Sept. 3, 1962 - Zero Mostel, who lectured humorously on the art of comedy at Harvard University last May, has obtained a booking for his monologue on an educational T.V. station in New York. The Harvard lecture, with a few cuts to reduce playing time, will be presented as part of the premiere program over WNDT (Channel 13) on Sept. 16. Mr. Mostel, now starring on Broadway in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” said today he would tape the lecture on Wednesday at WNDT’s main studio at 9th Ave. and 55th St. The speech, which kept Harvard audiences laughing for nearly an hour, is expected to run 30 minutes on T.V. WNDT has notified its employees that they may invite friends to attend the taping session and laugh in the right places. “I don’t know why they just can’t use canned laughter,” said Mr. Mostel today. The comedian, who did not memorize his Harvard lecture but read it at the podium, will do the same for T.V. “It’s too involved,” he explained. “I have to.” Among other things, Mr. Mostel’s lecture contains quotes from Aristotle, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Freud, and Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy.” It also establishes Mostel’s Law: “The freedom of any society varies proportionately with the volume of its laughter.”
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