Nienhuis is an associate professor of English at Western Carolina University. Here he discusses the mechanics of humor, Simon's facility with comedy, and the playwright's struggle to be recognized as more than a gag writer.

Neil Simon has been so successful financially and has become so popular with audiences that there is only one ambition left for him to be taken seriously as an "artist." The reluctance of critics to give him this respect continues to goad Simon and The Odd Couple is a worthy ground for examining this issue because it is his most famous play and still quite typical of his best work.

In the long history of English and American cultures there has always been a dichotomy between entertainment and art, but this cultural division and conflict has been intensified in America in the twentieth century as popular media have become more powerful and...