Dave Berg 'Beneath the Comic Mask' by Mark N
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CAMPUS TIMES February 28, 1972 Page 5 `Berg's-Eye View' Dave Berg 'Beneath the Comic Mask' By Mark N. Grant The other cartoonists in the most forms of wit and humor are A great moment. The legendary school of pop psychiatry comic consciously or unconsciously de- Roger Kaputnik had just brushed strip - Feiffer, Charles Schulz, rived from hostility. How many by me, gangwaying through a even Garry Trudeau - all stylize times have you made a devasta- jammed-to-the-aisles Hoyt Hall. their drawings. Berg's thing is ting remark to a friend and then But wait-no, it wasn't Roger Kap- in a sense tougher to do, because said, 'I was only kidding'? Most utnik. This dude lacked the square he has to graft those Feifferian humor is based on discomfiture jaw and the look of arch middle- insights onto near - photographic and the unpleasant situation of class schmuckery. He stepped on- replicas in his artwork. He him- another person. You see some- stage, drew up a stool, unbuttoned self hit on this in his talk: "Nov- body slip on a banana peel and his shirt to mid-chest, and there- elists tell me that the kind of you laugh-why? It didn't happen by dashed my preconceptions. writing I do is the hardest in the to you, it happened to him." To It was Dave Berg, all right, world because you have to make hear how funny Berg made these announced the Outside Speakers' a point and still be funny." Where remarks sound, you had to be representative, and right away does he get that endless supply there. came thunderous cheers and of topics for the Lighter Side? He repeatedly alluded to the mock (?) hisses, tokens of the "I steal them. When you steal from pain beneath the comic mask. kibitzing between speaker and one book, it's plagiarism; when "Dirty jokes are based on fear- audience that characterized the you steal from many, it's re- people do not joke about things evening. Dave Berg, the cartoon- search." (Big ovation). that make them happy-they joke ist whose "L ighter Side" has grown Berg took to the platform with about things that frighten and dis- to be one of the three institutions a swaggering, Rabelaisian spon- turb them." Best example of all, you the same Dave Berg that vacuity that gave Zero Mostel without which MAD magazine would taneity. He backed his way into from a proud Jew: "It has been draws for MAD magazine," says his name. be unthinkable (the other two clear- a drawing demonstration saying, said that Jewish humor is the the kid. "That's me, young man," It's obvious that we have several ly are Alfred E. Neuman and Don "Didn't you have anything better best in the world, which makes replies Roger Kaputnik, and the different cultures, subcultures of Martin). MAD magazine is that to do than watch me, why don't it the worst because it comes same exchange is paraphrased for time periods (the '30's, the '60's) mutant chapter in American cul- you go out and spread VD or from trouble. So don't be proud several boxes in true Lighter-Side caught in the bind of co-eval tural history, one of the few char- something?" There was nothing of it." format. Finally, the punchline: kid existence. I don't mean to expand goes, "Boy, are you an asshole!" this to Charles Reich proportions, Boy, are you assholes, National but how else do you explain why Lampoon. You really piss me off. the Art History 107 students You were whelped on MAD's knee, laughed at the mere credit yet all you are capable of now is sequences of a silent film last to give the finger to a false image semester, driving curator James of Dave Berg. The thing is, there Card to growl, "What's so damn was no comic statement behind funny about that?" Is drugs the your calling him an asshole (Berg: only earmark of our own time- "They didn't have me do anything subculture's comedy? Why do so asshol ish"). MAD has point of view; many of us feel we have to blow so does Esquire, another gen- dope in order to get the, most out uinely amusing magazine. Painting of, not just "Yellow Submarine", a mustache on the Mona Lisa is but Mickey Mouse? Firesign's a brainless act that may at best comedy-through-word-overload is elicit a momentary heh-heh. Be- just as grass-inspired (or -in- sides, there's nothing new about duced) as the Nicholson-Hopper armpit humor. Read Eric Part-- pot scene about the planet Venus ridge's "Shakespeare's Bawdy", in "Easy Rider". and he'll point out the difference I submit that all it really boils between the amusing scatological down to is the distinction between and the sniggeringly anal. In deal- humor that is art and humor that ing with profanity the Bard always is not. At the lecture, in response to a question about the chose the former way; the Lampoon Lampoon, thinks that the shortest distance Berg said, "With them, they have two rules: if it's unfunny, put it between two points is reached by the latter. in; if it's in bad taste, put it in." I'm not sure that this isn't all Maybe we really are witnessing there is to the difference, cul- something new. Previously it was ture lag or no. Berg also related always thought that there had to be the notorious tale of how a dis- a point of view behind humor. But guised Lampoon reporter ripped you can't speak of wit and comic off files from MAD. Really fine, sensibility in the same breath with gang. If you can't beat 'em, cheat Phi Zappa Krappa". To infer that 'em. CT Photo by Terry Atlas Zappa's humor has a self-con- "I laugh at myself in MAD scious point of view behind it is mrazine. The Lampoon came out particularly paternal about him, ter members of modern pop cul- From remarks like these it just as misleading as simplistic- and continued the exact samething I ittle that suggested a New Rochelle ture (MAD started back in the became obvious that Berg doesn't ally to misconstrue Dave Berg, in I was doing. They were laughing commuter or any other character '50's, remember?) that have sur- believe in sugar-coating anything. print or in person, as a wishy- at me laughing at me." Imitation vived intact through the whirl- you might see in his drawings, So how can you call him a wishy- washy liberal fink. I'm told that is the highest form of flattery, and as far as the generation gap washy liberal fink? Would a wishy- winds of change. the film "200 Motels" is a totally except when you throw in dirty goes, he didn't make you con- We had been informed by silk- washy liberal fink say this: "The inane put-on, even for Mothers words for no conceivable purpose. scious of any. He appeared hip screen posters that, at 8:30 on this generation gap has a bridge. It's freaks. It may be this kind of Then it's just cheap imitation. Thursday evening, the lecture to everything, as so many guest- cal led hypocrisy It's on both sides. "Dave Berg Looks at OUr Sick lecturers these days so conspic- The f-,iner makes a large fortune World" would be given at Hoyt uously do. This chameleon-like while his son is making a small Hall. But Mr. Berg, admitting hipness leads one to wonder where fortune selling drugs to other that he was tired and unprepared he's really at-hence, the National kids." The National Lampoon in to give an organized lecture, Lampoon's label! ing him as "wish- the October 1971 issue did an turned in more of a stand-up y-washy liberal fink" (more on parody on MAD. Some of it was night-club performance, winging that later). very clever and funny, in keepina it with jokes and one-liners mixed One could argue that the super- - with the Lampoon's usual .200 in with some of the ideas he's panavision of "Berg's-Eye View" batting average, but much else, been kicking around (his opening sees through the multifocals of notably the Bergshit (ha-ha?) remark was "I hurt my foot kick- opportunism, like Nixon's opinion- section, was more typical of this ing around some ideas" - his foot poll convictions. But Mr. Berg's sophomoric, snot-nosed ragsheet. was hurt, and that's why he sat real-life personality, as well as on the stool). The resulting mix- his remarks about humor, made A little analysis is in'order. The ture did not always come off, and it very clear where he's at, dis- Lampoon is a child of the "new whenever a joke fell flat, Mr. pelling the notion that he might wave" of humor brought on by the Berg would tend to overdo his actually be Roger Kaputnik. He youth-drug-rock culture of the last "Aaagh, ya rotten kids" bit. But impressed me as just a plain five years. The main standard- there was still plenty of meat in honest man; he doesn't scruple to bearers of the movement have that scraggly delivery, something be honest, he just is honest, and been such people as Frank Zappa, almost Lenny Bruce-like in its he seems remarkably free of the R.