Where might one find the literary tradition of American humor today? In his new monograph, Humor and Satire on Contemporary Television, Silas Kaine Ezell argues that prime-time animation carries the torch of the great American humorists of the past, including the southwestern humorists, Mark Twain, and Kurt Vonnegut. His four chapters, bookended by an introduction and conclusion surveying American humor and prime-time animation more generally, examine how Louis D. Rubin Jr.'s notion of the “Great American Joke”—the idea that much American humor is driven by the country's failure to live up to its highest ideals—persists through television series such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, The Boondocks, and Daria. In so doing, he ably demonstrates how humor travels across time and across media, speaking to enduring anxieties, contradictions, and tensions within American society.
The heart of Ezell's study draws on foundational theory to think through the social and...
