Martin, Steve (1945—)
Steve Martin's crazy, off-the-wall brand of humor had major effects on stand-up, television, film, and print. From the 1970s, when his white-suited appearances on the ensem...
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"Steve Martin may have started out as the Jerk, but he has ended up as the Legend," noted Susan M. Kirschbaum writing for In Style. The legend in this case was Martin's commendation by the American Mu...
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Critical Essay by Susan Peterson
The nature of Steve Martin's humor defies pat definition. He wanders from downright silly sight gags such as repeated bumbling with the microphones to ironic qu...
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Critical Essay by Greg Lenburg, Randy Skretvedt, and Jeff Lenburg
Much has been written about the "new wave" comedy of the late seventies. It's been defined as a backlash against ...
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Critical Essay by Jack Kroll
In a time burbling with misused and perverted intelligence, Steve Martin is a welcome apostle of pure idiocy. Not the corroded comforts of neuroticism (Woody Allen), not t...
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Critical Essay by Pauline Kael
A comic's naked desire to make us laugh can be an embarrassment, especially if we feel that he's hanging on that laugh—that he's experiencing...
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Critical Essay by Dave Marsh
Steve Martin has become the comedic rage by the usual means: introducing a couple of readily imitable phrases into the vernacular (excuse me if I don't repeat them)...
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Critical Essay by Bruce Malamut
Jokers like David Steinberg and George Carlin are just that—jokers and no more, whereas [Steve Martin and Randy Newman] (even sounds like a comedy team, eh?) are...
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Critical Essay by David Felton
[Steve Martin's] jokes are funny—not just funny but, you know, different, weird, "out there." Like his description of all the world's ...
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Critical Essay by Tony Schwartz
Martin's style is a pie in the faces of Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory, Mort Sahl and all the iconoclastic comics who dominated the stand-up scene in the '60s ...
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Critical Essay by Publishers Weekly
Rising comic star Steve Martin apparently has wide appeal, but ["Cruel Shoes," a] collection of 50 of his short routines, finds us reacting with irrit...
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Martin, Steve (1945—)
Steve Martin
