"And Away We Go": A Look Back at the Early Days of Television Comedy

About this event

The first decade of American TV comedy was an extraordinary period of innovation and imagination. The era between the late 1940s to the late 1950s produced a remarkable range of distinctive programming: live comedy/variety shows like The Texaco Star Theater and Your Show of Shows, filmed situation comedies like I Love Lucy and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and late-night talk programs like The Tonight Show. Pioneering performers and creators like Sid Caesar, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason and Steve Allen helped shape a new visual language of comedy that influenced television for the next sixty years. Illustrated with dozens of clips, this lecture will also examine why this era produced more laughter than any other period in television history. Presented by: BRIAN ROSE is a professor emeritus at Fordham University, where he taught for 38 years in the Department of Communication and Media Studies. He’s written several books on television history and cultural programming, and conducted more than a hundred Q&A’s with leading directors, actors, and writers for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Directors Guild of America.