Permanent Exhibit at the Women’s Museum in Dallas

What do Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Moms Mabley, Joan Rivers, Tracey Ullman, Wendy Liebman, Rene Hicks, Phyllis Diller, Wanda Sykes-Hall, Paula Poundstone, Carol Burnett, Victoria Jackson, Martha Raye, Elvira Kurt, Lilly Tomlin, Joy Behar and Totie Fields have in common?

They appear in Cynthia Salzman Mondell and Allen Mondell’s new film, Funny Women. The Women’s Museum, An Institute for the Future – which opened in Dallas, Texas on September 29, 2000 – commissioned the film. The Mondell’s focus was to make people realize the brilliance of women comics.

“The beauty of women’s comedy is that a comic can say anything out of love, anger or rage and be heard because it is told as a joke,” Cynthia Salzman Mondell stated. “We fell in love with the comediennes, marveling at their wit, brilliance and the guts it took to be stand-up comediennes.”

The viewer will see Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers before they became glamorous. Carol Burnett pulls no punches when her husband tries to take back her new clothes after a shopping spree. Moms Mabley describes her husband in one word: “He’s ugly.” This brings down the house.