Who has the last laugh?

Re “Some late-night laughs are cheap,” May 4

Here’s the no-joke bottom line: Top-banana comedians paying for one-liners is nothing new.

In the 1930s, mirth masters like Bob Hope and Milton Berle would pay about five bucks a gag or steal the jokes that young, nonunion writers (there was no WGA then) sent on penny postcards into the newspaper columns of Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell at the six or seven local dailies.

I guess some things have changed since then.

Hank Rosenfeld

Santa Monica