RIP David Brenner

[brian]

David Brenner, Stand-up Comic of the Little Things in Life, Dies at 78

David Brenner, whose wry brand of observational humor made him a stand-up comedy star in the early 1970s and kept him in the public eye for more than four decades, died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 78.

His longtime publicist, Jeff Abraham, said the cause was cancer.

Early in his career, Mr. Brenner seemed to many like a throwback to an older, safer brand of comedy. Other comedians were gleefully challenging taboos, but his routines were free of profanity and focused not on sex, drugs or race, but on the annoying little details of everyday life — in his words, “the dumb things that we say and do.”

There was the one about the time he sat on a newspaper and a fellow subway passenger asked him if he was reading it: “I said yes, stood up, turned the page and sat down again.” There was his reaction to the news that there was a pill to stop people from gambling: “What are the odds?”

Later, as comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno attained stardom with a similar approach, Mr. Brenner came to be celebrated as much for his influence as for his links to comedy’s past.

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