In these bleak modern times, even a book devoted to comedy isn't without it's dark side. Mike Sacks's And Here's the Kicker,
in which the Vanity Fair
writer interviews 21 humorists (including Bob Odenkirk, Harold Ramis and David Sedaris) is decidedly serious, dissecting not only comedians' work and lives as pro joke-tellers, but their fears and anxieties, too. Mr. Sacks spoke with CollegeHumor about these grimmer aspects of comedy, including serial killers, chronic loneliness, and how telling a joke can be a lot like a diagnosing a disease.Even though you talked to dozens of funny writers in researching this book, it aggressively favors analysis over jokes. Was there a lot of goofing around on either end of the interviews?Definitely not. They were all serious. And they appreciated the fact that I didn't want them to be clowns. You know, just because you can write funny doesn't mean you're "on." In fact, usually it means just the opposite.
What determined the kinds of questions you did wind up asking?It was just basically avoiding the questions they'd been asked a million times. In a lot of cases I'd come across one reference to something [in my research] and it was never mentioned again, but it was fascinating. When I interviewed Marshall Brickman, who co-wrote
Annie Hall and
Manhattan, I read close to 30 interviews, and in this one interview he mentioned that he almost attended Sharon Tate's house the night of the Manson Murders.
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