With his middle-age paunch and full head of tousled grey hair that resembles a bird's nest, Shawn has a definite comedic look about him, but he seldom smiles and never laughs during our long conversation. Still, his answers are both entertaining and revealing. On Mary Tyler Moore's variety show: "That was a total mistake. They didn't know what they were doing there. I thought she was going to get the best writers and the best producers. But it was totally inadequate. I knew from the very first day that it wasn't going to work. ... The whole concept was wrong. Variety isn't Mary's forte. You have to get yourself rolling around on the ground a little bit. She's such a nice, sweet girl that she doesn't come off as a clown." The basis of all humor, believes Shawn, "is hostility. But it has to be sweet hostility. ... I think people become comedians because they poke fun at pretentiousness. They usually come from meager backgrounds, and then they can look up and see the pomposity and the hypocrisy of many human beings. That's why there are no rich comics. A great many of them are Jewish or black -- because as a kid they were told they were part of a minority group. They learned to have a sense of humor about themselves: they had to, in order to survive. Humor is their way of getting even with mankind." Shawn's own background lends credence to his theory. Born Richard Schulefand in the steel town of Lackawanna, New York, he grew up in a family that was hard-hit by the Depression. While serving with the Army following World War II, he ended up in an entertainment troupe. "I was delighted," he recalls, "and when I got out, I decided to pursue it." In the early 1950s, he secured his first professional engagement as a stand-up comic in Bayonne, New Jersey, and was paid $25 a night. Since then, he has never been out of work, and has constantly used only his own material for his solo act -- songs as well as sketches. "I don't really do jokes," he explains. "I do situation characters. Although the thrust of my humor is serious, I have always taken chances. In my club act, for example, I always ended up pretending to die on stage, rather than taking bows. Two guys would come with a stretcher and carry me out." Among his more memorable performances over the years: the successor to Zero Mostel in Broadway's _A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum_, the freakishly funny beach bum in the Stanley Kramer film _It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World_, and a cavorting Adolph Hitler in Mel Brooks' zany 1968 movie, _The Producers_. Still, no project has gained him as much personal satisfaction as _The Second Greatest Entertainer in the Whole Wide World_. After the New York run, the show played to enthusiastic audiences in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and earned Shawn awards for both Best Performer and Best Playwright of the Year.