This is the film's key moral position, but it is explicated cartoonishly by Crispin Glover, who makes Layne a larger-than-life caricature and creates a noisy, comic impersonation instead of a lifelike character.

He mocked himself as well as others; Byrne believes that the elderly buffer, "crusty colonel" image he presented in his later life was a comic impersonation, rather than his real self.

He segues from his comic impersonations ("I'm the Robin Williams of child abuse," Pelzer says) into stories of his own abuse and ends with the platitude, "Everyone has issues.

"The master of comic impersonations arrives!"

He was a regular performer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he was best known for his comic musical impersonations of performers including Cher and Morrissey.

He expanded the role of Clown to include a range of comic impersonations, from the rival suitor, to household cook or nurse.

Mr. Essmann's more ambitious monologues are as much literary set pieces as they are vehicles for showing off subtleties of comic impersonation.

"Call Me Tovah" sets a lighthearted tone for an act that intersperses songs with comic impersonations and gently amusing patter.

Sited by The Chicago Tribune as "...a rarity, an ensemble's ensemble, they gained a reputation for their wizardry in blending 50's sitcom norms with comic impersonations.

"It was left to Howard Milner's brilliantly played tenor (in Arrata) to brush the event in greasepaint with a richly comic impersonation of Poppaea's nursemaid"