Lily Tomlin‘s This Is a Recording earlier today became the 13th comedy album – and the first by a woman – to be inducted into the National Recording Registry (NRR).
The roster of performers who have received this honor includes seven artists who have also received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Tomlin received that award in 2003. Others who have received both of these plaudits are Richard Pryor, Carl Reiner, Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, George Carlin and Bill Cosby.
Three of the performers on the NRR list – Mel Brooks, Martin and Cosby – have received Kennedy Center Honors. Three – Cosby, Newhart and Carl Reiner – have been inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. Note: All three of these prestigious awards were stripped from Cosby following his 2018 rape conviction. We’re showing them because he won them before he lost them.
Two of these albums – Newhart’s The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart and Vaughn Meader’s The First Family – had long runs at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. A third – Martin’s A Wild and Crazy Guy – just missed the top spot, logging six weeks at No. 2.
We’ve all heard that laughter keeps you young, and that seems to be the case. Five of these artists made it well past 90. Reiner lived to be 98. His frequent comedy partner Brooks is 97, while Tom Lehrer is 96 and Newhart is 94. Mort Sahl also lived to be 94.
Here’s a closer look at the 13 full-length albums in the National Recording Registry. They are listed in chronological order by release date.
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Tom Lehrer, Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)
Billboard 200 peak: Did not chart
Notes: Lehrer achieved his greatest success in the 1960s with songs about timely social and political issues. He was a contributor to the American adaptation of the British TV show That Was the Week That Was, which aired on NBC from 1963-65. A 1965 album with a similar title, That Was the Year That Was, reached No. 18 on the Billboard 200.
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Mort Sahl, At Sunset (1958)
Billboard 200 peak: Did not chart
Notes: This album was recorded in 1955 and was released three years later. Sahl hosted the inaugural Grammy Awards ceremony on May 4, 1959. He was also a nominee for best comedy performance that year for The Future Lies Ahead. Sahl’s 1960 album, Mort Sahl at the hungry i, reached No. 22 on the Billboard 200. Sahl died in 2021 at age 94.
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Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks, 2000 Years With Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks (1960)
Billboard 200 peak: Did not chart
Notes: This was the first of five comedy albums by the pair, owing to the popularity of their “2000 Year Old Man” routine, one of the most famous comedy routines this side of Abbott & Costello’s “Who’s on First” (1938) (which is also in the NRR). This first 2000 Years album received a Grammy nod for best comedy performance – spoken word. Three of the pair’s subsequent albums were also nominated in that category. The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000 won the prize in 1999. A 1972 album, 2000 and Thirteen, reached No. 150 on the Billboard 200. Brooks is an EGOT winner. Reiner won 11 Primetime Emmys, not counting his entry into Television Hall of Fame. He died in 2020 at age 98.
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Bob Newhart, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (1960)
Image Credit: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 (14 weeks)
Notes: This held the No. 1 spot longer than any other comedy album in the history of the Billboard 200. This was also the first comedy album to win the Grammy for album of the year. Newhart also won best new artist – the only comedian to ever win in that category. Newhart didn’t have much longevity as a top recording artist, but he sure did on TV: He starred in two long-running sitcoms and finally won a Primetime Emmy in 2013 for a guest performance on The Big Bang Theory.
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Stan Freberg, Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America (1961)
Billboard 200 peak: No. 34
Notes: This album received a Grammy nod for best comedy performance. Freberg was nominated in each of the first four years of the Grammys, winning in the first year for The Best of the Stan Freberg Shows. Freberg topped Billboard’s separate Best Sellers and Disk Jockey charts in 1953 with a novelty single, “St. George and the Dragonet.” He died in 2015 at age 88.
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Vaughn Meader, The First Family (1962)
Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 (12 weeks)
Notes: This spoof of President Kennedy’s family was a sensation in what turned out to be the final year of JFK’s presidency. This was the second of two comedy albums to win the Grammy album of the year. It also won a second award for best comedy recording. Meader’s career never recovered from Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. Lenny Bruce’s darkly funny opening line at a show that Friday night: “Boy, is Vaughn Meader f—ked.” Meader died in 2004 at age 68.
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Bill Cosby, I Started Out as a Child (1964)
Billboard 200 peak: No. 32
Notes: He started out as a child, had a long and trail-blazing run on top, and ended up in disgrace. Nothing funny about that. For the record, this album received a Grammy nod for best comedy performance. Cosby, 86, won nine Grammys – more than any other comedian – and four Primetime Emmys.
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Firesign Theatre — Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers (1970)
Billboard 200 peak: No. 106
Notes: This is the only comedy troupe with an album in the Registry. The group made the Billboard 200 with eight albums. The highest-charting was 1971’s I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus, which reached No. 50.
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Lily Tomlin, This Is a Recording (1971)
Billboard 200 peak: No. 15
Notes: This album, in which Tomlin played the Ernestine character she originated on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, won a Grammy for best comedy album. Tomlin was the first woman to win on her own in this category. Tomlin, 84, has won six Primetime Emmys and was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Nashville.
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George Carlin, Class Clown (1972)
Image Credit: Dick Loek/Toronto Star via Getty Images Billboard 200 peak: No. 22
Notes: This album contains Carlin’s famous “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine. This album just missed the top 20. Carlin made the top 20 with two albums in the 1970s – FM & AM and Toledo Window Box. Carlin won five Grammys and hosted the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 11, 1975. Carlin, a brilliant wordsmith (check out his “Stuff” routine), died in 2008 at age 71.
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Groucho Marx, An Evening With Groucho (1972)
Billboard 200 peak: No. 160
Notes: This was a double album by the witty TV and film comedian, a member of the famed Marx Brothers. Marx won a Primetime Emmy as most outstanding personality in 1951. He received an honorary Oscar in 1973 “in recognition of his brilliant creativity and for the unequalled achievements of the Marx Brothers in the art of motion picture comedy.” He died in 1977 at age 86.
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Richard Pryor, Wanted (1978)
Image Credit: Paul Natkin/Getty Images Billboard 200 peak: No. 32
Notes: This double album was Pryor’s fourth album to make the top 40 on the Billboard 200, following That Ni–er’s Crazy, Is It Something I Said? and Bicentennial N—er. He returned to the top 40 in 1982 with Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip. Pryor won five Grammys and one Primetime Emmy, the latter for co-writing a 1973 Lily Tomlin special. In 2006, he became the first (and so far, only) comedian to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy. He died in 2005 at age 65.
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Steve Martin, A Wild and Crazy Guy (1978)
Billboard 200 peak: No. 2 (six weeks)
Notes: This brought Martin his second consecutive Grammy for best comedy album. His album Let’s Get Small had won in that category the previous year. A Wild and Crazy Guy featured “King Tut,” a top 20 single on the Hot 100. Martin, 78, has won five Grammys (two for comedy and three for his music, which demonstrates the range of his talents). Amazingly, he has won just one Primetime Emmy, for writing on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1969. In 2013, he received an honorary Oscar.