Bob Newhart Judging Top 10 Finalists in Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor Competition

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Bob Newhart Judging Top 10 Finalists in Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor Competition

LOS ANGELES, CA. -- Ten happy humor writers are busy chewing their finger nails this week, each hoping their essay will tickle the funny bone of comic genius Bob Newhart, finalist judge for the 2008 Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor competition.

Bob Newhart, has won three Grammy awards, a Peabody, an Emmy, and the Mark Twain Prize for Humor. Newhart is perhaps the most celebrated comedian, writer, humorist, actor, entertainer and former certified public accountant in show business. But this time he has taken on the difficult but amusing task of selecting and ranking the top four winning entries for the 2008 Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor, taking on the task so ably handled for the past two years by Pulitzer Prize winning humorist Dave Barry.

"I think really good writing is timeless," Newhart said, remembering the humorous "persona Benchley created, like the persona Jack Benny created—a man who was very much full of himself, but in a self-deprecating way."

"The book that most impressed me when I was growing up and influenced my approach to comedy would have been any book by Robert Benchley, or specifically My Ten Years in a Quandary," Newhart said. "I was very much influenced by Robert Benchley."

"We had a delightful time selecting our top ten finalists this year," said Robert Benchley Society chairperson David Trumbull. "It is a true honor to turn the job of selecting the top four essays over to Bob Newhart."

"All of the entries are read blind. No one knows who wrote which essay until the judging is finished. This keeps the competition entirely merit based," said Horace J. Digby, a past Benchley Society Award winner who has returned to help with judging for the past three years.

The 2008 finalists, in alphabetical order, are: Cornelius "Con" Chapman of Weston, MA; Madeleine Begun Kane of Bayside, NY; Jesse Levy of North Hollywood, CA; Eileen Mitchell of Palatine, IL; Joseph Nebus of Jackson, NJ; Brenda Pontiff of Los Angeles, CA; John Thom of Los Angeles, CA; Mike Tuck of Hopkins, MN; Denise G. Weeks of Richardson, TX; and Sharon Elizabeth Wood of Cary, NC.

Newhart's selection and ranking of the top four winners for this year's Robert Benchley Society Awards will be announced the week of July 6th.

The Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor is an international writing competition dedicated to the warm, self-effacing comic writing style that made Benchley so beloved during his lifetime. Benchley has influenced so many of our most popular and successful comic minds over the past 50 years, said humor writer Ed Tasca, who holds the singular distinction of placing among the top four winning entries for three consecutive years.

Many of America’s brightest comic talents including, this year's finalist judge Bob Newhart, Dave Barry, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Erma Bombeck, Shelly Berman, Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, Steve Allen, Russell Baker and Dan Rowan acknowledged Benchley's impact on their work.

Benchley rose to fame in the 1920s writing for Harvard Lampoon, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Life magazine and as humor columnist for the Hearst newspaper chain. Benchley appeared in more than eighty short films and feature length motion pictures. He is credited, along with Dorothy Parker, with founding the notorious Algonquin Round Table.

Benchley and his colleagues, all members of the famed Algonquin Round Table luncheon group, dominated print media for nearly two decades, creating a new face for American humor.

This year's preliminary judges include: Benchley Society member Dwain Buck; 2005 Benchley Society award winner Horace J. Digby; author of Robert Benchley An Annotated Bibliography Gordon E. Ernst; Dorothy Parker Society of New York chairperson and author of A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York Kevin Fitzpatrick; MIT genius Steven Jens; writer Eileen Forster Keck; Robert Benchley aficionados David and Sharon Lyon; puzzle designer Chris Morgan; radio personality Tom Saunders; and Robert Benchley Society chairperson David Trumbull.

The competition is open to amateurs and professionals alike. W. Bruce Cameron, whose book Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter inspired John Ritter's Emmy Award winning television series for ABC/Disney, and whose newest book, Eight Simple Rules for Marrying My Daughter, is now in book stores everywhere, took top Benchley Society Award honors in 2006. Last year's top award went to Daniel Montville of Oak Park, Illinois for his hilarious essay, How to Write a Book.

Horace J. Digby

For additional information, contact:
Horace J. Digby
Lexington Film, LLC
208 Cowlitz Drive
Kelso, Washington
USA
hjdigby@lexingtonfilm.com
(360) 431-1831 cell
(360) 425-6500 office

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