Thursday, October 4, 1979
Weekender
Page 9
Comedy LP
really isn't
very pretty
Dy TOM MOORE
Steve Martin's new album Comedy Is Not Pretty isn't
very funny. While listening to it, I found myself
yawning quite a bit and checking my watch every few
minutes, which is a rather strange way to react to a new
record by one of my favorite comedians. So I think I'd
better explain.
. To succeed, comedy depends very heavily on the
element of surprise. There were no comic surprises on
Comedy Is Not Pretty. I have heard every joke on the
album over and over again in the past cpuple of years
because Martin has become such a phenonenal
comedy success.
It seems the public and the media can't get enough
of Steve Martin. He has hosted Saturday Night Live and
The Tonight Show several times, as well as having had
his own TV special. Martin has put out three comedy
albums, a short film and a book. His face has graced
several T-shirts and posters. He has been the coverboy
for numerous magazines including Rolling Stone,
People and Newsweek. And if all this wasn't enough
exposure for the grey-haired maniac, millions of
Americans, from my 13-year-old neighbors to my 52-year-old
father, have been repeating in mock
Martinese such phrases as "Excuuuusse Meeeel" and
"I'm a Wild and Crazy Guy!"
All this overexposure has made Steve Martin a bit of
a bore because, as the tired and trite cliche goes,
"familiarity breeds contempt."
To avoid being monotonous Martin could have
offered something novel on Comedy is Not Pretty.
Instead he serves up his worst jokes the stuff that gets
a few chuckles but no big laughs. The bits on Comedy
Is Not Pretty, for the most part, fail flat.
Stuff like Martin's tip on how to avoid imprisonment
for armed robbery (by telling the judge that you
"forgot armed robbery is illegal") and the macabre
story "Cruel Shoes" just aren't that funny. Such
routines are the products of a tired, over-worked
. imagination. Perhaps it is time for Martin to take a long
vacation.
To be fair I must admit that Comedy Is Not Pretty
does have some good moments. The album contains
one of my favorite Steve Martin jokes about Steve's
one, simple ambition in life: to be "the all-being the
master of time, space and dimension."
Comedy Is Not Pretty also includes Steve Martin's
hilarious tales about his luncheon date with Jacqueline
Onassis and his grudge against Farrah Fawcett-Majors.
The best thing on the album, however, is a banjo
melody played by Martin, which indicates how poor a
comedy album Comedy Is Not Pretty is.
1 "Torn Moore is a staff writer for The Daily Tar Heel.
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GOOD THROUGH
OCT. 31, 1979
TRAFFIC SNARLS A
!NG HASSLES?
OT WITH THE
D
A
N
ESS!
For the fourth year, Tar Heel Football Fans can enjoy .
UNC home football games without all those worries of
finding parking and waiting in long" traffic lines. Chapel
Hill Transit's TARHEEL EXPRESS is the way to go!
Plenty of FREE parking is available in our two convenient
parking lots, located in the Kroger Plaza Lot on Elliot
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the Airport Lot on Estes Drive, off Highway 86.
Buses will operate, on the schedules shown below, non
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