In a time of great, groundbreaking comedy—the early 1970s—comedian Albert Brooks was doing utterly unique material that cemented his place as a “comic’s comic.” His ironic, self-aware, almost deconstructivist approach is probably the most influential of any of the comic styles born in that era, and you can see it not only in Kaufman and Martin, but the entire mockumentary genre.
The son of radio gagman Prof. Parkyakarkus, Albert Einstein grew up among showbiz people in Beverly Hills; with a name like that, he was under a bit of pressure—but by all accounts young Albert was equal to it. In the 1960s, when Johnny Carson asked Carl Reiner the name of the funniest person he knew, Reiner said, “my son Rob’s friend, Albert Einstein.”
Like Lenny Bruce, Brooks was on the right side of history; unlike Bruce, Brooks lived long enough to see his main flavors—conceptual comedy centered upon a painfully high self-awareness—become standard. Today, Albert Brooks is best-known for his mainstream movies Lost In America, Defending Your Life, and Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, as well as character work in Taxi Driver and Broadcast News, and a recent novel. We’ll try to dig up some of his hard-to-find comedy LPs, but in the meantime, below are some snippets of his early work, to whet your appetite.
Ventriloquist (1972)
Running out of material (Tonight Show—1973)
Albert Brooks’ Famous Comedians’ School (1976)
