Over the years, countless comics, humorists and others have made humorous comments about money, personal finance, the economy and other related topics. Here, from a giant new book entitled Make ‘Em Laugh, by Laurence Maslon and Michael Kantor, are a few of them...

• “Unlike many other Broadway comedians (e.g., Groucho Marx; Eddie Cantor), W.C. Fields hadn’t been hurt by the stock market crash (of 1929). He saw the Wall Street bubble for the con it was. ‘If these stocks are so good,’ he asked, ‘why do the presidents of these companies want me in on it? They don’t know me, they don’t give a damn about me.’”

• Starting out in vaudeville, Jack Benny got laughs with jokes about being cheap. He continued with this shtick when he got his own radio show. “Decades later, the greatest payoff came one Sunday night in 1948 with perhaps the most famous exchange in radio history:

Robber: Your money or your life. (pause)

Robber: I said, ‘Your money or your life!’

Benny: I’m thinking it over!”

• Johnny Carson, as colonial comic Shecky Revere: “George Washington couldn’t be here tonight. He’s too busy posing for the dollar.” (rim shot)

• Groucho Marx (as a gold-digger) to long-time movie foil Margaret Dumont: “You’ve got beauty, charm, money...You have got money, haven’t you? Because if you haven’t, we can quit right now.”