The First American Comedy Awards Are Time Capsule of What Was Funny in 1987
Remember the American Comedy Awards?
No problem if you don’t — the honors, intended to become the Oscars of funny business, launched in 1987 and were dead in the water by 2001. (NBC tried to revive them in 2014; that half-hearted effort lasted a single year.) But the initial broadcast was impressive, mainly because big comedy stars actually showed up for the event.
Check out this list of presenters from the first show: George Carlin, Roseanne Barr, Gilbert Gottfried, Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, the cast of The Golden Girls, Shirley MacLaine and Pee-wee Herman, for starters. That wouldn’t have been a bad guest list for SNL50.
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1987 was a mixed-bag year for comedy. There was Carlin calling out the nominees for the year’s Funniest Newcomer, a list that somehow included Alf. (Woody Harrelson took the honor for his first year on Cheers, also beating out Roseanne and Sam Kinison.) Another Woody — pre-pariah Woody Allen — took home Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture for Hannah and Her Sisters.
While several of the inaugural night’s nominees (Tom Hanks, Danny DeVito, Steve Martin) remain popular today, that year's winners are a good reminder of just how long ago 1987 was. Johnny Carson took home the prize for Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series, while Tim Conway transferred his inexplicably popular Dorf character into a Second Banana Award for Carson’s flunky, Ed McMahon.
Robin Williams was the night’s big winner, taking home three Lucy Awards (as they would later be called) for Funniest Male Stand-Up Comic, Funniest TV Star in a Special and Funniest Male Performer of the Year.
The American Comedy Awards were a noble effort, an attempt by Laugh-In creator George Schlatter to legitimize a genre often ignored by the Academy Awards. While the American Comedy Awards lasted the longest, the awards show wasn’t the first or last of its kind. Comedian Alan King cooked up his own version, presented by The American Academy of Humor and broadcast twice by ABC in the 1970s. Comedy Central took a few stabs at replacing the American Comedy Awards after they folded in 2001 — the Commie Awards in 2003 (they lasted a year) and the Comedy Awards in 2011 (this time, trophies were handed out twice before the awards disappeared once again). Comedy Central’s awards may have aged even worse than 1987’s: 2011’s big winners were Date Night, Hot Tub Time Machine and Dinner for Schmucks.
Why can’t we sustain an annual comedy award show? There’s the Mark Twain Prize, but that’s a lifetime achievement award. There are a few Comedy Halls of Fame out there, but like the awards shows, they haven’t quite taken hold in the national consciousness.
Come on, enterprising producers, it’s time for another shot! If nothing else, award shows give us hilariously dated hairstyles to laugh at in the decades to come.
