First Time

First appearance by Steven Wright, one of my favorite comedians in the 80s, on the Tonight Show on August 6, 1982.  I remember watching this.  Johnny Carson provided such a great platform for young comedians and if, after doing your bit, you got invited to actually sit in the chair next to Johnny, as Steven did, it was a really big deal.

Happy Festivus!

Enjoy the season.  And Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah.

Rickles

Don Rickles, who passed away two years ago at the age of 90, combined the ability to comically insult and engage in ethnic, religious, and racial humor and manage to carry it off because, at his core, people realized he was a good man.  Where is Rickles today, now that we need him?

Here is Rickles, a life long Democrat, at Ronald Reagan's second inauguration in January 1985.

This is Don at a mid-70s Dean Martin Celebrity Roast (yes, that used to be a thing) of Frank Sinatra.  Also on the dais are Jimmy Stewart, Ronald Reagan, Red Foxx, Milton Berle, Gene Kelly, George Burns, Flip Wilson, Jonathan Winters, Orson Welles, and Peter Falk, most of whom Rickles insults along with performing an imitation of Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone.

And near the end of his life this is Don Rickles singing (I had no clue until seeing this).

Your Money Or Your Life

Sometimes a successful joke only works when the comedian has developed a well-defined persona.  That was the case with Jack Benny who had enormous success on radio, TV, and in his live act from the 1930s until his death in 1974.  Benny's stage persona was of a vain, insufferable, and incredibly cheap man. By all accounts the real Benny was a warm, gracious, and generous.

(Benny's trademark look)


That's why, along with Benny's impeccable timing, this joke works so well.

Stuff

According to George Carlin, your house (not mine) is a pile of stuff with a cover on it.  On second thought, THC thinks this may apply to him.  When living in Massachusetts and Connecticut he and Mrs THC managed to completely fill two story homes along with full basements and attics with their stuff.  When they moved to Florida to a house without basement and attic a storage unit was rented to hold their excess stuff.

More recently, when moving to Arizona and yet another house without attic or basement, the THCs required the rental of two storage units to hold their excess stuff, despite sorting through our stuff for two months before moving and seemingly getting rid of half of it, including most of our furniture.

Thankfully, over our first few months we managed to get rid of some more of our stuff, so we now are renting only one storage unit. Maybe someday we can move to a smaller storage unit, but I know we will always need something for storing our stuff.

We are not alone in renting space to store our stuff.  One out of every eleven American households does so.  The self-storage business has proved to be recession proof and nationally there are approximately 50,000 self-storage locations (2.3 billion square feet, a volume equivalent to 26 Hoover Dams according to this article) and the sector has annual revenue of approximately $38 billion, more than 3X Hollywood's annual gross.

Americans aren't the only ones accumulating stuff.  With its growing prosperity, China and Southeast Asia have emerged as the new hot markets for self-storage because the folks there now have more stuff.

Dinner With Don

This January, less than three months before he passed at the age of 90, Don Rickles filmed a series of short clips called Dinner With Don.  This is my favorite, with Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorcese.  Enjoy.

Shaw & Lee

This is an odd one I discovered recently.  Al Shaw (1902-85), born Albert Schultzman in Poland, and Sam Lee (1891-1980), the former Samuel Levy of Newark, were Shaw & Lee, a long-time vaudeville act.  In 1928 they made The Beau Brummels, a short film, and one of the early talkies.

What caught my eye is their routine, which has elements of post-modern deadpan and absurdist humor.  Shaw & Lee don't move much, they don't smile, speak in monotones and don't pause between jokes.  A sample of their humor:

When were you born?
I wasn't born, I'm a self-made man.                                                                                      Well, come around when you're finished. 

I dreamt that I died and went to heaven.
What woke you up?
The heat.

I suggest you start watching the video about 4 minutes in and stick around to the end for the self-referential absurdist song.

"I Know Nothing!"

Andrew Sachs, the accomplished English actor best known for his role as Manuel on Fawlty Towers, my favorite TV comedy, died recently at the age of 86.  Fawlty Towers was the creation of John Cleese (of Monty Python) and his then wife, Connie Booth.  Only 12 episodes, aired on the BBC in the mid and late 1970s, were made, but each is perfect.
(Manuel, from The Independent)

The incompetent, snobby, socially frustrated, and unhappily married Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) and his bossy, and unsympathetic, but more realistic, wife, Sybil (Prunella Scales), operate a small hotel (Fawlty Towers) in Torquay on the southwest coast of England.   Manuel (Andrew Sachs), is a waiter, from Barcelona with a shaky command of English, hired by Basil because he doesn't have to pay him much, while the competent chambermaid, Polly (Connie Booth), frantically, and usually futilely, tries to keep the insanity in check.
(Andrew Sachs, from The Daily Mail)

Andrew Sachs was born in Germany in 1930 of a Jewish father and Catholic mother.  The family emigrated to England in 1938.  Andrew's acting career began in the late 1950s.  Although best known for Fawlty Towers he had a very long and successful career, playing multiple roles on Dr Who, as a narrator of BBC TV and radio documentaries, as well as appearing in the popular British soap opera, Coronation Street.  He left behind his wife of 54 years.

Our family discovered Fawlty Towers while renting videotapes while vacationing in Maine during the 1980s.  All four of us watched the entire series multiple times and the THC Son could do a pretty good imitation of Manuel.

The interplay between Manuel and Basil is one of the keys to each show, as, at some point, Basil, always full of suppressed rage, has his volcanic temper erupt, usually with Manuel as the victim.

About 4 Years Ago . . . No, It Was Yesterday

A THC favorite, Steven Wright, who like many comics in the 1980s got his start in the Boston clubs.  He often takes a very convoluted route to his punch lines.

"The ice cream truck in my neighborhood plays Helter Skelter".