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Untitled
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Living by his wits
Getting it right with Harry Shearer
by Arthur Greenwald
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 In showbiz, size matters -- audience size, that is. By that standard, Harry Shearer is biggest with fans of The Simpsons where he provides the voices of Mr. Burns, Smithers and Ned Flanders. Shearer is next-best known as a TV guest star (Friends, Politically Incorrect) and as the co-star of such feature films as Godzilla, The Truman Show, its thematic cousin Ed TV and as G.Gordon Liddy in the recent Watergate send-up, Dick.
But Shearer reserves his greatest gifts for the discriminating fans of Le Show, now in its 16th year on public radio. Each week, as host and curmudgeon-at-large, Shearer presents a very personal blend of music, comedy and commentary, in a style as scornful of cliché as it hostile to our celebrity culture. As political and social analyst, Shearer is savagely funny but rarely cruel. Shearer's columns on the OJ trial, for the e-zine Slate, were among the freshest takes on that media circus. His latest book, It's the Stupidity, Stupid!, is a laugh-out-loud funny essay on the phenomenon of Clinton-hating in our media-drenched democracy.
Shearer’s comic timing is impeccable in every medium, and no wonder. He started performing at age 7 on The Jack Benny Program, first on radio then television, and he originated the role of Eddie Haskell on the pilot episode of Leave It To Beaver. After UCLA and grad work at Harvard came stints as a teacher and freelance journalist. But Shearer’s comic style really emerged in 1968 when he joined the topical radio troupe The Credibility Gap.
On two unhappy occasions, Shearer was a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live, where he began collaborating on short features with director Albert Brooks. In 1976, Shearer co-wrote Brooks feature film debut, Real Life, and in 1984, launched a newmovie genre when he co-created the classic "rockumentary" send-up This is Spinal Tap. As bass player Derek Smalls, Shearer and his fictional band mates warped reality when they actually sold recordings and toured internationally.
But can performer keep pace with the madness of today’s headlines -- even a satirist who captures real-life weirdness off network satellite feeds? As he proves in this lively exchange, Harry Shearer is up to the task!
Next page | Dodging Eddie Haskell's bullet
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Meet curmudgeon-at-large, Harry Shearer, in this video clip!
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Harry Shearer
;)
