A-COMEC-logo-transparentThe Laughter Foundation’s other big dream (next to Health Care for Comedians) is a fully fledged world-class museum to study and exhibit the art, history and science of comedy; a real glass, marble and steel museum. Comedy is an art and comedians are its artists. Imagine it. It’s a bright beautiful day in San Francisco (okay, the fog has lifted for 20 seconds). You and your family decide to visit The Comedy Museum. Mom and Dad enjoy a wonderful retrospective of their favorite comedians, learning about comedy history, as the kids enjoy kids comedy from the past like Howdy Doody.

 

COMEC stands for The Comedy Museum Exploratory Committee. COMEC will be made up of experts in the fields of architecture, museum building, philanthropy and entertainment. The plan is to get a business plan, find a building site, find the money and build The Comedy Museum.

From the early days of Vaudeville and Burlesque, to the smoky filled basement jazz clubs on Chicago and New York, and all the way back to the court jester in Medieval times, comedy is there throughout history. Installations planned include:
• “Why’d the Chicken Cross the Pond?: An exhibition on British comedy”
• “From Hitler to Dahmer: The Dark Side of Comedy”
• “From Fanny Brice to Ellen: The Devolution of Sexism in Comedy”.

“Comedy Influences” will take us on a timeline of comedy evolution, elucidating the developmental history of comedy styles and trends. See who influenced Johnny Carson, for example, and then see who Johnny influenced. Who did Robert Klein influence? Jerry Seinfeld? George Carlin? It’s all in formulation at this point and that is the point of COMEC. To bring together a group of opinionated, forward thinking experts in the fields of comedy and entertainment, philanthropy and museum building and create a world-class museum devoted to comedy. It all starts with an idea and then moves to finding and securing the actual real estate, blueprints with a top architect, raising the money and breaking ground. It can and will be done. It has to be done. It’s too good an idea.

Projected $25 million project; target city San Francisco, the birthplace of American stand-up comedy.