Lenny Bruce introduces us to the 1960s

LENNY BRUCE UNDER ARREST—AGAIN

Here's a clip of Lenny Bruce appearing on Steve Allen's show, April 5, 1959—one of only six appearances that Bruce ever made on network television.

You might be wondering why I chose to post this today. It's not that I've been thinking about Lenny Bruce specifically, but I have been thinking about popular culture in general, thanks to a recent conversation I had regarding the differences between the classic TV era and that of today; more precisely, the evolution—or devolution, if you prefer—of that culture. (I'll have more on that conversation at an appropriate time.) And that's what started me thinking about how virtually every aspect of modern entertainment, and all of modern life for that matter, has coarsened significantly over the decades. I'm not going anywhere with this particular point, or trying to prove anything. It's just that thinking about it invariably led me to Lenny Bruce.

I know that there was already a counterculture in the 1950s; Bruce himself was one of its leading lights. But he paved the way for this new brand of comedy—edgy, political, topical, willing to take on sacred cows and taboo subjects—to become a dominant force n the cultural earthquake of the 1960s. (His numerous arrests for obscenity also fit right in.) You can almost feel the tension present in 1959; the established mores of the postwar era trying desperately to hold on against the gathering storm coming from a new generation with a new take on life. The pressure would become unbearable before the dam finally burst, creating a permanent change in our way of life.

Did you catch Bruce's remark about sticking to the script? Yes, such was his reputation that he did have to submit his routine in advance. I can only imagine how even straying slightly from that script must have made the network S&P people very nervous.

Now, from what I understand, Lenny Bruce was a pretty intelligent guy; certainly, smarter than today's "comedians" and their hyperpoliticized "comedy" that seems to be the rule in modern entertainment. And in that context, much of Lenny's material seems pretty tame to us today. But right or wrong, everything has to start somewhere, or with someone. TV

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