Results: Comedians As Autobiographers and Characters

I have in at least one previous survey expressed my admiration for the stand-up comedy of Steve Martin. Martin has accomplished plenty else worthwhile professionally, but do you enjoy Martin's stand-up?

Martin, however, seems to be a rarity among the people I've interviewed for the comedy column I've been writing since this time (mid-January) of 2019 in that his stand-up, especially in a solo context, really doesn't say much about himself personally; and there's not much in way of overlap between his offstage personality and the character he portrays in his act. Do appreciate it when a comedian devises a character or narrative voice apart from who s/he may be apart from being a comic?

More common among comics I've interviewed is a tendency toward onstage autobiography, wherein their act is an extension of what they're like when they're not performing. I find that learning more about any given comedian I interview may make for a better interview, I don't think I've never necessarily found a comic any funnier for knowing more about him or her personally. And you?

To my reckoning, things began to change in stand-up at the same time so many things in the Western world did for better and worse: the 1960's. The residual effects of the actual and perceived liberation movements of that time seemed to have effected an urgency among comics to be real with themselves and their audiences. There may be no better example of this than George Carlin going from a straight-laced shtickster largely bereft of personal interjection to a personally invested commentator on the world about him. Were you aware of the change in Carlin's approach?

Most any list of the of the greatest stand-up comedians I've seen is is either topped by Richard Pryor or has him in the top five. Not long into his career he started plumbing his eventful, often harrowing life for material. And though I respect his artistry as a monologist or raconteur, I don't often find his most deeply personal material outright funny. Whether with Pryor or any other comic who endeavors to be transparent about his/her life in their work, do you have similar feelings?