Mort Sahl, the father of existential humor (why yes, this is rapidly turning into the most pretentious sentence I've written in ages), in much the same way that Miles Davis was the father of modal jazz, once said:

"I submit to you that I've been called an intellectual more times than you can count', Sahl said. "I was sort of a C student in college. To me, an intellectual is someone like Bertrand Russell or Robert Oppenheimer, or Albert Einstein. I'm not an intellectual. It shines great light on show business that I would be called an intellectual. After all, I quote intellectuals. Fifty years ago, I would have been a reporter with some promise on a newspaper, maybe."

Woody Allen was of one of the first comedians (later to be joined by Jerry Seinfeld and Steven Wright, amongst many others) who heard Sahl's fluid lines and switched from broad, Borscht Belt humor, to drier, more tightly focused riffs.

Dick Cavett orbited in Woody's circle in the 1960s and 1970s, after apprenticing as a writer for Jack Parr. (The 1970s was the era you could actually imply that Woody was a central figure in comedy, before Interiors pointed the way towards leaden, humorless movies with small, minimal urban audiences. (Once again though, Woody's a pioneer!, I can't help but think after my last post.)

Of Cavett, James Lileks echoes Mort Sahl's description of himself:

Many hosannas are usually heaped at Cavett’s feet for his “intellectual” approach to the talk show genre, but this says more about the genre than the host. He’s certainly an intelligent man, articulate and genial, but there’s a reason he’s in the second tier of talk-show greats. His persona suggests something that simply isn’t in evidence. Smart as he is, you suspect that you’re supposed to think he’s smarter; witty though he could be, you wonder what wit might flower if it weren’t for The Man, in this case the Network, keeping a close eye on this questionable fellow, this odd fellow who no doubt has a picture of Mort Sahl in the dressing room, and thinks the Smothers Brothers got a raw deal. (Communist!) It’s these insinuations that gave him a lot of credibility, I think. He was the anti-Carson in a genre that couldn’t admit such a thing was possible or even necessary. He performed a service by which the viewer could flatter himself: I am not watching Joey Bishop or Carson, because I am Cavett person. His monologues were not particularly funny - but whose were? By then the bombing monologue was a staple of the genre. His one-liners were often delivered underhand, which is fine, but he always seemed to apologize for them in an endearing way that suggested he had repressed 394 other really good jokes. The wry eyes and the vague half-smile convinced everyone he was far smarter than any of this.

The evidence is inconclusive. He’s always auditioning to be the Best Friend of the big sluggers, be it Hope or Groucho or Woody. They’re perfectly content to treat him as an equal because he’s a nice guy. But you never, ever suspected that Hope or Groucho or Woody ever regaled a dinner party with an anecdote about something Dick said.

In the intro to the long interview with Hope, Cavett quoted soemthing Carson told him: "When you have those great stars on, of that era, Hope, Benny, you get a feeling that maybe you're on a par with them." Cavett notes that he found the remark "intelligent and touching." I suspect that the quote continued with a piece of advice, perhaps unspoken: but maybe you’re not.

Don't miss the 1970-era soundbite from Rex Reed--or the suit he's wearing in Lileks' screen grab. As Venus Flytrap once said of the equally sartorially challenged Herb Tarlek, somewhere out there, there's a Volkswagen that's missing its seat covers.