Book Club Meeting: Tim & Tom (public event)

Join the Social Wave Book Club as we discuss Tim and Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White by Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen, with Ron Rapoport.

As the heady promise of the 1960s sagged under the weight of widespread violence, rioting, and racial unrest, two young men--one black and one white--took to stages across the nation to help Americans confront their racial divide: by laughing at it. Tim and Tom tells the story of that pioneering duo. Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen polished their two-person act in the nightclubs of Chicago, then took it on the road, not only in the North, but also in the still-simmering South, developing routines that even today remain surprisingly frank--and remarkably funny--about race. By turns revealing, shocking, and riotously funny, Tim and Tom unearths a largely forgotten chapter in the history of comedy.

Tim Reid is an actor, producer, and director who has created and starred in many movies and television shows, including WKRP in Cincinnati, in which he played the overnight disk jockey Venus Flytrap, and Frank’s Place. Tom Dreesen is a stand-up comedian who has appeared scores of times on The Tonight Show and Late Show with David Letterman. He toured the nation as Frank Sinatra’s opening act for fourteen years.