Don't all the guys in the theater want to get into the movies?

February 14, 2010 10:42 AM

The Early Woody Allen 1952-1971
posted by jtron (10 comments total)

Dear WFMU,

I love your articles. Keep up the good work. My optometrist's bill is enclosed.

Thank you,
posted by griphus at 11:39 AM on February 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

This was excellent. I now know, however, why many sites break long articles into several pages. Despite that, excellent find, jtron. Thanks.
posted by KingEdRa at 12:00 PM on February 14, 2010

I love WFMU, and I also love the Readability bookmarklet which can make almost any squinty web page look nice.
posted by moonmilk at 12:00 PM on February 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Not that I don't love this, but what's a "comedic delineation"??
posted by ericost at 1:48 PM on February 14, 2010

Wearing out my Ctrl-and + keys with that one.

Love the old Woody Allen standup. One of my favourite bits ends like this:

"... I called my parents, my father was fired. He was technologically unemployed. My father had worked for the same firm for twelve years. They fired him. They replaced him with a tiny gadget, this big, that does everything my father does, only it does it much better. The depressing thing is, my mother ran out and bought one."

posted by Hardcore Poser at 1:48 PM on February 14, 2010 [5 favorites]

The Moose Story is one of the funniest things I've ever heard, and I've heard a lot of classic Bill Cosby routines.
posted by JHarris at 2:07 PM on February 14, 2010

Allen a great writer (comedy), then moved into film making. Great number of early films but now, alas, his pet kvetches are repetitive--existential despair,death, etc. What he does retain: his name still big enough to get gorgeous actresses to be in his films.His last film seemed a justification for his marriage to the young lady Mia adopted, and the title justifies it: Whaever Works.
posted by Postroad at 2:10 PM on February 14, 2010

Cheer-Up Club for Shut-ins is my next sockpuppet.

flips over couch cushion iso $5
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 2:21 PM on February 14, 2010

But word got around while the show was in production and a copy of the script made its way into the hands of CREEP, the Campaign to Re-Elect the President. Richard Nixon already felt that PBS was biased against him and had previously sent word through Clay Whitehead of the White House Telecommunication Policy department that any further criticism of the president might result in PBS funding cuts. PBS screened the special for their legal department to get their take. The lawyers only recommended that public television edit out a real-life news clip that showed Hubert Humphrey accidentally giving a crowd the middle finger. Regardless, station president Ethan Hitchcock watched the special and wrote a memo proclaiming that "under no account must the [the special] be shown." It wasn't.

Yeah, Nixon was an asshole.
posted by JHarris at 2:44 PM on February 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Some gems here, including a very early Kermit the Frog.

The sponsor, Kraft Foods, demanded that the show have a right-wing guest to counteract what they assumed would be Woody's left-wing stance, despite his consistently apolitical comedy. Perhaps the sponsor assumed that since Woody made occasional references to reading, he must have been some kind of commie.

I once heard some very early Woody Allen standup played on the radio, in which he says how he was kidnapped as a child and his parents weren't if they wanted to spend the small amount of money to get him back. It was similar to Rodney Dangerfield's no-respect type comedy and was very funny.

Although he made some wonderful movies, lots of people miss his more basic comedy.

In Woody Allen's underrated autobiographical movie Stardust Memories there are aliens with one million times the intelligence of humans who tell him ""We prefer your earlier, funny films."
posted by eye of newt at 8:57 PM on February 14, 2010