Funnier if Heard
Being in my mid-twenties, I'll admit that my generation is more familiar with "Three Amigos" era Steve Martin, more so than "Wild & Crazy Guy" era Steve Martin. However, having seen him do SNL in the 70's (thanks to the DVDs) I was very interested and curious to hear this album.

The first thing I noticed was that the audio quality is quite poor. It's often VERY hard to hear what he's saying on stage. I usually listen to comedy albums when taking long road trips, and I had to max out the volume in my car to be able to hear at times. Secondly, some of his visual stick doesn't translate well to audio. However, since I managed to get this on a wicked awesome sale from Amazon, I got my money's worth of laughs and entertainment.

This album is even funnier now...
Let's Get SmallThis album is even funnier now than it was 30 years ago. If you are planning to read Mr. Martin's excellent biography Born Standing Up: A Comic's LifeBorn Standing Up: A Comic's Life, treat yourself and buy this album for background!
Martin was at the top of his game when he recorded this performance.

Steve Martin's big break
This Grammy-winning record is where it all started for Steve Martin, at least in terms of national recognition in the US. It is a real comedy gem made by a comedian who wasn't famous yet (and who still had dark hair). It was a runaway sensation and brought new life to the genre of the comedy album, which had been in the doldrums for most of the 1970s. Sure, it is dated -- there are Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon jokes, and some of the materials about the sex scene in San Francisco seems awfully tame by today's standards. But this is one of the great comedy albums of all time, and should be in any collection of comedy recordings.

Absolutely brilliant
This was from the tour before THE WILD AND CRAZY GUY I assume, which I thought was the funniest comedy record ever. This one is I would say on an equal level. Some of the jokes have aged but the majority of the stuff is really really funny.

"Professional show business! Hey!"
Too many of the reviews here are not judging this album on its own merits, but on everything they know about Steve Martin following the appearance of this album in 1977. The fact is that this album was so successful that it catapulted Steve Martin into the national spotlight, but before this album he was virtually unknown. At a time when most comedians were basing more and more of their humor on their capacity to get progressively vulgar, Martin brought forth a brand of humor that depended less on profanity than conceptual humor. He could get obscene as well, but because most of his act was "clean," the few times he would get bawdy had far more impact than with other major comedians.

I remember reading once that before turning to comedy Martin was in college a philosophy student, especially the linguistic philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Certainly Martin is more conceptual than any contemporary comedian (though Steven Wright has since developed a comparable conceptual approach, though his presentation is considerably different), delighting in toying with words, combining ideas that clash unexpectedly with one another. And although the humor was always completely planned, there was an almost stream of consciousness touch to his routine at times. It was almost he never ceased being a philosopher, almost engaging in a deconstruction of normal humor.

What I find amazing today is that this album, released in the hey day of the age of disco, seems as fresh today as it was when it first came out. Even if you've heard the stuff before, his changes of pace and shifts are perennially original and unexpected. He really was cutting edge, but pretty soon he made cutting edge popular. The album was such a success that he immediately began selling out arenas and coliseums and, of course, began his unprecedented run as guest host of SNL, where he pioneered a string of famous skits. The album was cutting edge, but it was also graced with an almost universal appeal.

Following this album he released an almost equally good one, A WILD AND CRAZY GUY. Unfortunately the next two were more formulaic and felt like efforts to cash in on his success. By then Martin's career as a stand up comedian was over. The other great stand up to emerge from the seventies, Robin Williams, has at gone back to stand up from time to time, but Martin has stuck with acting and writing. But his subsequent success in other fields shouldn't make us forget just how brilliant this debut album was.