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Little Bernie soon became an irrepressible entertainer, telling jokes in the neighborhood and at school. At eight, he was asked to entertain the congregation one Sunday after church. My family -- you don't want to mess with my family. My grandpa, he says everything four times -- four! Pass me that gravy, woman. Don't be hoggin' that gravy. How many times I got to ask for that gravy? I'll bonk the top of your head you don't pass me that gravy now.These revelations earned Mac a smack on his bottom from his grandmother, but also lots of laughs from the congregation. That laughter -- of friends, of audiences in small clubs -- sustained Mac for years as he struggled to establish himself as a comedian. "I couldn't get the laughter out of my head," he says. "It wasn't a career. It wasn't even a choice. It was a calling."
It was a calling for Carol Burnett too. The great comedian was raised by an eccentric grandmother who was something of a petty thief. They lived on welfare, and her parents, who divorced when she was young, were alcoholics. Still, Burnett rejects the idea that she grew up in hardship. She insists there was also fun and love and a certain security. Yet when she describes how she felt the first time she heard an audience laugh while she was performing, her response suggests an affirmation she had never before experienced. In her autobiography, she writes: "What was it exactly? A glow? A light? I was a helium balloon, floating above the stage. I was the audience, and the audience was me. I was happy. Happy. Bliss. I knew then that for the rest of my life, I would keep sticking out my chin to see if I could ever feel that good again."
But some comedians turn to laughter for more than just acceptance. "Humor is a great defense," says Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Art Buchwald. Shortly after his birth, his mother was institutionalized for mental illness; he never saw her again. His father placed Art and his sisters into foster care. At 16, Art had lived in seven homes. Along the way, he made a discovery. "For reasons that I can't explain, I found I could make kids laugh, and I liked that very much.'' The defensive value of laughter was more than emotional, but quite practical for Buchwald. "When you make the bullies laugh," he says, "they don't beat on you."
Comedy can be a defense, but it's also a way of asserting power. Bill Cosby was raised in a housing project. His father drank, beat his mother and was absent for long stretches. Cosby used comedy to remake his world -- to rewrite his universe. Drawing on his fundamental optimism, he spun tales about kids who were active and imaginative, and parents who drew on deep reserves of patience and wisdom.
George Lopez has obviously learned a trick or two at Cosby's knee, but he's more direct about confronting the issues that caused him so much pain. There's no grandmother in his show, but the character of his mother is that hard, acerbic woman. In one episode, Lopez attempts to win her praise by redoing her bathroom. In an emotional scene, he blurts out that he did the work just to get her to say thank you. But first he acknowledges that it was hard raising him alone, and that he never really thanked her for her sacrifices raising him. Thank you for all the things I don't even know you did for me. Now, do you have anything to say to me? The mother responds, It's about freakin' time.
It's a small joke, but in that moment, a fearful boy has been granted a voice, a man has tamed his monster, and an audience of millions has been given the powerful gift of laughter.
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