#of

Feature-length film comedy is harder to pull off than the episodic sitcom - it doesn't have the same factory machinery up and running, teams of writers putting familiar characters through permutations - but that doesn't explain the widening quality gap that makes movie humor look like a genetic defective. ↗

— James Wolcott

#comedy #defective #episodic #explain #factory

Truman Capote was a pop figure, but it wasn't until he went on David Susskind's show and had that extraordinary voice and manner that everyone could imitate, that he really took off as a figure. ↗

— James Wolcott

#could #david #everyone #extraordinary #figure

Stars wide of belt often cultivated a gentlemanly grandeur, a groomed refinement that filtered through their fingertips - the dainty fidgets of Hardy's plump digits, Orson Welles performing magic tricks with nimble dexterity, Jackie Gleason lofting a teacup to his lips as if he were Lady Bracknell - or through a fine set of twinkle-toes. ↗

— James Wolcott

#cultivated #dainty #filtered #fine #fingertips

The days when the words 'Hollywood actor' framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate, consultant, pundit, and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor now, a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops. ↗

— James Wolcott

#alike #bunny #candidate #consultant #crowd

Whenever I catch a chunk of an Adam Sandler comedy on cable, it looks as badly shot and goofily tossed off as a Jerry Lewis gag reel once he hit the late downslide with 'Hardly Working' and 'Cracking Up.' ↗

— James Wolcott

#adam sandler #badly #cable #catch #chunk

Drama or comedy programming is still the surest way for advertisers to reach a mass audience. Once that changes, all bets are off. ↗

— Dick Wolf

#bets #changes #comedy #drama #mass

When it went on the air, the sales department hated it. It was the highest advertising pullout show in the history of NBC. At the early focus groups, people were saying, 'Who are these people? Why should we watch them? ↗

— Dick Wolf

#air #department #early #focus #focus groups

There are some people who have the quality of richness and joy in them and they communicate it to everything they touch. It is first of all a physical quality; then it is a quality of the spirit. ↗

— Tom Wolfe

#communicate #everything #first #first of all #joy

There's a joy in writing short stories, a wonderful sense of reward when you pull certain things off. ↗

— Tobias Wolff

#certain things #joy #off #pull #reward

Work for most people is really very social, and the actual thinking is often done in community. ↗

— Tobias Wolff

#community #done #most #often #people