The Comedy Store Strike of 1979
When Comics Walked Out on Mitzi Shore

About this book:

In the spring of 1979, the brightest young comics in America—future household names among them—marched a picket line outside the club that made them. Their demand: twenty-five dollars a set. Their opponent: Mitzi Shore, the iron-willed matriarch who'd turned a Sunset Strip nightclub into the most feared and coveted stage in show business, paying her stars in "exposure" while the house raked in fortunes. What followed was a six-week war that shattered friendships, birthed blacklists, and forced an entire art form to grow up.

*The Comedy Store Strike of 1979* drops you into the smoky, coke-dusted, neon-lit ecosystem where stand-up comedy became the new rock and roll. Drawing on dozens of firsthand accounts—from picketers and strikebreakers alike—it reconstructs the secret meetings at the Westwood Deli, the midnight screaming matches in the parking lot, and the moment a generation of "artists" realized they were also workers. This is the labor history no one told you about, set in the last great Wild West of American entertainment.

The strike didn't just change how comics got paid—it dismantled the feudal club system, ignited the 1980s comedy boom, and established the precedent that making people laugh is labor worth a wage. By the time the picket signs came down, the Sunset Strip would never be the same, and neither would the business of funny. A gripping, character-driven account of the six weeks the laughter stopped—and the industry was forced to listen.