Comedy

Interviews with comedians Richard Belzer and Robert Townsend. Belzer has been a professional comic for more than 15 years. For five years, he was the emcee at Catch a Rising Star, New York's best-known comedy club, and has appeared frequently on "Saturday Night Live" "The Tonight Show" and "Late Night with David Letterman." He's also written a book titled How To Be a Stand-up Comic. (Belzer first aired on Fresh Air on 12/31/87).

For the last word on the 80s, comedian Al Franken looks back on the Al Franken decade. It's from an interview Terry did with Franken on March 22, 1988.

Writer Randy Cohen. He's an Emmy award-winning writer for "Late Night With David Letterman." A collection of his pieces, "Diary of a Flying Man," has just been published.

Cartoonist Matt Groening (pronounced GRAY-ning). He's the creator of the Simpsons, the all-too-real cartoon family featured on the Tracy Ullman Show. The Simpsons are starring in their own prime time Christmas special on the Fox network, and starting January 14th, "The Simpsons" will appear as a regular show...the first animated prime time series since "The Flintstones." Matt Groening also draws the comic strip, "Life In Hell," which appears in many alternative and college newspapers.

Writer and shopper Paul Rudnick, and his mother, Selma. Paul Runick, best-known for his play Poor Little Lambs, for the novel Social Disease, and for his essays in such publications as Esquire and Vanity Fair, has just published a novel about, among other things, a mother and son shopping team. Titled I'll Take It, the thinly veiled autobiographical novel is about the developed inability to resist the temptation to shop, and about the quest for ultimate bliss - a good sale.

Buck Henry. He's best-known as a frequent guest host on Saturday Night Live. Henry's other accomplishments include writing the screenplays for "The Graduate" and "Catch-22," creating the TV series "Get Smart" in collaboration with Mel Brooks, and co-directing the film "Heaven Can Wait" with Warren Beatty.

Director, screenwriter, musician and actor Christopher Guest. Guest makes his feature directorial debut in the new film "The Big Picture." Guest co-wrote the rock parody "This Is Spinal Tap," and he was a writer and regular performer on Saturday Night Live.

Film director Carl Reiner. He was a writer and appeared in "Sid Caesar's Show of Shows." He's best-known to baby boomer audiences as the creator and writer of "The Dick Van Dyke Show." He also staged several Broadway plays, including "Enter Laughing," which is based on his novel and which he later adapted to the screen. Since then, he has concentrated on film direction, specifically comedies.

Comedy writer Alan Zweibel. He was one of the original writers for "Saturday Night Live." He wrote the `Samurai' skits for John Belushi, and the Emily Litella and Roseanne Roseannadanna skits for Gilda Radner. He now has two projects on television - "The Gary Shandling Show" and "The Boys," a comedy special on the Showtime cable network.

Comic Andrea Martin. She was an original member of the Canadian SCTV comedy troupe and one of its brightest stars for seven years. Her co-stars included John Candy, Eugene Levy and Martin Short. Martin brought to life the neurotic talk show host Libby Wolfson, cleaning lady Pirini Scleroso, and, perhaps her best known character, the TV station manager Edith Prickley. Martin recently starred in her own cable TV comedy special on the Showtime channel.