Colbert gets 3 million viewers a night.
BUT...a few times a month, on a Thursday evening for an hour, Mort Sahl can still get about 300 Internet views.
He also might, on a good night, get 30 people in the audience at the Throckmorton in sleepy Mill Valley.
He could probably double those online numbers if the video was more professionally shot. Somebody sticks a camcorder on a tripod and picks up the ambient sound. (It might be a cellphone, not even a camcorder, as the image on the Periscope website is vertical, with squares of nothing on either side). When you've got a guy over 90 up there, his voice is not carrying that well. When the camera is located near somebody who might actually chuckle once in a while (momentarily jerking the volume) it's quite distracting. Being able to lip-read is definitely a plus.
BUT, yes, there are still chuckles to be had. Pigmeat Markham once grumbled about Mort, "I could never work for giggles." Pigmeat is long gone, but the problems of the world not only remain, they get worse.
While much of Mort's act now is nostalgia and anecdotes, he'll still remark on current events. "What's in the news" and how to laugh at it, was popular on stage before Mort (some have actually heard of Will Rogers) and on late night TV which has replaced going to nightclubs (Jimmy Kimmel will offer topical material as well as HBO's enduring Bill Maher).
The world needs more of the "World of Wit," which was the Verve Records catalog name for their best-selling comedy albums in the early 60's. Most members of their "World of Wit" are gone now: Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, Charlie Manna and Phyllis Diller among them. The only survivors are Jackie Mason and Mort Sahl, and only Mort is giving it away free on the Internet most every week.
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