LOS ANGELES, Aug. 18 (AP) — Stanley Myron Handelman, who for decades brought his subtle, brainy brand of humor to comedy clubs, television screens and workshops for aspiring comics, died on Aug. 5 in the San Fernando Valley.
Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" had brainier and more topical humor and Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town" more glamour.
After the pleasantries, Lisa finds herself at home alongside Mensa members, whose sense of humor is so brainy that it is said to be enjoyed by the "Dennis Miller ratio" of Americans.
But it's his disarming fusion of contradictory elements — jarring references to cross hairs and branding offset by offerings of shea butter and gridlike compositions of hand-cut mirror tiles, brainy seriousness balanced by self-mocking humor — that has created excitement.
SEVERAL years ago Trajal Harrell, a brainy downtown dance experimentalist with a sharp sense of humor, created a choreographic labyrinth in the form of a question: What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the voguing ball scene going on in Harlem had traveled downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church?
There's Al Roker the jolly uncle (weather), Natalie Morales the brainy, sharp-elbowed cousin (news) and Matt Lauer, Ms. Curry's co-host, the favorite son with the sardonic sense of humor and the ability to smooth over any uncomfortable situation.
And while the presumption that a woman can be either brainy or beautiful, or in this case, good or thin, but not both, is a bit primitive, the series has humor and charm beneath its facile message, in large part (no disrespect intended) to a subtle, winning performance by Ms. Elliott.
Brainy youngsters have choices.
