November 25, 2019 – davidbruceblog #2

Originals

• Mel Brooks is the co-creator of the TV series Get Smart. One of his contributions to the series was the shoe phone worn by Control spy Maxwell Smart. The idea came to Mr. Brooks when every phone in his office started ringing, and as a joke he took off his shoe and started talking into it.

Plagiarism

• The 1957 B-movie Zero Hourprovided inspiration for the disaster movie spoof Airplane!, which was created by Jerry and David Zucker and Jim Abrahams, aka ZAZ. The movie featured a traumatized veteran being forced to land an airplane after the pilots and crew and passengers are made ill by food poisoning. In fact, many of the plot elements and even dialogue for Airplane!are taken directly from Zero Hour. For example, the line “We have to find somebody who cannot only fly this plane but who also didn’t have fish for dinner” appears in both films. Paramount ended up buying the rights to Zero Hourso that it would not be accused of plagiarizing the film in Airplane!

• Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner used to do a comedy routine in which Mr. Reiner interviewed Mr. Brooks, who played a 2,000-year-old man. However, they performed the routine only at private parties, not in public. Other comedians were impressed by the act. George Burns asked if the routine had been recorded on a comedy album yet. It hadn’t, so Mr. Burns told them, “If you don’t put it on an album, I’ll steal it. I’m serious.” They did, and it became famous.

• Many comedians plagiarize, especially early in their careers. Early in his career, Jackie Mason introduced a comedian named Phil Foster. As he did so, he used much of Mr. Foster’s own material. When Mr. Mason finished the introduction, Mr. Foster walked out on stage, said, “How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? You just heard my act, so good night.” He then walked off the stage and left the building.

• Ollie Joe Prator, a comedian from Michigan, stole other comedians’ acts and did not even hide the fact that he was stealing their acts. He would go on the road, do another comedian’s act, and tell the comedian later, “Man, you killed in Cleveland!”

Politics

• Zero Mostel took the Fifth Amendment when questioned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, perhaps in part because saying that he was not a Communist would have opened him up to prying questions about friends of his who may have been Communists. Certainly Mr. Mostel was a leftist when it came to politics. He survived the blacklist, partly by working as a nightclub comic at prices far lower than he had been receiving, partly by selling paintings, and partly because his wife went back to work. Late in life, he starred in The Front, a film about the blacklist that also starred Woody Allen. However, Mr. Mostel never forgave those who cooperated with the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Whenever he met an informer on the street, he called out cheerfully (but sarcastically), “Hello, Looselips!”

• As a magician, Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller fame knows that it is possible to “force” a card upon a member of the audience when doing a card trick — that is, to make audience members choose the card the magician wants them to choose, although they think they are freely choosing that card. Occasionally, after Penn explains this, a member of the audience will protest that he really did freely choose a particular card. When this happens, Penn responds, “You must have loved the last election.”

• In 1948, Harry S. Truman won the election for President of the United States. He was already living in the White House, having become President after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death. (Mr. Truman was Mr. Roosevelt’s Vice President.) Many people had expected President Truman to lose the Presidential election and to have to move out of the White House. Following President Truman’s upset victory, comedian Bob Hope sent him this short telegram: “UNPACK!”

***

THE COOLEST PEOPLE IN COMEDY

Buy the Paperback

Amazon Kindle

Smashwords

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

Day: November 25, 2019

#130 POETRY =

SPRING WILL RETURN – REPRISE

davidbrucehaiku: make bad art

Music Recommendation: Chris Kackley — “Crystal Clear”

David Bruce: The Coolest People in Comedy — Originals, Plagiarism, Politics