The stand-up comedy business has never been healthier with almost 2,000 comedy clubs in the United States. Beyond the stage, there are ample opportunities for comedians, via podcasts, social media and YouTube, as well as the almost infinite number of cable television channels these days that cry out for content. Even the venerable New York Times regularly reviews and profiles up-and-coming comedians.
Comedy is big business. A comedian like Sebastian Maniscalco, who performs often in Atlantic City, is one of the highest-grossing and most popular touring acts in America today, selling out major arenas including Xfinity Mobile Arena and Madison Square Garden.
And, although Atlantic City currently has only two dedicated comedy clubs – the Atlantic City Comedy Club at the Tropicana and the AC Jokes Comedy Club at Resorts – hardly a week goes by without a comedian headlining on a hotel/casino stage.
Although performer’s fees have gone up and the names have changed, comedy and comedians have been an integral part of Atlantic City entertainment since the early 20th century. A lot of legends of comedy have visited the Jersey Shore throughout the years and some got their start on the Boardwalk. Abbott and Costello often credited the Steel Pier as the venue that helped launch their careers, and the 500 Club was the spot where Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis first became a team.
However, possibly the earliest appearance of a future comedy legend in Atlantic City was that of W.C. Fields. The famed film personality got his start on the Boardwalk as a juggler on Fortescue’s Pier around 1898 – Million Dollar Pier eventually replaced it. The story was nicely detailed in these pages not long ago by Chuck Darrow.
Milton “Mr. Television” Berle’s association with Atlantic City, also detailed by Darrow, began in 1920 when Berle was 12 years old and appeared at the Globe Theatre in the chorus of “Florodora.” Berle performed often on the Boardwalk through the years, including a number of stints at the Steel Pier, including in the summer of 1964 when the infamous Democratic National Convention was held in Atlantic City. One of his final shows was at Caesars in 1988 as part of the “Legends of Comedy” tour, which also featured veterans Danny Thomas and Sid Caesar.
The iconic comedy team of Laurel and Hardy reportedly made several appearances on the Steel Pier during their early days, including a noteworthy stint in 1938. The team returned to the Shore in 1941 when they were grand marshals of something called the Variety Parade.
To say that the comedy team of Amos and Andy would be politically incorrect today is a gross understatement, but for decades, on radio, stage, screen and television, they were immensely popular.
Played by two white men in blackface, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, Amos ‘n’ Andy drew a record-breaking 39,000 people to the Steel Pier in the summer of 1934 – a record that stood until Frank Sinatra drew 41,000 to the Pier in 1950. When the franchise transitioned to a short-lived television series in the early 1950s, the title roles were taken over by black actors, with Alvin Childress starring as Amos Jones, and Spencer Williams portraying Andrew Hogg Brown (Andy).
Singer-turned-comic Joe E. Lewis, subject of the somewhat fictionalized, 1957 film “The Joker is Wild” starring Frank Sinatra, appeared several times on the Steel Pier in his early days, but after being befriended by Sinatra, became a regular attraction at the 500 Club. Sophie Tucker, “the last of the red-hot mamas” recently profiled in these pages, was such a good friend of Lewis, Sinatra and the 500 Club’s “Skinny” D’Amato, that she had a featured cameo role in the movie.
Shelley Berman, along with Mort Sahl, Bob Newhart, and Lenny Bruce, was considered to be among the new breed of comics that came along in the 1950s. Sometimes outspoken, occasionally borderline risque, and often tackling “adult” topics that went way beyond the “take my wife, please” comedy of yore, these performers were pioneers who helped pave the way for what comedy is today.
Newhart, whose 1959 comedy album “The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” spent 14 weeks on the Billboard charts, was the most mainstream of the four. Too adult for the Steel Pier, Newhart spent most of his earlier years working in sophisticated nightclubs nationally and on television. However, beginning in the early 1990s, he started working the Atlantic City casinos. He sold out venues that included Resorts, Trump Castle and Harrah’s.
Shelly Berman was tremendously popular in nightclubs through the early 1960s, though a reputation for being difficult dogged him, and limited his time in the spotlight. He made two appearances in Atlantic City that we know of, both long after his glory days. He shared the stage with Woody Herman’s jazz band at the Steel Pier in 1970, and on Memorial Day weekend of 2004, Berman and comic Richard Lewis, both then members of the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” television show cast, teamed up to appear at Caesars.
Mort Sahl, whose fame burned brightly for a brief time in the late 1950s through early 1960s, let politics and paranoia take over his career and he became, sadly, only intermittently funny. There was really no appropriate place in Atlantic City for him to perform, although in 1991 he filmed a comedy special during the time Merv Griffin owned Resorts International. “Mort Sahl Live” was filmed for The Monitor Channel, a cable station owned by the Christian Science Monitor newspaper. The station closed down a year after the never-aired special was filmed.
There’s little doubt that the late and legendary Lenny Bruce was one of the most influential comedians who ever lived, inspiring dozens of performers, from George Carlin to Richard Pryor.
In the late 1950s, he was a hip but relatively straight comic who rarely worked “blue.” That would come later. In those days, he often worked jazz clubs; in Atlantic City, that meant the Club Harlem, where he worked often, as well as a long-forgotten room called The Black Orchid.
Comedy on Atlantic City stages continues. Here’s a preview of comedy performers coming to hotel/casinos this summer:
Ocean Casino Resort
- Lewis Black (June 13)
- Iliza Shlesinger (June 26)
- “Weird Al” Yankovic (July 17)
- Kathleen Madigan (Aug. 21-22)
- Gabriel Iglesias (Sept. 5)
- Jeff Dunham (July 12)
- Matt Rife (July 24)
- Joel Diaz (Aug. 7-8)
- Modi Rosenfeld (Aug. 22)
- Sebastian Maniscalco (Sept. 17-20)
- Sebastian Maniscalco (Sept. 24-27)
Harrah’s
- Jonathan Van Ness (June 15)
- Bruce Bruce (June 20)
Caesars
Matteo Lane & Heather McMahan (Aug. 15)
Tropicana
- Desi Banks (July 18)
Hard Rock (Etess Arena)
- Nikki Glaser (Aug. 1)
Bruce Klauber is the author of four books, an award-winning music journalist, concert and record producer and publicist, producer of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music “Jazz Legends” film series, and performs both as a drummer and vocalist.
