Unlike Mort Sahl, whose heaviest ammunition is aimed at the Republicans, Lenny Bruce, the most controversial of the newer "intellectual" comedians, cuts beneath politics into the daily evasions of what he terms "first-plateau liberals." To my knowledge, no other comedian has ever talked scornfully in his performance on stage of "white Jews" who will not fight segregation or has explained in graphic detail how much "sicker" Philadelphia is than Little Rock. (p. 50)

In spite of his proselytizing, Bruce is much more professional as a straight comic when he wants to be than any of his colleagues who specialize in topical satire. Bruce has no equal in such set pieces as a re-creation of an old prison movie with Nat Pendleton and Barton MacLane or a devastatingly accurate odyssey of a Copacabana comic who wants to play a "class' house such as the Palladium in London, and "bombs" abysmally...