Woody Allen

Woody Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg on December 5, 1935. He was raised in Brooklyn, New York. He displayed comedic talent as early as age 15, at which time he was submitting funny bits to local newspapers. His submissions consistently got published.

Woody was one of several legendary writers for Sid Ceasar’s Your Show of Shows on television in the 1950s. (Among Woody’s co-workers on the Sid Ceasar show were Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Neil Simon). After obtaining a prestige position as a television writer it was very easy for him to gain employment as a writer for standup comedians. He grew tired of selling his jokes for a few dollars and hearing them delivered poorly. So he went out on his own as a standup comic, and was truly astounding.

His standup comedy (done mostly between 1963 and 1968) is among the funniest, most enduring material ever recorded. While Woody speaks of the Jewish experience, everyone could laugh at his jokes about being tortured by his peers, and his parents. Woody took on the persona of a nebbish-a guy for whom things didn’t go well, and gained the audience’s sympathy because his description of his daily life was amazingly funny. Wit was his primary defense against the otherwise very harsh world. It was not long before Woody got approached by Hollywood to write films.He has been doing so since 1967. He left standup comedy forever as soon as his film career took off. His early films include Bananas, Everything you ever wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask, Annie Hall (which won the best picture award for 1977), Broadway Danny Rose, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and most recently, Deconstructing Harry.

While Woody's films leave a great legacy, I believe his standup comedy is a greater achievement. His standup is at least as memorable as many of his movies (in my opinion), and influenced great standups of today such as Jonathan Katz (of Dr. Katz fame), Richard Lewis, and Garry Shandling.