Humor

Shirtless and dressed in red leather pants and matching jacket unzipped to his navel, Eddie Murphy sauntered onto the stage of Washington, D.C.'s, Constitution Hall one night in 1983 and changed the face of stand-up comedy forever. At the time, Murphy was "Saturday Night Live's" youngest cast member and a newly in-demand movie star after the success of his action comedy "48 Hrs."

The boozy white noise of a recent Saturday night crowd at the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard confronts comedian Ari Shaffer as he starts his act. Sensing the lull, Shaffer tweaks the audience, "What's the matter with everyone, is it the recession?" That gets the laugh, and Shaffer moves on, but his riff on the current economic malaise isn't the last that evening.

On his HBO show, "Real Time With Bill Maher," the comedian routinely makes vicious fun of celebrities, politicians, presidents and even God. But he's learned that, for much of his audience, Barack Obama is off limits. Not long after the historic presidential election, Maher joked that Republicans were feeling particularly superstitious: "They say the country is having bad luck because there's a black cat in the White House."

Comic Ray Hanania nervously paced backstage at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies and occasionally peeked around the velvet curtains to gauge the mood of the school's packed theater. The downtown audience -- Arab businessmen, a Palestinian professor, Jewish students and Israeli families -- glanced curiously at one another and quietly chatted in their seats. Some fidgeted nervously. "Think it'll be like Tel Aviv?"

Damon Wayans is betting people will fire up their computers to watch videos about an African American leprechaun pimp, a thieving airport security guard and an adulterous Burger King. Later this month, the comedian of "In Living Color" and "My Wife and Kids" fame plans to launch a website, WayOutTV.com, featuring videos produced by aspiring young comedians he handpicked.

The generals, to put it mildly, can't take a joke. But the Moustache Brothers make their living mocking fools, including those who wear military uniforms. So they have drawn a battle line in this country's long struggle for democracy with a small stage that cuts across their cramped living room, site of the three-man comedy troupe's nightly performance. The military regime silenced street protests last fall by arresting and, in some cases, shooting peaceful demonstrators.

You've seen online solitaire and online Scrabble. Now comes "Barack, Paper, Scissors!" a new online version of the similarly named famous schoolyard game. The interactive game pits presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama against his Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; likely Republican nominee John McCain; California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; or President Bush. The game can be found at www.USARPS.

An attempt at humor -- something that Coach Pete Carroll said "we were just having fun with" -- backfired on the USC program this week, prompting the school to pull a video off youtube.com. The footage was of Carroll's son, Brennan, the Trojans' tight ends coach, putting a group of potential walk-ons through a series of drills during a tryout. Throughout, Brennan Carroll is shown hamming it up for the camera -- and using language laced with profanities.

Former Times Television Critic Howard Rosenberg, a Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism in 1985, will be writing occasional commentaries about news on television and the Internet. -- It seems like a couple of centuries since His Holiness Pope Walter reigned as God's deputy on the airwaves. Even longer if you think about leave-'em-laughing funnyman Keith Olbermann.

Comedians and satirists here have learned what their peers across the country are finding out about making fun of Barack Obama. Some things are fair game: his age, his lanky physique, his Ivy-League-meets-street-slang vernacular, even his cautious nature. And some things simply aren't. Obama, they've found, is not quite the easy target that his presumptive GOP opponent, 71-year-old Arizona Sen. John McCain, is.