On the Real Side: Laughing, Lying, and Signifying--: The Underground Tradition of African-American Humor That Transformed American Cultu

Declaring that African American humor ``shadows, satirizes and humanizes America's main body,'' Watkins delivers a rich and ambitious history of such humor both in the mainstream media and in the black community. A former editor at the New York Times , he draws on prodigious research to describe such aspects of black humor as the African sources of slave wordplay, the sources of the minstrel tradition, the Negro caricatures of Hollywood silent films and the controversy over Amos 'n' Andy. He examines the contributions of the oft-forgotten early 20th-century comedian Bert Williams and the brillant Richard Pryor, and ventures into such topics as literary humor and street folklore. Because Watkins's research is so deep and his interest historical, his study of the varieties (and controversies) in black comedy after Richard Pryor is brief. This extensive compilation makes a valuable contribution to our cultural history. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Feb.)