Elvis Presley was on the air, Allen Ginsberg was diagnosing the country, and the “sick” comedy of Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Jonathan Winters, and Stan Freberg was rising. Unlike the reassuring jokes of, say, Bob Hope, these comedians peeled back the American skull to reveal confusion about sex, psychology, authority, technology, and industry. Rather than offering a hearty laugh to take the blues away, they wanted to poke the country’s sore spots to provoke conversation and perhaps a bit of social change.
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