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¶ Don Adams. 32, who started as a burlesque comedian with a clean act ("They almost murdered me''), jumped into the big time when he won a Godfrey Talent Scouts show in 1954. Since then he has done guest shots with Steve Allen, Garry Moore, is an odd bird among comedians in that he will write material for other comedians. He also seems detached enough to satirize other sick comedians. Adams does a take-off on a sicknik who is telling jokes about a plane crash and suddenly looks out into the audience: "Sitting over there I see Mr. Thompson. He lost his wife and two children in the crash. Stand up and take a bow, Mr. Thompson. Let's give him a nice hand . . . No tears now. Just take your bow and sit down." ¶ Shelley Berman, 33. is a Chicago-born onetime Arthur Murray dance instructor with a face like a hastily sculpted meatball. More than any of the others, Berman derives his humor from spelunking in his psyche, takes much of his material from his childhood home life ("Have you ever, when you were out playing, had to listen to your mother's voice calling 'Sheldon'?"). Pretending to talk to his sister on the telephone, he will say thoughtfully: "Marge, tell my nephew he's a boy—he doesn't know. Don't wait until he grows up and makes an arbitrary decision."
Comedy of Chaos. The success of the sick comics has given amateur analysts and sociologists a field day. Says Novelist Nelson (The Man with the Golden Arm] Algren: "This is an age of genocide. Falling on a banana peel used to be funny, but now it takes more to shock us. And there is no more fun in the old comedians. People nowadays would rather be hurt than bored." Says Irwin ("Professor'') Corey, who, at 45, is said by fans to have been a sick comedian before some of the others had their first case of measles or mother fixation: "The future seems so precarious, people are willing to abandon themselves to chaos. The new comics reflect this."
But a lot of hardheaded show-business types refuse to accept such apocalyptic views. Says old-style Comic Joey Bishop: "If I hear one more of those guys say to some customer, 'Get out of here, you rat.' I'll scream. Sure I'd like to say it myself, but I wouldn't. Those guys tried their hardest to make it our way; when they couldn't, they switched." Says Comic Joey Adams: "They all act like big nonconformists, but they're all aiming to get on the Ed Sullivan or Steve Allen show."
What is really funny and fresh about the sickniks may be around for a long time, and possibly reinvigorate U.S. humor; what is really sick is bound to evaporate. As veteran Manhattan Nightclub Operator Julius (Upstairs at the Downstairs) Monk puts it: "It's one thing to puncture a balloon; it's quite another thing to send people to the guillotine."