve is a class act.

Posted by Barbara on February 6,2008 | 12:50 PM

I remember thinking "He's too smart for the room" when he hosted the Oscars and told Bjork that he was sorry when she didn't get appointed to the Supreme Court. As his memoir indicates, Steve refuses to underestimate us, even while we are zoned out with arrows through our heads.

Posted by Richard on February 6,2008 | 11:37 AM

it's no wonder Steve Martin became such a loved comic. He's a fantastic storyteller... Everyone should buy the book!

Posted by kristin on February 5,2008 | 12:36 PM

Very enjoyable. Thank you Mr. Martin. --Mike

Posted by Mike S. on February 3,2008 | 04:44 PM

Not even a mention that you can also play the banjo. You just have to be happy when you hear a banjo! It makes my feet happy. You are a minstrel extraordinaire -

Posted by Lorrie on February 2,2008 | 09:55 PM

i have always loved Steve Martin's comedy. It was different and so wacked out. My favorite movie is Mixed Nuts. The expression on Steve's face when he starts to dance with the transsexual suicide caller is just priceless. Everyone should rent this movie, I watch it again and again just for a good belly laugh! S

Posted by Sue on February 2,2008 | 02:24 PM

Terrific article. Thanks for all the years of great comedy and laugher Steve, Incidentally, you had me with the line "and this is where they store the escalators." For those of you that didn't see it; you had to be there. D.

Posted by Destry on February 1,2008 | 08:50 PM

fantastic article. you're one of my comedic heroes, and I will get the book!

Posted by Terri in Tokyo on February 1,2008 | 08:21 PM

Whenever I say "I was born a poor black child" people always know the reference. Your album was given to me as a young teenager and it made me laugh so hard I could hardly breathe. All the kids did imitations of you at school. Thanks for making my teen years a little more bearable.

Posted by Portland Fisher on January 31,2008 | 07:05 PM

I've read his book and you could have chosen any four pages and gotten just as much enjoyment as these. He writes so gently, and gives the impression of having very little to prove. The tone of the book is light enough to move you through it in a couple of nights, but the stories he tells and the memories he evokes for the reader will last and last.

Posted by Susie on January 31,2008 | 01:39 PM

This is an outstanding recollection. My favorite appearance on the Tonight Show was when you came out dressed like a swinging playboy, sloshing a drink, and playing a tape recorder that had your voice saying "They love you, Steve baby, they love you!" Brilliant.

Posted by Chris B. on January 31,2008 | 12:07 PM

Everybody in their history has one landmark public performance they had a chance to see but didn't, and it haunts them forever. Mine was a time in the late 1970s when I thought I was too tired to drive from Nashville to Atlanta to see Steve Martin and Martin Mull performing as "The Steve Martin Mull Show." The two driest comic geniuses of modern history performing together and I let a measly 213 miles keep me from witnessing it. Ay, me. Many thanks for the article! I'll go out and buy "Born Standing Up" because of it.

Posted by Jim in Kentucky on January 31,2008 | 10:55 AM

Wow, I am just blown away by this whole article. From watching Tim Conway and Harvey Korman as a toddler (my favorite part was always when Conway made Korman break...I think it was my version of watching a NASCAR wreck) all the way up to watching Steve Martin in the white suit with the banjo and bunny ears, I see so many influences in how my own sense of humor and comedy were formed and influenced. And wow, I guess I always kinda knew comedy was a "craft" that had to be "honed" and "perfected", but I'm not sure I really appreciated what that meant until I read this.

Posted by Jim on January 30,2008 | 01:11 AM

As an aspiring standup this article is really inspirational.

Posted by Tom Shelley on January 30,2008 | 04:54 PM

Everything about this guy just makes me smile. The Ramblin' Man thing on the Tonight Show is just one of the greatest. Thanks for everything, Steve!

Posted by Lisa Creech Bledsoe on January 30,2008 | 04:36 PM

For the Steve Martin fans who are interested, I believe this article is excerpted from his book, 'Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life.'
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Standing-Up-Comics-Life/dp/1416553649/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201727983&sr=8-1

Posted by Jay on January 30,2008 | 04:22 PM

Fantastic article. I first saw Steve in person in the 1977 or 1978 at the Hartford Jai-Lai Fronton. It was a sellout, about 3,000 people, and he was great. This was right after "Lets Get Small" came out. The following year he sold out the New Haven Coliseum,with a crowd of about 12,000. It was incredible. At one point during the show the power went out, and Steve ad-libbed for about 15 minutes, with the Banjo and Juggling. It just goes to show you that comedians do not have to resort to dropping f-bombs every other word to be funny. Steve Martin, Steven Wright, Bob Newhart, are in their own league. They allow you to think, and actually get the joke, instead of ramming it down your throat with F-Bombs. Netpuppet

Posted by Netpuppet on January 30,2008 | 03:43 PM

I have a copy of Cruel Shoes that i stole from my cousin when i was 7. before i go on stage, for whatever reason i end up onstage (comedy, improv, anger, etc.) i always read the book from cover to cover to remind myself that punchlines are relative and, of course, comedy ain't pretty. thank you.

Posted by J'Mel on January 30,2008 | 02:58 PM

I'm in my 40s and watched The Tonight Show nearly every night with my father, even when I was very young. As much as we didn't see eye to eye, comedy was one thing that bound us. When Steve Martin appeared, my father was just disgusted. This was no Rickles, no Bishop. What the hell was he playing at? Finish a bloody joke! I inherited my father's disdain and avoided the silly man in the white jacket and arrow through his head from then on. When all my friends were raving about "The Jerk," I avoided it like the plague. I don't know how I ended up seeing LA Story, but I was floored. How could I have been so wrong about someone's talent? What else had I learned that might not be true. Later, I saw him in "The Spanish Prisoner" and was again blown away but his serious side. At some point I picked up "Cruel Shoes" and I often recall "Pointy Birds" when I need a smile. Ok, I guess I've got to get "Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life" now! :) Thanks for the great article! D

Posted by Declan on January 30,2008 | 12:16 PM

Great article and clip. Some of the funniest movies I have ever seen; The 3 Amigos,The Jerk, Planes, trains and Automobiles, very unique ...more please.

Posted by Mark on January 30,2008 | 09:58 AM

It wasn't until I started listening to old Steve Martin albums that I really understood half the stuff that comes out of my dad's mouth. Thank you!

Posted by Teresa on January 30,2008 | 09:51 AM

Wow...a complete comic evolution in four screenfuls of text. I'm one of those persons who memorized "Let's Get Small"--the entire album--back in the day, and I must say that Martin crafted my sense of the absurd as he honed his own. Well said, and thanks for not mentioning the Poughkeepsie incident...

Posted by Wes on January 30,2008 | 08:32 AM

I can't imagine growing up without Steve Martin. Underneath all the apparent silliness, Steve made it clear to me and my small group of friends, struggling through our teens in a terribly unaccepting place, that it was cool to be smart. It was without a doubt one of the most important affirmations we received during that difficult time. Thanks, Steve.

Posted by Matt on January 30,2008 | 07:54 AM

Wild and Crazy Guy!! Keep the jokes comin.

Posted by Georgeof420 on January 30,2008 | 06:45 AM

Steve, you are a zen master of comedy. Thanks for the laughs.

Posted by gruaud on January 30,2008 | 05:45 AM

I first saw Steve Martin at the Gasworks in Toronto. The show was free. He repeatedly referred to the price and stated that we were getting what we paid for. Rubber chickens, bend arrows, and 'rambling man' stories. He was/is a howl!

Posted by Gary on January 29,2008 | 11:39 PM

Steve is one of the few entertainers that I would actually pay to watch - not because he might walk out into the audience and thank me personally - but because throughout all of the many TV appearances I watched or the tapes I bought, he impressed me as a consummate artist who consciously strove to perfect his craft as he saw it. The plumber bit. Cat juggling. Wild and Crazy guy. Foggy Mountain breakdown. They have a different word for everything. Not just funny - iconic. But as funny as Steve can be, it is likely to be his writing and acting that people will remember most. Roxanne. LA Story. Shopgirl. I have no idea why comedians seem to be able to craft the best dramatic moments on screen - perhaps it the precision timing or facial expressions or the way a phrase is turned that allows normally funny people to wrest the maximum amount of emotion from a situation - but it certainly is fun to watch. Thanks, Steve - keep 'em coming!

Posted by Craig on January 29,2008 | 07:16 PM

Steve. Born in the early seventies, you became the basis of the comedic-side of my personality. If you only knew. I remember telling my father, when I was 12, that my children, right after birth, should have Steve Martin records playing in their nurseries 24/7. I also thought that I would only eat Chinese takeout for the rest of my life. But I digress. I appreciate your explanation here about your 'start'. As absurd as your routines were I always felt a certain intelligence was required. When listening to the old records I would laugh and then think about why I laughed. It eventually turned to listening to 'Let's Get Small,' or "The Steve Martin Brothers' to pick up what you were doing, like a guitarist listens to others to understand the unspoken, underlying meat. I can guess your book will be read until the words fall off at this house. I have kids now and, although they aren't listening to Steve 24/7, they do get me 24/7, and I like to think that a little part of Steve is a little part of me. Thank You.

Posted by Eric on January 29,2008 | 05:54 PM

Amazing. Thanks.

Posted by Stephen on January 29,2008 | 05:24 PM

Wonderful article.

Posted by Ryan on January 29,2008 | 02:27 PM

The note on the rhythm and other signifiers of joke telling is interesting. I have seen verbally precocius young children tell "jokes" that are (inadvertent) nonsequiturs and then laugh uproariously while expecting you to do the same. They recognise the timing and delivery that signifies a joke but not the things that might make a joke funny. Fascinating. P.S. A skeleton walks into a bar and says "Gimme a beer and a mop."

Posted by JDC on January 29,2008 | 02:06 PM

Quote: "Yuck!" she blurted out. I almost squirt Dr Pepper out of my nose! 4 pages of tiny type, dry talk of comic theory and performance angst, for a 4 word punch line: Totally worth it! Mr. Martin, thank you.

Posted by Tom on January 29,2008 | 01:51 PM

I'll have one grunch but the eggplant over there

Posted by jerry grayson on January 29,2008 | 03:42 AM

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