SOURCE: "Inimitable Perelman," in The Saturday Review (New York), Vol. 8, No. 7, July, 1981, p. 68.

In the following review of The Last Laugh, Brickman observes of Perelman, "his genius defies criticism."

The first time I met S. J. Perelman, the conversation turned to contemporary written humor, which he observed was a craft as obsolete and thankless as the manufacture of whalebone corset-stays. The name of a writer came up, a woman who had gleaned brilliant notices for a collection of rather ordinary pieces. I was searching for the precise phrase to characterize what I felt was the pallid quality of the lady's prose when Perelman leaned over and whispered, "milchedig." I felt at that moment a rush previously experienced only while watching Jerry West sink one from the outside, an elation, a momentary identification with—and admiration for—risk, accuracy, and grace.

The lady's style was, inarguably, dairy: light, bland...