Disguised As a Normal Person

by Mark DemingDavid Steinberg's career as a standup comic was taking off thanks to a number of well-received appearances on The Tonight Show, his stint as host of the short-lived pop music series Music Scene, and a number of successful nightclub dates when he recorded his first album, Disguised As a Normal Person, in 1970. Steinberg's material bore a certain resemblance to what Woody Allen was doing during his days as a standup, particularly in his overt intellectualism, but Steinberg traded Allen's self-deprecating neurosis for an amusing cynicism and a willingness to take on politics and Christianity in his routine, neither of which were especially common in standup comedy at the time. Disguised As a Normal Person closes with Steinberg doing one of his "sermons," posing as a minister discussing some better known characters in the Bible (a similar routine became a cause celebre when he performed it on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour), and it's some of the best stuff on the album; much of the rest of the material has dated significantly with the passage of more than three decades, especially the bits on Nixon, the routine on the new presence of "bullshit" in the dictionary and the occasional mentions of Masters & Johnson and Dr. David Reuben. Still, there's a relaxed and easy charm to Steinberg's delivery that's winning, and a refreshing intelligence to his work even when it doesn't draw big laughs, and the occasional studio-recorded bits suggest he could have made an interesting conceptual humor routine or album had the opportunity presented itself. These days, Steinberg works as a television director on such shows as Friends, Mad About You and Curb Your Enthusiasm, but Disguised As a Normal Person suggests his early days as a standup comic are worth remembering.