The comedians Tom Hanks called the most influential of all time
Out of all kinds of stage acting, comedy is always the toughest to master. It might seem hard to get people to cry as they see you inhabit a character, but getting someone to actually bust a gut in their chair as you talk is a greater challenge when they’re expecting it right out of the gate. Tom Hanks was more than capable of balancing the light and the dark sides of himself on screen, but he thought that there was a definite lineup from which all comedians got their acts.
It’s one thing to be good at what you do, but to be influential in the world of comedy tends to feel almost impossible. Comedy itself has always been a reactionary genre that, more often than not, goes after the times someone is living in, so how the hell are you supposed to make something that will resonate for years to come?
As it turns out, though, comedy did take a different turn after World War II. While many people like to forget the wildly racist attempts at comedy from the 1800s until the 1930s, Hanks hadn’t seen anyone as funny in the post-war boom as Richard Pryor. Sure, he was making jokes that many a grandma would not have approved of, but he knew how to keep audiences engaged by getting them riled up just enough to keep them on their toes.
While Hanks would go on to tell David Sheff that Pryor was “one of the most influential stand-up comedians”, he also had affection for what Lenny Bruce did. Compared to Pryor’s aggressive approach, Bruce was more interested in the person he was getting to laugh. The goal was the same, but it was about trying to be more lighthearted about what constituted being funny.
Comedy isn’t always about being lighthearted. For some, all good comedy is based on some form of misery, and Steve Martin knows that kind of routine like the back of his hand. Whether it was his arrogant nature in Planes, Trains and Automobiles or him annoying just about everyone as The Jerk, Hanks knew that he was seeing brilliance, explaining, “Martin is the one who changed stand-up the most. I think he’s behind the rage in comedy clubs today”.
Of all the guys who left their mark in comedy, Robert Klein was one of the ones who could go back and forth. To be a funny presence, you need to know a thing or two about acting, and Klein’s turn from being one of the funniest men of his generation to his work on serious dramas like Law and Order and The Good Wife feels like it shouldn’t be possible.
Hanks might claim to do alright as a comedic actor, but Pryor, Bruce, Martin, and Klein each stand as a piece of his comedic foundation. For all of the jokes that didn’t land, there were still more than a few that are still being felt today.
Let’s take Pryor, for instance. The aggressive kind of comedy may have worked at the time, but it’s only getting stronger looking at everyone from Kevin Hart to Bill Burr. And considering how good Martin was at pointing out the subtle pieces of society that drove him crazy, there are still traces of him in everyone from John Mulaney to Paul Rudd’s comedic roles. Not every joke they made is bound to make everyone laugh, but even if you don’t find any of them funny, you’ve probably loved someone who was influenced by their work.
