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The People of the State of New York v. Lenny Bruce was the case that killed him — that, and the heroin. It was prosecuted by Frank Hogan, who also went after members of the Jewish Mob. Bruce was convicted, or so it seems, for not being funny enough, because the judge didn't "get" his act. The decision called his routine "chaotic, haphazard, and inartful." It's a comedian's worst nightmare: sentenced to prison because he bombed. On appeal, he did his routine for a panel that included future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
The satire boom was ultimately devoured by the forces it helped bring into power: Camelot and the New Frontier. "In terms of its political outlook, certainly," Kercher notes, "most of the satire celebrated throughout American popular culture during the 1950s and early 1960s dovetailed with the cold war liberalism of Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy. Once they began to see themselves as part of the liberal establishment, American satirists yielded their positions as critical outsiders for the sake of becoming court jesters."