It was the 1970s. Hundreds of comics slowly trickled into Los Angeles in search of a spot on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The Tonight Show could make or break a comic’s whole career. Johnny’s opinion of an act influenced entertainment executives and the American public. After each set, Johnny would, at the very least, say the comic could be seen at The Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip.

William Knoedelseder’s new book, I’m Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times In Stand-Up Comedy’s Golden Era, covers the supernova talent, dysfunction, and birth of the industry of jokes. He manages an ensemble cast of household names and pushes the story forward chronologically, telling the story of The Comedy Store as only a news-person can.

Mitzi Shore, the owner of The Comedy Store, harbored an original philosophy that she’s running a sort of “university of funny.” Her club was a place comics could go try out material, be seen by agents and producers, and maybe even land a spot on The Tonight Show. The comics were not paid, and in the beginning, nobody had any credentials so nobody could complain. The store created camaraderie among its performers, who included Tom Dreesen, Richard Lewis, Andy Kaufman, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Elayne Boosler, and Freddie Prinze, among hundreds of others who spent late nights at Canter’s Deli grabbing a sandwich and working on their acts together. The environment in the Store created healthy competition for the barely-getting-by comics. At the time, Dreesen “survived on one meal a day at Kentucky Fried Chicken, where the ‘Corn and Cluck for Under a Buck’ promotion offered two pieces of chicken, a small ear of corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, and coleslaw for ninety-nine cents.” Dreesen also put together a Comedy Store basketball team, The Bombers. Letterman was power forward. “It was a time of no comic left behind. Nobody ever went without a beer, a joint or a ride to the club. It was a Camelot. And it wouldn’t last.”

Slowly, the comics started to not only land spots on Carson, but a select group went on to major gigs. Freddie Prinze starred in Chico and the Man before dying tragically; Robin Williams became Mork; Andy Kaufman transformed into Latka on Taxi; Tom Dreesen signed with a big talent agency and had a $25,000 development deal; Richard Pryor was revered as a genius with his material that went on to become best-selling Grammy-winning albums: That Nigger’s Crazy, Is it Something I Said, Bicentennial Nigger, and Wanted: Richard Pryor Live in Concert. As a select few felt the freedom of new wealth, many of the friends still needed to borrow five bucks for a sandwich, and all of them, save Richard Pryor, were performing for free at The Comedy Store and its rival The Improv, owned by Budd Friedman. It seemed to make less and less sense. The comics were bringing in lines around the block, but that did not matter to Shore, who saw her club as a college and not a business.

The comics began to organize and “approved a walkout at the Sunset Strip club if Mitzi did not agree to begin paying for performances in all Comedy Store showrooms.” The focus of the book then turns to labor disputes, picket lines, and unions. “The news that a group of comedians was picketing a nightclub on Sunset Strip didn’t exactly rock the country,” but it deeply affected every performer.  It moved comic Steve Lubetkin so much that he gave his life for the cause. He jumped off the roof of the Continental Hyatt House next door to The Comedy Store, and his suicide note read, “My name is Steve Lubetkin. Call Susan Evans at 403-7861. I used to work at The Comedy Store. Maybe this will bring about fairness.” In the days leading up to the incident, he had been mentally unsteady, but all involved lost a friend.

After the strike was settled, the comics did begin to get paid. The landscape of comedy clubs changed and there was “an explosion in the popularity of live comedy around the country.”

The book captures a time and group of people before big paydays and car collections. It is a recount of the way they were.