Tag: Comedy

The Funniest People in Comedy — Smashwords: Many Formats, Include PDF

The Funniest People in Comedy — Theater, Tobacco, Work

Theater

• Jack Benny was capable of great enthusiasm. In 1956, he attended a revue titled For Amusement Only in London, and he laughed and laughed. Unfortunately, he was the only one laughing. The actors thought a wise guy or a drunk was in the audience, and they asked the theater manager to talk to him during the intermission. After a few minutes, the manager returned and, awe-struck, said, “It’s Jack Benny. He loves the show.” In fact, Mr. Benny loved the show so much that he saw it more than once, and he made sure that VIPs such as Sam Goldwyn, Van Johnson, and Tyrone Power also saw it.

• Whoopi Goldberg can be controversial. One of her theatrical sketches features a teenage girl who gives herself an abortion. Many people were upset by this sketch and picketed the theater where she was performing, but Ms. Goldberg declined to stop performing it. Instead, she thanked the picketers for giving her lots of free publicity.

• When magicians Penn and Teller won an Obie, their theatrical show was so unusual that the presenters of the award didn’t know what to call it. Therefore, they officially gave the award to Penn and Teller for “whatever it is they do.”

Tobacco

• Comedians Paul Rodriguez and Elaine Boosler were getting ready to perform in a prison when guards came by with a prisoner in shackles. Mr. Rodriguez picked up Ms. Boosler and carried her over to the prisoner and asked, “Hey, man, how many cigarettes will you give me for her?” The prisoner replied, “No offense, but I don’t like women anymore; however, I’ll give you a carton if you’ll spend the night with me.”

• Comedian Joe Cook used to hang 26 “No Smoking” signs in 13 different languages in his dressing room—but he didn’t mind if his visitors smoked.

Work

• During the Joe McCarthy era, people were scared of Communists and of anyone who was politically to the left of boring—uh, center. Zero Mostel was called to testify before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. The blacklist had hit Hollywood, and Zero was no longer being offered work by Twentieth Century-Fox. When Zero was asked if he had ever been in Hollywood before 1942 to work in his profession, he replied, “Oh, yes, I was signed to a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox—or was it Eighteenth Century-Fox?” Another thing Zero did was to point to the Committee chair and say in a loud stage whisper, “That man is a schmuck,” but this was deleted from the official record of his testimony.

• Comedian Jay Sankey learned quickly that a stand-up comedian does five minutes when the comic is supposed to do five minutes, 20 minutes when the comic is supposed to do 20 minutes, and an hour when the comic is supposed to do an hour. In fact, comedy clubs have a red light that flashes on and off to let the comic know it’s time to wrap up the set. One night, he didn’t see the red light come on, so he was startled when the speakers boomed out with the sound man’s voice, saying, “This is the voice of God! Get off the stage!” Mr. Sankey ran off the stage—and bought a wristwatch.

• Buddy and Vilma Ebsen were a brother-and-sister dance act whose first big break came when they danced in the chorus of Eddie Cantor’s hit show Whoopie. They rehearsed on stage, but to rehearse they had to use the work lights. This expense upset some people, and in Chicago they weren’t allowed to use the work lights to rehearse. However, the star of Whoopie, Eddie Cantor, found out about it, so he had this sign posted: “If any youngsters are ambitious enough to practice every day in order to get out of the chorus, I will pay for the work lights. Eddie Cantor.”

• For a while, comedian Tim Conway worked in Cleveland television, but often he would commute to Los Angeles and get work there. Eventually, he was offered a part in the TV sitcom McHale’s Navy, starring Ernest Borgnine. He was uncertain about whether to accept the job offer, but his Cleveland boss made the decision for him, saying, “You’re fired. If you don’t go out [to Hollywood], you’re nuts. So you’re fired.” Mr. Conway went to Hollywood and became a star.

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Comedy — Telephones, Theater

Telephones

• Dick Van Dyke was a fan of Laurel and Hardy, and he was eager to visit Mr. Laurel after he (Mr. Van Dyke) had arrived in California. After a year of unsuccessfully trying to get Mr. Laurel’s telephone number, Mr. Van Dyke finally found it—in a telephone book: “Stan Laurel, Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica.” Mr. Laurel was truly a nice man: he answered fan mail, and he received visitors in his apartment—Mr. Laurel had his telephone number listed so that his fans could find him.

• Carl Reiner left the series The Dick Van Dyke Show to appear in the feature film The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. Taking over his duties as producer were Bill Persky and Sam Denoff. One day, the telephone rang and Mr. Persky answered it. A voice asked, “Is this Carl Reiner?” He answered, “No, but I’m doing the best I can.”

• Jack Benny’s comic persona was cheap. One day, Mr. Benny made a long-distance, person-to-person telephone call to his agent, Milt Josefsberg, but the telephone operator told his agent, “Person to person to Mr. Milt Josefsberg from Mr. Jack Benny, only I don’t think it’s really him because he didn’t call collect.”

Television

• According to Alan Young, one of the good guys of show business was Ted Knight, who starred as Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. (Mr. Young, of course, played Wilbur Post on the TV sitcom Mr. Ed, which featured a talking horse.) The two actors crossed paths early in Mr. Knight’s career. Mr. Ed used to be driven to the set of his series in a horse trailer that had “Hello, I’m Mr. Ed!” painted on both sides. Often, Mr. Young would be driving to work at the same time and would form a procession with the horse trailer. Of course, other motorists would recognize Mr. Ed and Mr. Young, and they would honk and wave. One day, one of these motorists was Mr. Knight, then a character actor newly arrived in Hollywood, who was driving with his kids in the car. Mr. Knight and the kids waved to Mr. Young, and Mr. Young waved back. In his autobiography, Mr. Ed and Me, Mr. Young writes about later meeting Mr. Knight, “Ted said he felt that the reassuring sight of their TV friends, Wilbur and Ed, driving merrily along made them feel at home and welcome in their surroundings.”

• The lagoon filmed in the TV series Gilligan’s Island was artificial—and after a while the water got funky. One day, the crew of Gilligan’s Island released a live trout in the water—five minutes later, it floated to the surface, dead. Seeing that, Bob Denver, who played Gilligan, said, “If the trout can’t live in that water, I’m not going in it.” The studio executives didn’t want to pay the money to drain and refill the lagoon, so Mr. Denver offered to go in the lagoon if one of the studio executives went in first. The lagoon was drained and refilled.

• Early in his career, Buck Henry, the co-creator (with Mel Brooks) of the TV series Get Smart, appeared on television talk shows as G. Clifford Prout, who argued with a straight face that naked animals were an affront to decency and that we must either start clothing our animals or face moral decay.

• Bill Cosby stood up for the integrity of his sitcom Cosby. His TV son, Theo, had an anti-apartheid sticker on his bedroom door. NBC wanted to remove it, but Mr. Cosby threatened to quit. NBC backed down.

Theater

• The comedy team John Sigvard (Ole) Olsen and Harold Ogden (Chic) Johnson were famous in the 1930s and 1940s for their no-holds-barred comedy performances. At the beginning of each performance of Olsen and Johnson’s stage show Hellzapoppin’, a man walked through the audience carrying a small plant and yelling, “Mr. Jones!” Periodically throughout the performance the man would appear walking in the aisles and yelling for Mr. Jones, and each time the man appeared, the plant he was holding was bigger. At the end of the show, when the audience walked through the lobby, they saw the man sitting on a branch of a big tree in the lobby, still yelling, “Mr. Jones!”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Comedy — Revenge, Signs, Straight Men, Telegrams

Revenge

• When Joan Rivers broke up with an early boyfriend who was working on a Ph.D., she invented an interesting way of getting revenge. She scattered the pages of his doctoral dissertation all over the floor—the pages were unnumbered.

Signs

• Jimmy Durante opened a nightclub with a few friends as investors. Because they were low on funds, they bargained for a low price from a signmaker. The bargaining worked. Instead of paying $350 for the sign, they paid only $250. Unfortunately, when the sign was delivered, it read: “CLUB DURANT.” Mr. Durante protested to the signmaker, but the signmaker said adding the extra E would cost $100, so the club opened with a misspelled name.

• Comedian Bob Newhart put up a sign saying “Armed Dog” at his Bel-Air house. Many people look at the sign and don’t even realize it’s funny because they are so used to seeing signs that say “Attack Dog” and “Armed Guard on Duty.”

Straight Men

• Fred Allen, a funny man, played straight man early in his career. One show, he got off a funny ad-lib that the audience enjoyed very much, but which the comedian he worked with did not. The comedian was furious, and he talked to Mr. Allen in the dressing room after the show. While still carrying a toilet plunger for a cane and wearing a light bulb for a nose, slap shoes on his feet, and a mangy fur coat with big patches on it around his shoulders, the comedian told Mr. Allen, “I’ll be goddamned if I play straight for anybody.”

• Believe it or not, Oliver Hardy regarded himself as a straight man for Stan Laurel. In addition to his modesty, Mr. Hardy was unselfish when it came to comedy. Once, a gag had been given to his character, but he pointed out that the gag fitted Mr. Laurel’s character better, and so the laugh was given to Mr. Laurel.

Telegrams

• Henny Youngman was having lunch with Jerry Lewis one day when Mr. Lewis, a very hot comedy star, was mobbed by fans asking for his autograph. Because Mr. Lewis was so busy signing autographs, he was unable to pay attention to Mr. Youngman. Therefore, Mr. Youngman was able to leave the table, go to the lobby of the hotel and order that a telegram be sent to Mr. Lewis, then return back to the table—all without Mr. Lewis noticing that he had been gone. When the telegram arrived, Mr. Lewis read: “Dear Jerry. Please pass the salt. Henny.”

• Natalie Schafer, the actress who played Mrs. Thurston Howell in Gilligan’s Island, did the pilot episode primarily to get a free trip to Hawaii, never dreaming that a TV network would actually pick up the series. One day, she received a telegram and starting crying. Because Ms. Schafer’s mother had been ill, her friends crowded around and offered sympathy. Ms. Schafer had to explain that her mother had not died: “No, no, no—the series sold!”

• Charles Lindbergh became an international hero as the result of a solo flight across the Atlantic. A few days after Mr. Lindbergh had triumphantly landed in LeBourget in France and made headlines throughout the United States and Europe, humorist Robert Benchley sent a telegram to Charles Brackett in Paris: “Lindbergh left here week ago. Am worried.” Mr. Brackett cabled back: “Do you mean George Lindbergh?”

• A cigarette company once wanted to advertise on a radio series that would star humorist Robert Benchley. They wired him: “What do you smoke?” Mr. Benchley didn’t want to do the radio series, so he wired back: “Marijuana.”

• In 1948, many people thought that Thomas Dewey would easily defeat Harry S. Truman in the Presidential election. After the election was over, and Mr. Truman had won, Bob Hope sent this telegram to Mr. Dewey: “Unpack.”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Comedy — Problem-Solving, Rehearsals, Revenge

Problem-Solving

• Gracie Allen could make a stand when a stand was necessary. A dry cleaner ruined a dress that she had taken to him, but he refused to pay for the dress. That evening, in the middle of the vaudeville act she performed with her husband, George Burns, she told the audience about the dry-cleaning incident and recommended that they not patronize that particular establishment, then she went on with the act. The next day, the dry cleaner paid her the money for the dress he had ruined.

• Impressionist/comedian George Kirby wanted a job with Count Basie. Therefore, Mr. Kirby went to a concert by Count Basie and his orchestra. Count Basie used to sit at a piano, plink a note and have his drummer enter, plink another note and have another band member enter, and so on until the entire band was on stage. Mr. Kirby, without authorization, walked on stage, and impersonated Count Basie to the audience’s delight. Count Basie also enjoyed the joke, and he hired Mr. Kirby.

• Jackie Gleason was known for drinking heavily. A friend locked up his liquor cabinet to keep Mr. Gleason from getting loaded, but when he came home, he discovered that Mr. Gleason was drunk. Remarkably, even though the liquor cabinet was still locked, the booze containers were empty. (Mr. Gleason had used a screwdriver to remove the back of the liquor cabinet. After drinking the liquor, he screwed the back of the cabinet on again.)

• Rags Ragland played big, dumb guys in forties movies. While he was working in burlesque, a young comic kept trying too hard to get laughs and steal the scene from him, so Mr. Ragland warned the comic to stop stepping on his lines or he would nail him to the floor. The young comic ignored him, so Mr. Ragland got a hammer and nails and nailed the soles of the comic’s shoes to the floor, then left him on stage as the other acts performed.

• British comedian Benny Hill suffered from stage fright, so when he had to appear live, he often carried a heavy book to keep his hands from shaking.

Rehearsals

• Jimmy Durante and Carol Channing rehearsed and rehearsed a comedy scene for his show. Finally, a bystander interrupted them and said, “What are you still rehearsing for? Both of you know the scene. I think maybe you’re just a little nervous.” Mr. Durante simply smiled at Ms. Channing and said, “Ah, the confidence of the amateur.”

• Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle spent decades making people laugh. After Mr. Berle had guested on Mr. Gleason’s TV show, Mr. Gleason said, “We did good, Milton,” and Mr. Berle replied, “We did good, Jackie.” Then Mr. Gleason said, “How could we be bad? I’ve been rehearsing for 35 years—and you 50.”

Revenge

• Once an older comic asked comedian Henny Youngman to give him some jokes, saying he would pay him for the jokes later that evening. Mr. Youngman agreed, gave him the jokes, and showed up for their rendezvous later that day. The older comic drove up in his fancy car, but ignored Mr. Youngman, leaving him unpaid on the pavement while the older comic went inside a fancy restaurant to dine with his friends. However, Mr. Youngman was able to get revenge. He saw some sign painters working nearby, so he told them that he was almost broke and had decided to sell his car. He then hired them to paint “For Sale—$25” on the older comic’s fancy car.

• Some sexist comedians make jokes about forcing their girlfriends to sleep on the “wet spot” following sex. Canadian comedian Meg Soper responds by saying that if her boyfriend ever tries to make her sleep on the wet spot, she is going to give him no further opportunities to make wet spots.

• It wasn’t smart to mess with silent film comedian Mabel Normand. She once got into a major argument with movie executive Abraham Lehr, so she backed him into a corner, sprayed him with her perfume, then told his wife that she had seen him leaving a high-class, very expensive cathouse.

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Comedy — Prejudice, Problem-Solving

Prejudice

• As a Jewish comedian, Groucho Marx endured anti-Semitism—and mocked it. One summer, he tried to join a beach club so that his son could enjoy the water. However, the manager of the club told him, “We don’t allow Jews to swim at our beach.” Groucho replied, “What about my son? He’s only half-Jewish. Would it be all right if he went into the water up to his knees?”

• When comedian Bob Smith’s grandmother found out that a family she was friends with would be kept out of her country club because they were Jewish, she protested by inviting every Jewish friend she had to a luncheon at the country club. Eventually, through the efforts of Mr. Smith’s grandfather, the Jewish friends became members of the country club.

• In Ocean City, Maryland, stand-up comedian Steve Mittleman walked out on stage to do his act. A man in the audience yelled, “You look Jewish.” Mr. Mittleman replied, “You look prejudiced.”

Problem-Solving

• As a teenager, Jay Leno got a job at a Ford saleslot doing odds and ends. Among his jobs was taking the hubcaps off the cars at night so they wouldn’t be stolen and putting them back on the next day. One day, as he was carrying the hubcaps, he met the new sales manager, a man who made him so nervous that he dropped the hubcaps. This made the new sales manager furious. He yelled at Jay, “This is the Ford Motor Company. You can’t treat our property this way! You’re fired! Get out!” Jay was ashamed to lose his job, so after thinking for a couple of days, he wrote the top guy—Henry Ford II in Detroit—asking for his job back. Soon, Jay’s old boss called him and said, “I don’t know who the hell you know in Detroit, but if you want your old job back, come on back here.”

• Jackie Gleason’s big spending habits in his adult life may have something to do with his extreme poverty while growing up in New York City. His father left him and his mother, and the two had a rough time trying to survive. In 1952, after Mr. Gleason had become successful in show business, a friend walked into Jackie’s bedroom and saw him packing a steamer trunk with clothes that had been wrapped around stacks of dollar bills in different denominations. When the friend asked him what he was doing, Jackie said, “I have been poor before in my life. Right now, I’m rich. So I’m packing a cash nest egg in this trunk, and I’m sending it to a warehouse with a ‘will call’ on it in case I ever need it.”

• Lesbian humorist Ellen Orleans ran into a problem when she acquired her Honda Accord. She is short, and she had trouble reaching the pedals—even after she had moved the seat as far forward as it would go. Therefore, she took the car to her mechanic to see how much it would cost to extend the floor tracks of the seat so she could move it further forward. How much? Too much! Fortunately, her car mechanic is highly intelligent, and he solved the problem in an original manner. He simply bolted a hockey puck to each of the pedals—gas, brake, and clutch. Now Ms. Orleans can comfortably and safely reach the pedals.

• In 1977, Brett Butler was reading water meters in Alabama. To escape the monotony of that boring job, she enlisted in the Bulldozer Repair Division of the United States Army. However, on the very first day of duty, she changed her mind and informed her recruiting officer that she wanted out of the Army. He declined, saying, “We own your sorry *ss.” The recruiting officer’s attitude made Ms. Butler perform with grace under fire. “Look,” she said, “if I have to fly a hammer-and-sickle flag, stick a needle in my arm, and start eating p—sy, I will!” She was discharged—and quickly.

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Comedy — Practical Jokes

Practical Jokes

• Tim Conway used to hang out with some friends in a projection room at a television station in Cleveland, Ohio. At night, the telephone switchboard was closed, so the calls were routed into the projection room. Mr. Conway sometimes pretended to be an answering machine. He would answer the phone and say, “When you hear the tone, leave your name, number, and message.” But then he would beep before the caller had finished talking and say, “No, you didn’t say it fast enough. You have to get your message in between the tones. Now try it again.” Again, he would beep before the caller had finished talking. Callers would try to talk faster and faster until they finally realized that they were the victims of a practical joke.

• Mark Twain was at the races outside London, where he met a friend who had lost all his pocket money gambling and who asked if Mr. Twain would buy him a ticket back to London. “I’m nearly broke myself, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Mr. Twain replied. “You can ride under my seat, and I’ll hide you with my legs.” The friend agreed, but unknown to the friend, Mr. Twain bought two train tickets. When the train inspector came by to collect the tickets, Mr. Twain handed him the two tickets, then said, “My friend is a little eccentric and likes to ride under the seat.”

• As a teenager growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana, David Letterman worked in a grocery store. One day, he was ordered to stack up cans in a display. He did stack the cans—all the way to the ceiling, using an arrangement in which if a customer removed one can, the entire stack of cans would fall down. On another occasion, he got on the intercom and announced a fire drill. The customers left the store, and not all the customers laughed when they discovered that the fire drill was a hoax.

• When Sheldon Leonard co-starred with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, a dialogue coach made his life miserable, insisting that he was performing the dialogue incorrectly no matter how he said it. After some time, when Mr. Leonard was ready to kill the dialogue coach, Mr. Costello revealed that it was a practical joke—the dialogue coach was just an actor he and his partner had hired to plague him.

• Humorist Robert Benchley invited Frank Case, the manager of the Algonquin Hotel, to dinner, and when Mr. Case arrived, he discovered that almost everything in Mr. Benchley’s home had come from the Algonquin Hotel—the towels, the soap, the tableware, the napkins, everything bore the insignia of the Algonquin Hotel. (Mr. Benchley had secretly arranged with Mr. Case’s staff to borrow a bunch of Algonquin stuff for the dinner.)

• When famous movie stars Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford were walking together in Hollywood, they would occasionally be recognized and crowds of fans would follow them. Because the movies back then were silent, none of these fans had ever heard them speak. To amuse themselves and astonish the fans, Mr. Chaplin and Ms. Pickford sometimes spoke to each other using high, squeaky voices.

• Practical joker Hugh Troy used to give dinner parties at which he served oysters on the half shell. Frequently, one of the guests found a pearl and Mr. Troy congratulated the guest. Unfortunately, when the guest visited the jewelry store the next day to get the pearl appraised, the guest would discover that the “pearl” had been purchased at a five- and ten-cent store.

• David Brenner is funny in real life. Once, he was riding on a crowded subway. The only available seat was stained, so he put his newspaper on the seat, then sat down. A man asked, “Are you reading that newspaper?” Mr. Brenner replied, “Yes,” then stood up, turned the page, and sat down on the newspaper again.

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Comedy — Police, Politics, Practical Jokes

Police

• Ellen DeGeneres says that being pulled over by the police makes her nervous, so she tries to lessen the tension by making jokes. One day, she was pulled over for speeding. When the police officer asked if she knew why she had been pulled over, she replied, “Because of the dead bodies in the trunk?” (The police officer was not amused.)

• Comedy writer Barney Dean was taking a walk in Beverly Hills—a place where people almost never walk, preferring instead to have their chauffeur drive them wherever they want to go. Suspicious, a motorcycle police officer stopped him, and Mr. Dean asked, “How fast was I going, officer?”

Politics

• Harpo Marx had a servant who did many kinds of work for him, including serving as his chauffeur. This man did not wear a uniform, and he wandered freely around the grounds, pausing to watch Harpo’s guests play croquet or tennis. One day, one of Harpo’s guests was Herbert Bayard Swope, who as a politician prided himself on being able to remember names and faces. Mr. Swope looked at Harpo’s servant, knew that he had seen him somewhere before, but could not remember his name or where he had seen him. After a long struggle with his memory, Mr. Swope finally gave up, went over to the man, and said, “Good afternoon. I’m Herbert Bayard Swope.” The reply came back, “Pleased to meet you. I’m Benny Murphy, Harpo’s chauffeur.”

• Comedian Joy Behar once announced on her radio show that next time she would read “a list of 10 reasons why Rush Limbaugh couldn’t get laid.” Her bosses advised her not to read the list on her radio show, so it became a First Amendment issue. She didn’t read the list on the air, but she explained that she was being censored, thus creating more controversy than if she had read the list. Of course, the next time she performed at a club, fans called for the list, and she read it to them. What about her radio show? Ratings went up, but she was fired anyway.

• Comedian Kate Clinton lives in Provincetown, Rhode Island. In 1992, her next-door neighbor, Peter, asked if she had heard the terrible fight the night before. She hadn’t, so Peter told her how bad the fight had been, with people yelling “f—ing liar and f—ing this and that” at each other. Suddenly, Ms. Clinton realized what had happened, and she said, “Oh, Peter! We were watching the Republican convention, screaming at George Bush in his speech. We had the windows open. Sorry.” Peter replied, “I agree, dahlin’.”

Practical Jokes

• Impressionist Rich Little played a practical joke on Bette Davis. At the urging of a friend, he called her up, imitated the voice of her friend Jimmy Stewart, and succeeded in fooling her for a while, until she asked a question that Mr. Little did not know the answer to, but Mr. Stewart would have. Ms. Davis did not take the joke well. She demanded to speak to the person who had put Mr. Little up to the joke, and she told that person, “I’ll never have anything to do with you or Rich Little again!” Later that evening, Mr. Little saw both Jimmy Stewart and President Ronald Reagan, and he told them the story of the practical joke. President Reagan knew Ms. Davis, and he offered to call her to patch things up. He called her, said, “Hello, Bette. This is Ronald Reagan,” then a moment later, he hung up the telephone. Asked what had happened, President Reagan related, “She said, ‘F—k you, Rich Little!’ and hung up.”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Comedy — Mothers, Music, Names, people with Handicaps, Police

Mothers

• When Nancy Cartwright, the voice of TV’s Bart Simpson, was pregnant with her first child, she kept telling her midsection, “Please don’t be Bart! Please don’t be Bart!”

Music

• Country comedian Jerry Clower sometimes toured with country singer Mel Tillis, and they had a wonderful relationship. Mr. Clower would come out first to start the show, then Mr. Tillis would come out with his act. Always, Mr. Tillis would say before the last song of the night, “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get the nation’s number-one country comic back out here on stage and let you applaud him again.” Then Mr. Tillis would invite Mr. Clower to stay on stage and sing the last song with the band.

• The comedy team of Laurel and Hardy was greatly loved throughout the world. In 1953, after Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had stopped making movies, they went on tour in the British Isles. When their boat came to Cobh, Ireland, the pier was lined with hundreds of Laurel and Hardy fans. As the boat docked, all the church bells in the city started ringing out Laurel and Hardy’s movie theme song. Both Laurel and Hardy cried.

• Entertaining in the days of radio could be interesting. English comic singer Anna Russell had an Aunt Bena who invited her neighbors over to listen to opera on the radio. All of her guests dressed up in formal evening clothes, and they sat in chairs arranged in rows just like they were at the opera. During intermission, they drank champagne.

Names

• In Beverly Hills, Terry-Thomas was walking (something not often done in Beverly Hills) and noticed that each street was lined with a different variety of tree. Wondering about the name of an unfamiliar species, he stopped and asked a Mexican gardener, “I wonder if you could tell me what this is?” The gardener stopped working, stared at Terry-Thomas, then answered scornfully, “It’s a tree.”

• Robert Benchley invited writer J. Bryan III, who was from Virginia, to dinner, saying that he had invited a female companion for him. At the dinner, he introduced Mr. Bryan to a Chinese woman. “This is Miss Ching Lee,” Mr. Benchley said. “I invited her for you because you’re from Virginia, and everybody from Virginia is related to the Lees.”

People with Handicaps

• When comedian Geri Jewell, whose muscle control is affected by her cerebral palsy, tried to get into a college psychology class with a door that was locked because the class was already filled with students, she first knocked on the door and then accidentally fell down some stairs. The students inside the classroom had been watching, and one informed the professor, “There’s some drunk girl out there who just fell down the stairs.” After a quick trip to the nurse’s office, Ms. Jewell again approached the psychology professor. He opened the door, looked her over, then said, “If you kids are going to take every drug on earth, why bother to come to school at all?” (After he understood the real situation, the professor became one of Ms. Jewell’s friends.)

• Jonathan Winters is a very funny comedian who has suffered from mental illness. Once, he parked in a handicapped parking space, and a woman protested, “You’re not handicapped.” Mr. Winters looked at her and said, “Lady, can you see into my mind?”

Police

• Shortly before he had to go on stage, Groucho Marx took his new car out for a spin. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that the traffic at that time of day would be so heavy, and he found it difficult to make it back to the theater on time for his cue. In desperation, he made an illegal turn and was stopped by a policeman. Groucho attempted to explain the situation, but the policeman didn’t believe him and said, “If you’re one of the Marx Brothers, let’s hear you say something funny.” Groucho snapped back, “If you’re a policeman, let’s see you arrest somebody.” The policeman laughed, then gave Groucho an escort to the theater.

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Comedy — Money, Mothers,

Money

• Comedian Bill Dana grew up in poverty. Often, he, his siblings, and his parents were forced to hide from bill collectors. While the family sat in a room with drawn curtains and a locked door, the bill collector would bang on the door and shout, “I know you’re in there.” Someone in the family would always softly say, “We know we’re in here, too.”

• Perhaps the wealthiest Monty Python member is hard-working John Cleese. A British newspaper once called several celebrities to see what they would do if they won £1 million in a competition. Among the celebrities they called was Python member Graham Chapman, who said, “I would give it to John Cleese so he could take the afternoon off.”

• Back when magicians Penn Jillette and Teller (this single name is now his legal name) were performing on the streets, Penn very effectively convinced members of the audience to give generously after a show by telling them, “Remember: I’m six-six, I have three very sharp knives, and I have an excellent memory.”

• As a young comedian, Lily Tomlin created a sensation at the Improv by arriving in a chauffeur-driven limousine. Actually, she didn’t have much money. The chauffeur had been parked in the theater district, waiting until a play was over. Lily paid him $5 to take her to the Improv.

• Fanny Brice was a huge star who made thousands of dollars a week. George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart told her that they would write a play for her if she would agree to be paid $1,000 a week. She declined, saying, “If I take $1,000 a week, everybody in America will be writing plays for me.”

• Wilson Mizner came from a good family who supplied many diplomats to America, but he hung around with lowlifes. One day, a friend who was a burglar asked him for a loan of $50. Mr. Mizner gave it to him, but asked, “What’s the matter—doesn’t it get dark anymore?”

• In the 1960s TV series Get Smart, enemy agents continually tried to assassinate Control agent Maxwell Smart. The constant bombings, shootings, and knife attacks on Max perplexed Max’s landlord—until Max told him that he worked for the Internal Revenue Service.

• Ben Turpin was a silent-film comedian who was amazed at his own success, including financial success; he often walked into public places and introduced himself by saying, “Ben Turpin! Three thousand dollars a week!”

• Some charity benefits don’t make money. Comedian Eddie Cantor once showed a committee how to save $500—by not holding the benefit at all!

Mothers

• Jewish comedian Sam Levenson grew up in a very poor household. Gas was expensive and definitely not to be wasted. Therefore, before leaving the house en masse for any length of time, the family always turned the gas off. One day, they forgot. After the family returned home from a visit, Mr. Levenson’s Mama noticed that the boiler was steaming. Immediately, she barked two orders: “Somebody shut off the gas!” and “Everybody into the bathtub!”

• In the late 1880s, a young woman had her fortune told by a gypsy, who said to her, “You will marry and have a son known all over the world.” The young woman did marry, and one of her sons was Larry Fine, who became a member of the world-famous comedy team known as the Three Stooges. Whenever Larry’s mother went to see a Three Stooges short comedy film at the cinema, she would shout, “That’s my son!”

• Country comedian Jerry Clower grew up in an impoverished family in rural Mississippi. When he was a youngster, his mother used to fix fried chicken, then tell her children to save the chicken back and neck and feet for her, as they were her favorite parts. When he grew up, of course, Mr. Clower realized that his mother loved her children and she wanted them to eat the best parts of the chicken.

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The Funniest People in Comedy — Buy