Tim Reid

I’ve been reading the new book “Tim & Tom: An American Comedy In Black and White”, written by Chicago journalist Ron Rapoport in conjunction with the two members of America’s first and only black-white comedy team: Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen. The book isn’t only about their partnership; it couldn’t be, because their act broke up in 1974, and both of them went on to successful solo careers of very different types. (Reid became a well-known actor and producer; Dreesen was one of the last of the professional “opening act” standup comedians, touring first with Sammy Davis Jr. and then Frank Sinatra and doing a comedy act as a warm-up for their shows.) But the core of the book is the story of two guys in Chicago back when Chicago was the comedy capital of the U.S., their almost offhand decision to become a comedy team, and the reactions they got, from the audience, the business, and each other, at a time when race was the defining issue in the whole country. Much of it is a typical story of a struggling comedy act, trying to find the right material, dealing with different audiences, going all around the country to wherever there was work — except that the experiences are anything but typical, because it was a type of act that had never been tried before, had no clearly defined audience, and left audiences unsure about how they were supposed to react. (“Every time there was a black person in the audience,” Reid recalls, “not a single white person would laugh until they looked at him.”)