LAUGH DEPT.PRECOCIOUS

In "The Great Depresh," Gary Gulman's documentary-style comedy special about his lifelong struggle with depression, a camera crew follows him to his childhood home in Peabody, Massachusetts.

- -Andrew Marantz

"A happier kid you couldn't find," his mother recalls. "Always had a smile on his face." Gulman, combing through keepsakes in the living room, picks up a copy-the copy-of "The Lonely Tree," a book he wrote in second grade. (First sentence: "There once was a tree that no one liked.") Sitting next to his mother, he says, "To anybody with just a small amount of psychology knowledge, you would know this was a cry for help, an allegory." She didn't get it then, and it's not clear that she fully gets it now. He laughs and pats her arm, but he doesn't seem to be over it.

"They could be so charming, my family, but so oblivious," he said the other day. "They were all about cutting you down to size, making sure you don't get a big head. My therapist always tells me, 'The audience is not your family, Gary. They're actually rooting for you." At fifty-four, Gulman is often described as a comic's comic, though he prefers to compare himself to the Silver Surfer.