Who has influenced you?

[Susan]

I was bored today, so I started thinking on who has influenced me in terms of my sense of humor and what I find funny.

Probably my best (and first) influence was Statler and Waldorf. Their sarcastic wit was what first made me realize that laughing at someone was often a helluva lot funnier than laughing with someone.

Who was yours?

[Jean Riva]

Growing up, I can't remember a time when I wasn't finding humor in everyday things. I was the kid who was always giggling, always making fun of myself for a laugh. As for famous personalities who MAY have influenced my I can't think of any unless maybe Jimmy Durante and that REALLY dates me. But he was more of a personality than a comedic.

[Will Wright]

Bugs Bunny was probably the biggest influence growing up. Later on Billy Wilder, the Marx Brothers (minus Karl), Sam Kinison -- the list goes on and on. Mostly just little bits of influence here and there coupled with coming from a long line of smart alecks.

[theBarefoot]

Jerry Stiller & Anne Meara. It's old sckool, but the coffee and steak bit just makes my brain bleed.

[EMohrman]

You know, having never considered myself any sort of humorist, this is something I've never thought about. The entire extent of my humor writing attempts have been the few on AC.

The first work of humor I remember valuing, the earliest influence I can attribute, is Calvin & Hobbes. Loved it growing up. A few years ago, Bill Watterson released a giant complete boxed set of the strip - this thing of beauty - & I impulsively bought it the first time I saw it. I've since read the 1500 pages all the way through twice. The first time, I was amazed at how much I remembered, verbatim, after not having seen the strips in about a decade. I still find kinship in Hobbes' sarcasm & Calvin's wandering imagination as escapism.

[Susan]

E, I loved Calvin and Hobbes. I recently found an older book I had and re-read it. I still love them. I think I'll pass it down to my oldest son.

I'm going to have to look some of these others up. Some names I recognize but others I don't.

Randy, was Jerry Stiller's older comedy similiar to his more recent stuff?

[jcorn]

I never get notified of these discussions by email like I used to (sniffle). My mother was my greatest influence because she was - and is - unintentionally funny. Before he succumbed to various hazards of show business, I thought Robert Morse was funny in parts of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (that last dance bit, where he is out of sync, is super).

By the way, E, I bought that boxed set of Calvin and Hobbes, too, also impulsively. You can wince now at that similarity. My set has a place of honor beside the boxed set of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series and Tim O Brien's classic The Things They Carried.

Of the three, of course, only Calvin and Hobbs is humor. I sold my signed Johnny Carson book (which I bought when I was 6 years old at a school auction) on Ebay after Carson died. It wasn't a great book and I' m not one for putting a lot of stock in autographed books (unless a relative or friend wrote the book).

Carson actually signed and sent it to the school for the auction. It was called Happiness is a Dry Martini and yes...it WAS auctioned at a grade school auction. All the guys REALLY liked the very naked drawings of women in that one! Whoo-hoo!

[Frank Mucci]

Without a doubt, George Carlin. I bought his album back in the early 70s with the 7 words you can't say on television. I was a teen and it was edgier and funnier than anything I had ever heard. And all these years later he is still willing to go where few will go.

[Byron Lehman]

Jack Douglas, dead now.

[Byron Lehman]

I got to looking over the posts and thought, "How could any one leave out Mad?" When I was a kid it was the standard. If you didn't laugh at Mad, you had no brain.

[theBarefoot]

Do you still mentally fold things to see if they connect? I do.