Comedy Is Tragedy Plus Time |: Carol Burnett? Woody Allen? Tig Notaro? Steve Allen? Lenny Bruce? Bob Newhart? Anonymous?
6 comments:
Deb
said...
Without clicking on the article, I'm remembering Alan Alda's character saying it or something like it in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors"--so I'll say Woody Allen.
The Quote Investigaor says: "In conclusion, based on current evidence Steve Allen was the first person to represent the relationship between tragedy and comedy using this formula. Several other artists have employed the adage in the years since 1957. Carol Burnett credited her mother who died in 1958. So it is possible that the adage was in circulation before Allen expressed it in Cosmopolitan. Alternatively, Burnett’s mother read it Cosmopolitan near the end of her life and shared it with her daughter."
6 comments:
Without clicking on the article, I'm remembering Alan Alda's character saying it or something like it in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors"--so I'll say Woody Allen.
God said it. He told the devil when they were having tea and clotted cream over scones one day.
Sounds like The Woodman to me.
Of course it wasn't Woody Allen.
Nor is it likely to be Steve Allen, though he might've been the first to publish it.
But given this trend, it might well be Fred Allen.
Of course it wasn't Woody Allen, nor,
I suspect, Steve Allen, even though he might've been the first to publish it.
Given how it's going here, I'll suggest Fred Allen.
The Quote Investigaor says: "In conclusion, based on current evidence Steve Allen was the first person to represent the relationship between tragedy and comedy using this formula. Several other artists have employed the adage in the years since 1957. Carol Burnett credited her mother who died in 1958. So it is possible that the adage was in circulation before Allen expressed it in Cosmopolitan. Alternatively, Burnett’s mother read it Cosmopolitan near the end of her life and shared it with her daughter."
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