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Actor Tim Reid and Comedian Tom Dreesen Release Show Business Memoir
posted on Oct 16, 2008
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Actor Tim Reid and comedian Tom Dreesen have just released a new book, Tim and Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White, about their days as the first (and the last) black and white comedy team in the history of show business.
Tim and Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White
is both a show-business memoir and a look at race relations in the
United States through the lens of popular culture. As the heady promise
of the 1960s sagged under the weight of
widespread violence, rioting, and racial unrest, two young men--one
black and one white--took to stages across the nation to help Americans
confront their racial divide: by laughing at it. Reid and Dreesen
polished their act in the nightclubs of Chicago, then took it
on the road, not only in the North, but in the still-simmering South as
well, developing routines that even today remain surprisingly
frank--and remarkably funny--about race.
Though their routines commenting on race were well received by black,
white and integrated audiences, they were simply too far ahead of their
time to gain widespread popular acceptance. Indeed, Reid and Dreesen,
who performed all over the country, were often subjected to racist
heckling, threats and even physical violence. After five exciting but
frustrating years during which they shared a lot of laughs and a lot of
heartache, they finally, amidst much bitterness, split up as they
grudgingly came to realize that they were ahead of
their time: America was not yet ready to laugh at its own failed
promise. Only then were they able to achieve as individuals the show
business success that eluded them as a team.
Reid
became one of the busiest actors in television—he is perhaps best
remembered as Venus Flytrap, the overnight disc jockey on "WKRP in
Cincinnati"—as well as a director and producer with his own production
studio in Virginia. Dreesen became a stand-up comedian who has appeared
scores of times on "The Tonight Show" and "Late Show with David
Letterman" and who was Frank Sinatra’s opening act for the last 14
years of the singer's career.
In Tim and Tom, the two remember the
struggle and the danger of those days, and the fun and the excitement. They realize how much it all has to say about where
they are now, and perhaps where their country is as well.
"Do you remember what was going on in America then?"
Dreesen asks. "Vietnam. Race riots. Cities burning. Protests in
the streets. About the time we were getting our first gigs in Chicago,
for instance, Fred Hampton was killed in an FBI raid on
Black Panther headquarters and police were using tear gas to
break up a race riot at my own high school. And here we were
thinking we could make a difference by telling jokes. We must
have been crazy."
"It wasn't going to happen," Reid agrees. "We took on the
country's hatreds and fears in many ways. There was just so
much pain in those days."
Tim and Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White (University of Chicago Press) is the story of Tim and Tom, the first black and
white comedy team in the history of show business. And the
last.
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