Comedy is tragedy plus time (1962)

[James Knight]

Essayist Clarence Page also considers Lenny as the source:

CLARENCE PAGE: It's not hard to imagine Lenny somewhere getting a big laugh
out of this. It was he, after all, who famously declared satire to be a
formulation of tragedy plus time. "Give any tragedy enough time," he said,
"and people will let you make fun of it." ( Singing ) Indeed, today even a
musical with a song called "Springtime for Hitler" can be a Broadway hit.
But heaven help the performing artist who is ahead of his or her time. If
Will Rogers never met a man he didn't like, Lenny Bruce never met an
obscene word he didn't like to repeat over and over again, draining it of
its punch and power, and using it to make a larger point about real
obscenity in the world, like war and bigotry and greed. Compared to that,
Lenny would say, "heck, words won't kill you, man. Like, they're only words."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/essays/july-dec03/page_07-15.html

A number of sites refer to this quote:

"Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the
reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when
you think about it."

-jk


At 05:29 PM 3/14/04, you wrote:
>COMEDY IS TRAGEDY PLUS TIME--594 Google hits, 281 Google Groups hits
>
>    My quotations books and various internet sites give this to Carol
> Burnett and Woody Allen.  Both of them used it (see below), but neither
> coined it.
>    Although I laugh at the comedy of THE DAILY SHOW, I don't particularly
> agree with this one.  September 11th won't ever be funny.  The holocaust
> is not funny.  I can look back on my father's illnesses and death, my
> mother's illnesses and death, the near-bankruptcy of my co-op, fourteen
> years of parking tickets, and my pathetic effort to get "the Big Apple"
> published in New York and New Orleans--it'll all never be funny.
>    Newspaperarchive has 1962, but it's surely earlier.
>
>
>(WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM)
>Nevada State Journal - 5/2/1976
>...you can live a better life. HUMOR TRAGEDY, PLUS TIME, equals comedy.
>His Business Ben's.....May Jo's death, the seasons changed slowly. TIME
>passed. Spring came. Summer, fall.....courtesy of the business troops. And
>at a TIME convenient to the Akerts. With the sixth.....for the Akerts for
>four years from the TIME he was 16. He remembers that Bluma and..
>Reno, Nevada   Sunday, May 02, 1976  628 k
>
>Chronicle Telegram - 2/15/2000
>...by an old saying: HUMOR is TRAGEDY PLUS TIME. Part of our healing
>process as.....that subject matter at a 12th-grade level. PLUS, it seems
>to work. Elyria Schools.....a stick to try to increase the numbers this
>TIME around. On the stick side, the district.....Man has been killing man
>since the dawn of TIME. Killing will not end. What is missing..
>Elyria, Ohio   Tuesday, February 15, 2000  596 k
>
>Reno Evening Gazette - 12/5/1962
>...in Westwood. They say that COMEDY IS TRAGEDY PLUS TIME. After getting
>the bills, I.....THE MISTRESS SPARKS EL 5-4242 ACTION PLUS OPEN THEY'LL
>BLOW EVERY FUSE IN THE BIG.....t do that by giving it 75 per cent of my
>TIME McQueen's passion for racing was no.....UVJNG N-E-W S-tf-O-W PAUlN
>ROBERT ROSSEN'S PLUS THIS EXCITING ADVENTURE-COMiOr AT' 2a..
>Reno, Nevada   Wednesday, December 05, 1962  1070 k
>(Same as the following--ed.)
>
>Salisbury Times - 11/23/1962
>...in Westwood They say that COMEDY IS TRAGEDY PLUS TIME. After getting
>the bills I.....him, particularly hIS advice on playing COMEDY scenes and
>in the cutting. He's always.....MAD JAZZ TONITE SAT. SAT. CONT. 2-11 P.M.
>PLUS CO-HIT: "13 WEST STREET" NOW THRU SUN.....president won't eat into
>thIS pre cious TIME "although maybe i will cut into one of..
>Salisbury, Maryland   Friday, November 23, 1962  662 k
>Pg. 23, col. 3:
>    "They say that comedy is tragedy plus time.  After getting the bills,
> I believe it."
>
>
>(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
>    Comedy as Lonsdale Sees It
>Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston, Mass.: Sep 27,
>1943. p. 4 (1 page)
>(I didn't see it--ed.)
>
>Lassie Is Moving Again; Channel Hopping:
>Richard Arthur. The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973). Washington,
>D.C.: May 18, 1969. p. 245 (1 page):
>    PHILOSPHY from Carol Burnett:  "Comedy often consists of tragedy plus
> time.  When a certain thing happens to us it can seem terrible, but after
> the passage of enough time it's something good for a laugh."
>
>    Carol Burnett 'Comedy is tragedy . . .'
>By Kimmis Kendrick. Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston,
>Mass.: Jul 1, 1970. p. 15 (1 page):
>    "A lot of comedy is tragedy plus time."  Like something horrible that
> happened and wasn't funny then, but seems hilarious a year afterward.
>
>    THE HUMOR; Seriously. People Seem Ready for a Good Laugh.
>JOHN SCHWARTZ. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Oct 1,
>2001. p. C15 (1 page):
>    "Comedy equals tragedy plus time," said a character in one of Woody
> Allen's movies, "Crimes and Misdemeanors."