Editing Steve Martin (section)

==== Comedy albums ====
[[File:Steve Martin 2.jpg|right|thumb|upright|Steve Martin, 1976]]
In the 1970s, his television appearances led to the release of comedy albums that went [[Music recording sales certification|platinum]].<ref name="Mild"/> The track "Excuse Me" on his first album, ''[[Let's Get Small]]'' (1977), helped establish a national [[catch phrase]].<ref name="Mild"/> His next album, ''[[A Wild and Crazy Guy]]'' (1978), was an even bigger success, reaching the No. 2 spot on the U.S. sales chart, selling over a million copies. "Just a wild and crazy guy" became another of Martin's known catchphrases.<ref name="Mild"/> The album featured a character based on a series of ''Saturday Night Live'' sketches in which Martin and [[Dan Aykroyd]] played the Festrunk Brothers; Yortuk and Georgi were bumbling [[Czechoslovakia|Czechoslovak]] would-be playboys. The album ends with the song "[[King Tut (song)|King Tut]]", written and sung by Martin and backed by the "Toot Uncommons", members of the [[Nitty Gritty Dirt Band]]. It was later released as a single, reaching No. 17 on the U.S. charts in 1978 and selling over a million copies.<ref name="Mild">{{cite magazine |last1=Corliss |first1=Richard |title=Steve Martin, a Mild and Crazy Guy |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1684540-1,00.html |access-date=December 31, 2022 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=November 15, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071220021910/http://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1684540,00.html |archive-date=December 20, 2007 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{YouTube|wgTPH5y1-ZI|"King Tut" Video}}. Retrieved August 14, 2010.</ref> The song came out during the [[Tutankhamun|King Tut]] craze that accompanied the popular traveling exhibit of the Egyptian king's tomb artifacts. Both albums won [[Grammy]]s for [[Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album|Best Comedy Recording]] in 1977 and 1978, respectively. Martin performed "King Tut" on the April 22, 1978, ''SNL'' program.

Decades later, in 2012, ''[[The A.V. Club]]'' described Martin's unique style and its effect on audiences:
{{cquote|[Martin was] both a consummate entertainer and a glib, knowing parody of a consummate entertainer. He was at once a hammy populist with an uncanny, unprecedented feel for the tastes of a mass audience and a sly intellectual whose goofy shtick cunningly deconstructed stand-up comedy.<ref>{{cite web |last=Rabin |first=Nathan |author-link=Nathan Rabin |title=Steve Martin: The Television Stuff |website=[[The A.V. Club]] |date=November 7, 2012 |url=https://www.avclub.com/steve-martin-the-television-stuff-1798174880|access-date=December 30, 2022}}</ref>}}

On his comedy albums, Martin's stand-up is self-referential and sometimes [[self-deprecation|self-mocking]]. It mixes philosophical riffs with sudden spurts of "happy feet", [[banjo]] playing with balloon depictions of concepts like [[venereal disease]], and the "controversial" kitten juggling (he is a master juggler; the "kittens" were [[stuffed toy|stuffed animal toys]]). His style is off-kilter and ironic and sometimes pokes fun at stand-up comedy traditions, such as Martin opening his act (from ''A Wild and Crazy Guy'') by saying: {{cquote|I think there's nothing better for a person to come up and do the same thing over and over for two weeks. This is what I enjoy, so I'm going to do the same thing over and over and over [...] I'm going to do the same joke over and over in the same show, it'll be like a new thing.}} Or: "Hello, I'm Steve Martin, and I'll be out here in a minute."<ref name="Frum"/><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Anderson|first=Sam|author-link=Sam Anderson (writer)|date=November 18, 2007|url=https://nymag.com/arts/books/features/40968/|title=Rationalist of the Absurd: Steve Martin's extraordinarily calculated comedy |magazine=[[New York (magazine)|New York]] |access-date=August 12, 2010 |url-access=limited |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100818095622/http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/40968/ |archive-date=August 18, 2010}}</ref> In one comedy routine, used on the ''[[Comedy Is Not Pretty!]]'' album, Martin claimed that his real name was "Gern Blanston". The riff took on a life of its own. There is a Gern Blanston website, and for a time a rock band took the moniker as its name.{{sfnp|Martin|2007|pp=176–177}}

Martin's show soon required full-sized stadiums for the audiences he was drawing. Concerned about his visibility in venues on such a scale, Martin began to wear a distinctive [[three piece suit|three-piece]] white suit that became a trademark for his act.<ref>{{cite news |last1=O'Reilly |first1=Terry |author1-link=Terry O'Reilly (broadcaster) |title=How A Wardrobe Change Transformed Steve Martin's Career |url=http://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/how-a-wardrobe-change-transformed-steve-martin-s-career-1.4525782 |access-date=February 18, 2018 |work=Under the Influence |agency=Pirate Radio |publisher=CBC Radio One |date=February 8, 2018}}</ref> Martin stopped doing stand-up comedy in 1981 to concentrate on movies and did not return for thirty-five years.<ref name="Mild"/> About the decision, he said, "My act was conceptual. Once the concept was stated, and everybody understood it, it was done... It was about coming to the end of the road. There was no way to live on in that persona. I had to take that fabulous luck of not being remembered as that, exclusively. You know, I didn't announce that I was stopping. I just stopped."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Young |first1=Alex |title=After losing a bet to Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Martin performs his first stand-up comedy set in 35 years. |url=https://consequence.net/2016/02/steve-martin-performs-his-first-stand-up-comedy-set-in-36-years/ |website=Consequence |date=February 19, 2016 |access-date=December 30, 2022}}</ref>