1960s in comedy

Mad (stylized as MAD) is an American humor magazine founded in 1952 by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines, launched as a comic book before it became a magazine. It was widely imitated and influential, affecting satirical media, as well as the cultural landscape of the 20th century, with editor Al Feldstein increasing readership to more than two million during its 1974 circulation peak.

The 2000 Year Old Man is a comedy sketch, created by Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks in the 1950s and first publicly performed in the 1960s. Brooks plays a 2000-year-old man, interviewed by Reiner in a series of comedy routines that were turned into a collection of records and also performed on television.

Beyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore. It debuted at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival and went on to play in London's West End and then in America, both on tour and on New York's Broadway in the early 1960s. Hugely successful, it is widely regarded as seminal to the "satire boom", the rise of satirical comedy in 1960s Britain.

The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise and is, historically, the first ongoing improvisational theater troupe to be continually based in Chicago, with training programs and live theatres in Toronto and Los Angeles. The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959, and has since become one of the most influential and prolific comedy theatres in the world.

Where the Girls Are is a music and comedy special that aired on NBC in 1968.

Help! is an American satire magazine that was published by James Warren from 1960 to 1965. It was Harvey Kurtzman's longest-running magazine project after leaving Mad and EC Publications, and during its five years of operation it was chronically underfunded, yet innovative.

The Committee was a San Francisco-based improvisational comedy group founded by Alan Myerson and Jessica Myerson, formerly known as Irene Ryan, Irene Riordan and now known as Latifah Taormina. The Myersons were both alums of The Second City in Chicago. The Committee opened April 10, 1963 at 622 Broadway in a 300-seat Cabaret theater that used to be an indoor bocce ball court in San Francisco's North Beach. Garry Goodrow, Hamilton Camp, Larry Hankin, Kathryn Ish, Scott Beach and Ellsworth Milburn were the cast. Jerry Mander handled the group's PR, and Richard Stahl, who later joined the improv troupe, was its first company manager. Jessica Myerson joined the company in May. Arthur Cantor took the company to Broadway in New York in 1964 for a limited engagement at the Henry Miller Theater. This occasioned a second group to hold the fort in San Francisco. Morgan Upton, Peter Lane, Leigh French, Chris Ross, Howard Hesseman (who used the name Don Sturdy), Nancy Fish, Peter Bonerz and Carl Gottlieb became the mainstays of the San Francisco troupe. Roger Bowen, a founding member of both The Compass Players and The Second City, joined in 1966. John Brent, co-creator with Del Close of the How to Speak Hip album and a bit player in many movies (Catch-22, American Graffiti, More American Graffiti, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Steelyard Blues, Porklips Now), was also a member.