Kantor, who produced and directed the Emmy-winning Broadway: The American Musical
for PBS in 2004, returns with a six-part PBS series on comedy. For this companion book, he teamed with NYU professor Maslon, editor of Library of America's George S. Kaufman collection. Their guide to guffaws and giggles ranges from silent film actors (Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton) to sitcoms (Seinfeld
), satire (Mad
, SNL
) and stand-up comics (George Carlin, Lenny Bruce). Taking a scattershot approach with 60-plus performer profiles and sidebars, the resulting text is sometimes superficial with curious oversights; two decades of radio comedy get squeezed into three pages, so Amos 'n' Andy
and Bob and Ray
rate only a few paragraphs; Stan Freberg sold millions of records yet is dismissed in a single sentence.” With hundreds of fascinating photographs, this book benefits from the TV series' extensive photo research, but what is certain to be a hilarious cascade of clips on PBS is a pratfall in print. (Dec. 2)