When I think of stand-up comedy and vaudeville the great Will Rogers immediately comes to mind. The idea of stand-up comedy in America may not have been born in vaudeville, but it did grow up there. Vaudeville had a run of about fifty years in the US, hitting its peak about 1905. Unfortunately for vaudeville, radio came on the scene.
When radio came into its own in the early 1930s, and people could stay at home and listen to the comedy, vaudeville started to decline. This was a time in the US that comedy programs were among the most successful on the air. With the appeal of radio growing and the need for more material, many vaudevillian comics found the need to employ comic writers to keep up with the demand. Comedian Jack Benny did much to ease the change from vaudeville to the radio. Benny realized that he was now in someone's home and not in a theater with hundreds of others. In just a few years Benny would again ease the transition of comedy, only this time it would be from radio to television.
When Benny, and many other greats, such as Burns and Allen, made the move to television in the 1950's, comedy was visual again and more changes had to be made. Not only did they now have to be welcomed into the living room of your home they were now back to a visual art form.