Comedy Inc.: The Big Business Of Laughs

A Multi-Media, Multi-Billion Dollar Industry, Making People Smile Is No Laughing Matter

(CBS) 
"You know, I'm pretty basic about it," Smiley said. "I say you don't have to be a genius to see somebody who's great. When you see somebody who's extraordinary, it hits you right over the head. And if you're trying too hard, it's usually not there."

Smiley helped prove the traditional TV sitcom could still be a blockbuster. Now, he's developing new series for HBO.

"There is a natural process like professional baseball or professional sports where there's the first tier or the farm team or the minor leagues, where people learn their craft and the pressure isn't on for the big stakes network TV show, or the cable TV show," he said. "So they come up through the clubs, the improv — classes or school — basically the live performance world. And it's through that world that people discover the people that can graduate to the next level."

For students at an improvisation workshop at New York's Upright Citizens Brigade theater, the basics of comedy improv are laid out by performers like Charlie Todd.

"Take a look at all the people who are succeeding in the comedy world today, and see how many of them have roots in improv — and it's a huge percentage," he said.

Improv groups everywhere have been inspired by the trailblazing work of the Second City in Chicago. For decades, its alumni have found their way to Saturday Night Live and beyond.

But in some minds, the question remains: can comedy really be taught? In fact, comedy education has even made its way into the academic world.

Boston's Emerson College has produced more than its share of comedians and writers — Denis Leary, Jay Leno and Norman Lear, to name a few. The school has classes not just in the study of comedy, but in its performance as well. Even still, some Emerson alum remain skeptical.

"You can't teach somebody to be funny," Leary said. "It's like music. You're either able to play an instrument or keep a beat or sing, or not."

Leary may be a tough judge, but the comic, whose verbal onslaughts raised eyebrows in 1992's "No Cure for Cancer," knows first-hand that comedy can be unforgiving.

"You know, if you've seen a standup comedian bomb," he said, "there's no worse feeling in the world, because you cringe."

But even when it works like clockwork, there's no sure guarantee of success.

"You know, to a certain extent it's like an enigma wrapped in a riddle," Herzog said. "I just know what makes me laugh. It may not make you laugh, or these guys laugh, or maybe it does. You know, it's hard."

But it's well worth it because when it works, a comedian can get the laughs, and something else: respect.