https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/arts/television/mort-sahl-dead.html


The comedian Mort Sahl early in his career. An inveterate contrarian and a wide-ranging skeptic, he was known to ask audiences, “Are there any groups I haven’t offended?”Credit...Leo Friedman


By Bruce Weber
Oct. 26, 2021
Updated 6:09 p.m. ET


Mort Sahl, who confronted Eisenhower-era cultural complacency with acid stage monologues, delivering biting social commentary in the guise of a stand-up comedian and thus changing the nature of both stand-up comedy and social commentary, died on Tuesday at his home in Mill Valley, Calif., near San Francisco. He was 94.

The death was confirmed by Lucy Mercer, a friend helping to oversee his affairs.

Gregarious and contentious — he was once described as “a very likable guy who makes ex-friends easily” — Mr. Sahl had a long, up-and-down career. He faded out of popularity in the mid-1960s, when he devoted his time to ridiculing the Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; then, over the following decades, he occasionally faded back in. But before that he was a star and a cult hero of the intelligentsia.

He had regular club dates in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, with audiences full of celebrities. He recorded what the Library of Congress has cited as “the earliest example of modern stand-up comedy on record,” the album “At Sunset.” (Though recorded in 1955, it was not released until 1958, shortly after the release of his official first album, “The Future Lies Ahead.”) By 1960, he had starred in a Broadway revue, written jokes for Kennedy’s presidential campaign, hosted the Academy Awards, appeared on the cover of Time and been cast in two movies (he would later make a handful of others).

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/alan-kalter-dead-letterman-late-show-announcer-1235025323/



He also performed in hilarious comic bits during his stint, which lasted from September 1995 until the host retired in May 2015.

BY MIKE BARNES - OCTOBER 4, 2021 4:52PM

Alan Kalter, who served as the announcer and performed hilarious comic bits for David Letterman during his two-decade run on CBS’ Late Show, has died. He was 78.

Kalter died Monday at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut, his wife, Peggy, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The red-haired Kalter took over for the retired Bill Wendell as the Late Show announcer in September 1995 — about two years after Letterman moved from NBC to CBS — and remained through the host’s final program on May 20, 2015. On his first day on the job, Letterman tossed him into a pool.

With musical accompaniment from Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra, Kalter announced the guests and cheekily introduced the host at the top of each show, then voiced the comic one-liner over the Worldwide Pants title card on the end credits.

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