The Laugh's On Me
   Bennett Cerf
  1959 Doubleday & Co Garden City NY USA
   ISBN: unknown


Nobody is "born" a storyteller. The art of squeezing the ultimate drop of laughter from a droll tale must - and can - be learned. Dreary, pompous stuffed-shirts aspiring to high political offices have been transformed into charming, accomplished raconteurs by knowing tutors.

Nowadays, the only way I can hear Bennett Cerf's delightful humor is on re-runs of What's My Line, however, once, long long ago in the hey-day of black & white tv, celebrity game shows flourished & Bennett Cerf could be seen on several; a dapper fellow, with wry tongue, a marvelous vocabulary & a twinkle behind his glasses.

More for the piquancy of the times, what was thought funny, slightly immodest or teasing, do I keep hold of this library discard. With its touted "2,000 stories, anecdotes, and amiable observations, conveniently arranged for retelling in 100 categories", Bennett Cerf is to be remembered as one of the great gurus of raconteurs.

Raconteur: a person skilled at telling anecdotes or stories; narrator, talker. Bennett Cerf was all of that & more. As the jacket cover so immodestly proclaims, "The name of Bennett Cerf is synonymous with sparkling wit."

Probably by now, you could recycle most of the laughs included in this out of print volume, chuckling all the way, shaking your head at humor's update. Always glad I scrounged this one up!

Also by Bennett Cerf: Bumper Crop; Reading for Pleasure; An Encyclopedia of Modern American Humor; Good for a Laugh; Anything for a Laugh; Laughing Stock and much more, hopefully not all out of print.
(05/30/99)

Rebecca