Martin Short has received an outpouring of support from his fellow celebrities after a harsh op-ed slammed his comedy as “desperately unfunny.”
The Slate piece, titled “Why We Keep Putting Up With Martin Short,” criticized the actor and comedian’s “over-the-top characters” — such as Franck Eggelhoffer in Father of the Bride and Oliver Putnam in Only Murders in the Building — as “unbelievably annoying.” The author, Dan Kois, wrote that Short’s five-decade career was marked by his “exhausting, sweaty, and desperately unfunny” schtick.
Short’s representatives did not immediately reply to EW’s request for comment.
Many of Short’s fans, including some of his Hollywood friends, disagreed with the op-ed and praised his comedic genius. Ben Stiller, who worked with Short on Saturday Night Live, tweeted, “Martin Short is a comedic genius. End o story.”
Short rose to fame on two popular comedy shows, SCTV and SNL. The op-ed included clips of some of his sketches, such as one where he played PBS host Fred Rogers in a fistfight with chef Julia Child.
J. Smith-Cameron, who stars in Succession, also defended Short on Twitter, saying that the clips were “so entertaining that the article is a valentine in spite of itself.”
The op-ed also analyzed Short’s career choices, saying that he had an “eager-to-please flamboyance” and that he “would do anything, anything, for a laugh.” Smith-Cameron followed up with another tweet, saying, “I came away with more appreciation of Martin Short than ever.”
Before his success as a movie star, Short made a name for himself in two hit comedy series, SCTV and SNL. The skit in question features Short as PBS star Fred Rogers, duking it out with famed chef Julia Child in comedic fisticuffs.
Succession actress J. Smith-Cameron also weighed in on the clips of Short’s work embedded throughout the op-ed, which she found “so entertaining that the article is a valentine in spite of itself.”