Long before I ever made a dime as a comedy writer, I was a comedy fan. I would study (and still do) my favorite comedians, analyzing their particular style, noting how they used misdirection, how they calculated their timing. I grew up listening to the homespun story-oriented comedy of Jerry Clower. Spent hours playing my audio tape of ‘Bill Cosby – Himself.’ But there’s one comic whose work has influenced me far more than any other.

This Sunday, March 7th, Steve Martin will co-host the 82nd Academy Awards, along with Alec Baldwin. This is as good excuse as any to talk a little about why I love and admire Steve Martin’s work. For lack of a better way, I’ll reel it all off by category (wow, I just realized how profoundly unfunny this is going to be; apologies).

Contrasts
Steve Martin’s work embodies some fascinating contrasts. On one hand, he’s highly intellectual and an avid art collector. Not surprisingly, his first full-length play, Picasso At The Lapin Agile, brought these worlds together with an imagined conversation between the Cubist master and Albert Einstein. But in his days as a comedian, Steve Martin’s comedy was, at times, purely absurd. Like out-there, non-linear, is-this-supposed-to-be-funny absurd. Ironically– as Steve Martin revealed in his autobiographical Born Standing Up– it was his intellectual bent that led him to explore that particular zany style.

Steve Martin’s comedy was/is also sometimes crude. But in his career as an author– specifically the novella Shopgirl and the novel The Pleasure Of My Company– he demonstrates a surprising emotional depth and sensitivity. Honestly, in reading about the inner world of ‘Shopgirl’ protagonist Mirabelle Butterfield, you’d think the author was a woman. And this from a guy who wrote a comedy bit about having sex with a turtle. Marvelous.

Breadth
I have long been a fan of comedy’s forefathers: Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, Henny Youngman… generally speaking, the generation that started out in vaudeville and successfully made the transition to radio and later television. What I admire about these folks is they were true showmen, often employing several skills in their act: singing, dancing, playing violin, juggling, etc. Steve Martin brings that era of comedian to mind for me. His career as a performer began with his earnest quest to become a great magician. As he got older, he learned to play the banjo. Eventually, his ardent desire to perform magic morphed into the desire to make people laugh. After hitting the zenith as a comedian on stage (and in stadiums), he gracefully transitioned into an incredibly successful acting career. Still later, he revealed another facet with his career as a writer. As much as I love my experiences with screenwriting, that alone will never be enough to satisfy my creative appetite. It seems Steve Martin is put together that same way, and I’ve always appreciated seeing someone who has realized success in different, yet complementary fields.

Pioneer
Circling back to the absurd quality of Steve Martin’s standup work… He so pushed the limits of this type of self-conscious approach, it became a ‘type’, known as ‘anti-comedy’ (not to be confused with ‘anti-funny’, a style pioneered by Dane Cook). This often involved making jokes about the jokes. You can see strains of that same technique in the work of Eddie Izzard, Jim Gaffigan, and the late Mitch Hedberg (sidebar: how did this blog entry– a piece about comedy– turn so book-report dry? Jeepers… Well, we’re almost done. Hang tight. And now the closing parentheses).

Longevity
There are a lot of creative folks who enjoy success for a brief time. Of those who enjoy a long career, even those who stay very active, a lot of them coast on their past success versus creating new work (Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, I’m looking at you). Precious few artists remain vital and active for the duration. I love sports, but the window of greatness there is often limited. You have a brilliant, shining career, but you get older and/or have an injury, and before you can say ‘cortisone injection’, it’s over. In contrast, artists– broadly put– only get better over time. If used well, a lifetime can season and mature their work into something exceptional, allowing them to reach places in the mind and heart that a younger version of themselves never could. Steve Martin is one of those rare people who has managed to stay productive throughout his entire professional life and whose output is still as vibrant and relevant as ever.

So I guess it will be interesting to see Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin co-host, though Steve Martin has ably hosted solo twice before. An especially memorable line from the opening monologue of one of those shows (paraphrasing here): ‘Hollywood is a magical place, a place where anyone can make it: black or white, tall or short, skinny or thin…’

And speaking of awards, Steve Martin has a few himself: three Grammy awards (both for comedy and music), a Kennedy Center Honor, The Mark Twain Prize, plus– oh gosh, what do they call it– millions and millions and millions of dollars.

So in conclusion, Steve Martin is an American treasure, a huge influence on me creatively, and someone whose work is definitely worth exploring if you haven’t. And if you can’t get that, well, excuse me…

- Matthew Porter

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