Going Too Far

by Tony Hendra

Chronicles the history of "Boomer Humor," from its beginnings with Lenny Bruce and Jules Feiffer, through the sixties and the work of Richard Pryor and Woody Allen, to its contemporary expression in "Saturday Night Live"

Genres: Humor, Comedy, Nonfiction, Biography

479 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 1987

About the author

Tony Hendra (born 1941) is an English satirist and writer, who has worked mostly in the United States. Educated at St Albans School (where he was a class-mate of Stephen Hawking) and Cambridge University, he was a member of the Cambridge University Footlights revue in 1962, alongside John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part, covering the rise of 'Boomer humor' (a term which gets more annoying with every use) in the 1950s and 1960s is excellent. Very much worth reading.

The second covers the 1970s and early 1980s, but pretty much just from the standpoint of the National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live. It suffers from an abundance of pointless detail and so many axes on the grinder. Skip it - read Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant, Dead instead.

And Tony's red-faced assertions that Animal House somehow demonstrates a much more enlightened point of view towards women and minorities than Porky's (I can't believe I'm actually writing this sentence) are outstandingly, unintentionally, hysterical. Not that Animal House isn't the better movie, of course.

At least he is able to see the greatness in Airplane!, even if it doesn't merit any discussion (although I'm almost certain the Zucker brothers qualify as Boomers).

[Mark Pool · Rating 4 out of 5]

One day I checked out a humor book from the library. I was expecting to read about how comedy, and comedians, has evolved in America. I wasn’t expecting to find any nuggets of wisdom, but the following quote, about America in the latter half of the 20th century, is right on target:

"What [Lenny] Bruce understood was that America received its values from the screen, from its media--and, more importantly, loved to. Its values were no longer passed on from person to person or from parents to children but from movie to movie, from star to star, from show to show, from illusion to illusion. It wasn’t so much that people preferred being entertained to hearing the truth, so much as that they increasingly got their truths in the form of entertainment."

[Gary D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beyond excellent! It's a bible of boomer humor. Groucho Marx begets... Second City, Nichols and May, The Committee, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory... and so on... up to the creation of Saturday Night Live. And Hendra was there for alot of it, as a comic, then as a writer and editor at the National Lampoon. This is a page-turner, it's a history of the 60s into the 70s-- yes there are other books. Something Wonderful Right Away is a great book about Second City. And there are books about SNL, and about Lenny... but this book has it all, told with humor and insight. Get it, read it, you'll be enriched.

[StevenF · Rating 2 out of 5]

His personality and lack of ethics get in the way of the information he has to share. I washed my hands after.

[Monty Ashley]

The first half (or so) of this book is spent describing the origins of what was called at the time "sick humor". Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, original Second City, and so forth. It's all well told, and I appreciate the inclusion of long transcripts of comedy routines. I actually laughed at something Mort Sahl said! I understand that the man was a seminal comedian, but most of what people quote about him isn't funny. This book remedies that.

The thing is, the author keeps calling it "Boomer humor," which is a phrase that in 2026 means "old and terrible humor." It's weird to read about how cool and countercultural and anti-establishment someone is and then have it explained as "Boomer humor," especially as basically none of the people involved were actual Baby Boomers. The Baby Boom happened when soldiers came home from World War II and proceeded to start families, so really 1946 is the earliest you're going to get Boomers. So how, I ask politely, can the invention of MAD Magazine in 1952 be attributed to them? Even the author, Tony Hendra, was born in 1941. It's baffling. And there are times when the phrase "Boomer humor" appears several times per page.

Anyway, the second half (or so) of the book is exclusively about National Lampoon, for which Mr. Hendra was Managing Editor for a time. An exciting time, too! The book wants us to view the Lampoon as the direct successor of Lenny Bruce, and maybe it was. I don't know. I do know that it's fun reading along and bumping into things I love, like the Lord of the Rings parody Bored of the Rings, which was written by the two guys most responsible for creating the National Lampoon immediately before creating it. Or Deteriorata, which was written by Tony Hendra. Man, if you write Deteriorata, I am clearly prepared to read your opinions on parody vs. satire. (Answer: satire is better)

I do think it's weird that the two times he mentions the movie National Lampoon's Vacation, he calls it "Summer Vacation". It came out four years before the book, so either he's trying to make an obscure point or the fact-checkers were asleep.

[Star · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent insight into the brain factory that spawned some amazing american comedy.

[rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s funny that I think of this thing when justifying all my reposted humor- On page 2 lol since the magic of internet REF. RUN-DOWN

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wonder if Tony gave up on Mad Magazine

and said, give me a cigar and get me a plastic surgeon that can make me look like PJ O'Rourke

[Nathan Rabin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fucking Baby Boomers.