When Joan Rivers died in 2014, ending one of the greatest careers in modern comedy, several groups expressed interest in obtaining her archives. Its archive contained a meticulously curated collection of 65,000 typewritten jokes.
Her daughter, Melissa Rivers, recalled a conversation with a representative from the Smithsonian Institution who wanted a catalog of jokes but was told they would not have a permanent exhibit. Her mind quickly shifted to the final chase shot of Raiders of the Lost Ark. There, the Golden Ark of the Covenant is locked inside a crate and placed in a vast warehouse along with hundreds of other crates.
“We couldn’t do that because there’s so much on file about who she is,” Melissa Rivers said in a video call from Los Angeles. For her mother, a pioneer of stand-up and an acerbic critic of celebrity fashion, “perspective has always been important.”
Instead, Rivers has its extensive collection of National Comedy Center, a high-tech museum in Jamestown, New York, joins the archives of top comics such as George Carlin and Carl Reiner. The fact that jokes are accessible is just one of the reasons for Melissa Rivers’ decision.
The museum is in the planning stages of an interactive exhibit that will include material covering a vast swath of comedy history from the 1950s to 2015, centered around Joan Rivers’ Joke Card Catalog. The exhibit will allow visitors to explore the files in depth.
Jamestown is where Lucille Ball grew up, and Joan Rivers was the first headliner I booked for the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival the year I announced my intention to build the National Comedy Center to the world. It was,” executive director Jurnee Gunderson said. on the phone. Television personality Melissa Rivers attended the groundbreaking ceremony in 2015.
As for the Joan Rivers collection of jokes, “I don’t know of any other Joan collection as large as this one,” Gunderson said. In Carlin’s archive, by contrast, the jokes were “mainly scraps of paper organized in ziplock bags and put into folders by topic.”
Writing gags all the time, Rivers paid close attention to settings and punch lines, typing them in and cross-referencing them by categories such as “hated my parents,” “Las Vegas,” and “no sex appeal.” Was. The largest subject area is “Trump”, containing 1,756 jokes.
In addition to this wealth of material, the collection also includes other major cultural figures, including her fashion sense, such as the pearls and little black dresses she wore early in her career, and the fashionista’s multiple boas afterward. A snapshot of the side of the is included. Year. Here are some of the relics sent to the Center.
As you can see from these cards, Joan Rivers often made herself the subject of jokes, relying on tight, snappy punch lines to describe herself as unwanted, ugly, old, and so on. Ms Gunderson said the self-deprecating behavior came from someone who “used it as a position of power to comment on the plight of women”. In her real life, too, Melissa Rivers said: But that was it. ‘ Rivers added that these jokes came from a real place. “It was part of her, but it probably wasn’t as bad as everyone thought,” she said. “But she also knew she looked good.”
unparalleled catalog
“Joan Rivers: The Works” (from 2010, major platform) is one of the best documentaries about stand-up comics ever made. Candid, unflinching, and mindful of the grueling workload required to succeed in show business. It also introduced the world to a cabinet of jokes that Ms. Rivers kept in her home. Gunderson of the National Comedy Center called the catalog “one of the greatest comedy gems on the planet.”
help the jerk
A regular on television and never quitting live performances, Rivers loved sparring with crowds. But early in her career, she prepared for rambunctious audiences with a comeback list she could use as a weapon to mock the hecklers without compromising the tempo of her sets. Melissa Rivers said she only once saw her mother upset by heckling. That time was later in her career when someone offended her with a joke about Helen Keller. “She turned around and said, ‘Don’t do that! “My mother was deaf. She lost her hearing early. Don’t say anything inappropriate to her.”
Before Joan Rivers became a comedian, she wanted to be a dramatic actress. After she graduated from Barnard College in 1954, she commissioned this series of headshots to demonstrate her range. She made her Broadway debut in 1972 in Fun City, which she co-wrote and starred in with her husband Edgar Rosenberg and Lester Collodney, but ended after nine performances. rice field.But Rivers was still an avid fan of the stage, a regular on the show, and a savvy commentator on the television series. “Theater talk”. She always dressed up when she went to the theater and insisted her family do the same. “She always said, ‘This is church,'” said Melissa Rivers.
important times ticket
When Joan Rivers stepped down as the permanent guest host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show” in 1986 to launch her own version on the then upstart network FOX, she hosted a late-night talk in modern times. became the first woman show. It was a bold move and a career milestone that preceded a difficult period in her life. She antagonized The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, who saw her departure as a betrayal. “It pissed her off,” said Melissa Rivers. “As she used to say, if it had been a man, she would have been a fine send-off to my protégé.” Rivers was expelled from The Carson Show and the following year from her own dismissed. Her husband, a producer on The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, died a few months later by suicide. “It took a huge toll on their marriage and our family,” said Melissa Rivers, who described the era the ticket represented as one of “great exhilaration and great fear.” .
