Written in the mid-1950's this is Steve Allen's look at his contemporaries. He doesn't do much for biography, this is more a look at comedic style and what has worked and what hasn't over the years. Allen covered sixteen comics who all tried to break into that new medium of television. From Milton Berle to Red Buttons he talked about different styles, why Bob Hope is so funny even though he doesn't do ad libs (al la Groucho) and why some didn't translate well to television.

There was one name that I didn't recognize, Sam Levinson. He must not have been a favorite of my fathers. I saw very few of these comedians actually perform but my Dad did his best to educate me, as well as ensure if they were on anything (talk shows, re-runs, etc.) we watched them. So I learned to like Jack Benny and Bob Hope (well, okay, Hope was still working a lot when I was a kid and I remember many of his shows).

There were some funny moments in the book, things that we know today that Steve Allen couldn't know then because they hadn't happened yet. My favorite was the comment about Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, basically he said that they wouldn't break up now, they had too much invested in each other as a team. As we all know, they were no longer a team not that many years after this book was written. Sometimes trying to guess ahead results in funny results.

I can't say this was a page turner but it was pleasant to see someone "in the business" explain why humor works for the various comedians and why them trying to be like someone else is almost always doomed to fail. ( )