The Super Bob Einstein Movie has just started playing on HBO and, if you are a comedy fan, it is worth watching. I admit that I did not always get the Super Dave Osborne/Bob Einstein comedy but when it was explained to me by various comedians, it made a lot more sense.

I first remember seeing Einstein as Officer Judy on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. At the time, I was too young to appreciate that he was a writer on the show. His writing partner was Steve Martin. His younger brother is Albert Brooks, who always knew he wanted to go into show business like their parents Harry Einstein and Thelma Leeds. Einstein worked for an ad agency (as his father originally did and his youngest brother Clifford – oldest brother Charles was a writer) before slowing going into show business. He was turned off by show business because comedians at his father’s funeral did bits instead of properly eulogizing him.

Einstein’s specialty was playing deadpan no matter what was going on around him. As Sarah Silverman explains it, Einstein is both the comic and the straight man in his bits.  

The documentary plays Einstein’s bits for the interviewees, some of which they had seen before and some they had never seen. Reactions are the same as the comedians laugh and then explain why the scene was so funny (in case you did not get it).

As a lover of both process and comedy, I found the documentary both funny and educational (in a light-hearted way).