The comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff, forty-three, visited the New York Public Library recently, for an event at the Celeste Bartos Forum—a discussion with the comedian and podcaster Marc Maron, about Nesteroff’s new book, “Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars.” A former standup (“I retired at twenty-six”), Nesteroff, who is wiry and feisty, with glasses and a bald head, has written three books about comedy history. He met Maron more than a decade ago, when their paths crossed for Shecky Greene-related reasons, and has appeared on his podcast. Nesteroff, who grew up in British Columbia and lives in Hollywood, was new to the N.Y.P.L., and arrived early. He stopped into “Treasures,” an exhibit of highlights from the library’s vast collection—a draft of the Declaration of Independence, a rehearsal photo from “West Side Story,” Cole Porter’s cigarette case, a lock of Beethoven’s hair—on the marble-majestic main floor. Nesteroff, whose book is adorned with headlines like “ ‘Beetle Bailey’ Censored for Spoofing Army Brass” and “ ‘Frito Bandito’ Is Subject of Protest” and crammed with arcane facts, seemed startled to encounter a pop-cultural detail with which he was unfamiliar. “No idea who the Nuyoricans are,” he said, peering into a vitrine. “How do you pronounce it?”
Nesteroff became a historian inadvertently. “I saw every movie between the age twelve and eighteen—every movie that somebody has heard of. Then all the B movies you hadn’t heard of,” he said. He also collected vintage vinyl in thrift stores, including comedy albums by comics who were considered too dirty for TV and are less known today. “But their records were best-sellers. If you look at the Billboard charts in the sixties, Rusty Warren has three different albums in the Top 100, next to, like, Elvis and the Beatles and the Beach Boys. She made these party records: ‘Knockers Up!,’ ‘More Knockers Up!,’ ‘Knockers Up ’76.’ So I was curious about these people,” and began investigating, he said. “Most comedians have an interest in comedians who came before them.”
Nesteroff strolled past a display of Toscanini’s batons and a manuscript of Mozart’s Symphony No. 32 in G Major, then admired a mid-century pocket handbook from the Mattachine Society. “For this book, I would research without actually having a goal,” he said. “I would just put in quotes, like ‘disgusting comedian.’ That was very effective. Or ‘offensive comedian’ or ‘vulgar comedian’ or ‘immoral comedian’ or ‘disgusting TV show’ or ‘terrible TV show.’ ” This yielded many letters to editors. “So much fun,” he said. “ ‘I’ve never been so offended as on “The Carol Burnett Show” last night, when she made fun of the elderly! I was watching with my grandmother. I will never watch it again.’ ” Nesteroff’s book posits that arguments about oversensitivity and humorlessness around comedy are as old as comedy itself. “People get apocalyptic today about things, and everybody takes it very seriously,” he said. “But I feel like in decades to come it’ll sort of look like those letters do now—like a comical thing.”
“Outrageous” details reactions to bigoted entertainment, too; some angry letters have been justified. Nesteroff gestured at a poster. “The New York World’s Fair 1939 is where television débuted for the American public,” he said. “And they tested the transmission with a blackface performance of ‘Amos ’n’ Andy.’ ” A display about “Annie” prompted insights about the comic strip’s right-wing origins. “He hated F.D.R., Harold Gray—despised the New Deal and would put little messages in ‘Annie.’ Daddy Warbucks was the character that he sympathized with,” Nesteroff said.
“Hey, I see ‘The Wiz,’ ” he went on. He praised Nipsey Russell, then examined some artifacts from the 1975 Broadway production. A not-uncommon reaction to “The Wiz,” he said, was “ ‘What is this woke bullshit? An all-Black “Wizard of Oz”? What is the world coming to?’ People thought it was sacrilegious.”
Sound check beckoned; downstairs, in the greenroom, Maron awaited, in an olive-drab shirt. “Hey, man!” he said to Nesteroff.
“Hey, buddy!” Nesteroff said. They hugged. “The Albert Brooks thing—it was worth the buildup!” Maron had recently interviewed Brooks for his podcast, after years of trying.
“It was wild,” Maron said. They sat across from each other at a snack table, drinking LaCroix and swapping anecdotes about the Friars Club, old Paul Lynde clips, and the sociopolitical prescience of Frank Zappa. Maron said that, during the evening’s event, “we don’t want to get into you and me talking intellectually about stuff.” They should talk, instead, about “the fact that minstrelsy was really the first form of American show business”; popular reactions against ethnic stereotyping; controversies involving Lenny Bruce, the Smothers Brothers, “All in the Family,” and the P.M.R.C. Senate hearings; the John Birch Society; the Fairness Doctrine; the rise of radio shock jocks; the Koch brothers; news becoming entertainment; and so on. “You actually can pretty much say whatever you want—it’s just whether or not you want to shoulder the consequences,” Maron concluded.
“I’m very skeptical when somebody is constantly repeating words like ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty,’ because so frequently it’s somebody who’s opposed to those two things,” Nesteroff said.
Had Albert Brooks ever offended anybody? Yes, Nesteroff said—on Jack Paar’s talk show in 1973, alongside Truman Capote. According to an angry letter, “The evening with Jack Paar ended with guest Albert Brooks wildly waving his hands and yelling, ‘Marijuana!’ ” ♦
