Parody and Taste in Postwar American Television Culture

Ethan Thompson (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is Associate Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi. He is co-editor of Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era.

"Parody and Taste in Postwar American Television Culture tackles important questions regarding how politics, power, culture, and the subversion of each works. A superb history, and a vital corrective to any who believe that subversion started with Comedy Central." - Jonathan Gray, Professor at University of Wisconsin Madison"Parody and Taste in Postwar American Television Culture is not only a fascinating critical exploration of some comedic early TV programs starring Shelley Berman, Ernie Kovacs, and Oscar Levant. It is also an impressive engagement with a key moment in the history of taste in popular culture, considering ways in which the culture industry -- not only television broadcasters but also magazines like MAD and Playboy -- produced opportunities for critical engagement with mass media's forms and meanings. This book is an important contribution to early television history, and to studies of post-war American culture."- Michael Newman, Associate Professor at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

• Introduction. The Parodic Impulse in the (Not-So) Fabulous Fifties 1. The New, Sick Sense: The Mediation of America’s Health and Humor at Mid-Century 2. What, Me Subversive? MAD Magazine and the Textual Strategies and Cultural Politics of Parody 3. The Parodic Sensibility and the Sophisticated Gaze: Masculinity and Taste in Playboy’s Penthouse 4. Ernie Kovacs and the Logics of Television Parody and Electronic Trickery 5. Black Tie, Straightjacket: Oscar Levant’s Sick Life on TV Conclusion: Television for People Who Hate Television?