Monday, April 16, 2012
Centennial Tributes: Catherine Scorsese
around the world, there would be no need for social workers."
— Nicholas Pileggi on Catherine Scorsese at a family-style dinner serving her recipes
held in her honor following her death at 84 in 1997.
By Edward Copeland
Pileggi, the author of the nonfiction books Wiseguy and Casino, and co-writer of their film versions, Goodfellas and Casino, with Martin Scorsese was speaking of the director's late mother, who engendered that feeling in many in Martin Scorsese's extended film family. At the same time, her frequent appearances in her son's films (and other directors' movies as well) made Catherine Scorsese one of the most
recognizable filmmaker's mothers who didn't work in show business to make a living. When Mrs. Scorsese did hold a job, she worked as a seamstress in New York's Garment District where she met Marty's father, Charles Scorsese, who toiled there as a clothes presser and also frequently appeared in their son's films as well until his death in 1993. Catherine Cappa, born 100 years ago today in New York to parents who emigrated from Sicily, also was a helluva cook, a gift passed down through generations of her family and Charles'. In fact, Catherine's culinary talents inspired the memorial dinner party that Suzanne Hamlin wrote about in The New York Times in February 1997. Catherine had gathered some of the best of the Scorsese and Cappa family recipes and published them in Italianamerican: The Scorsese Family Cookbook, which reached store shelves in December 1996. Unfortunately, her bout with Alzheimer's had advanced too far to allow her to promote the cookbook and she passed away the following month. I love Italian food and imagine consuming one of her dinners would have been one of the highlights of my life. However, her family recipes' reputation ring up resounding endorsements, but I imagine that her greatest creation of all goes by the name of Martin Charles Scorsese and her role in delivering that gift to the world prompted me to write this tribute to her today. In the 1990 American Masters episode "Martin Scorsese Directs," Charles and Catherine discussed what their son's early life was like growing up in New York's Little Italy. The sound in this clip is missing at the beginning, but then it kicks in.
Martin Scorsese started putting his mother into small roles in his films from the beginning (Charles didn't show up on camera until Scorsese's 1974 short documentary on them, Italianamerican) for financial reasons: He couldn't afford to pay actors. Catherine's personality not only proved made for the camera but she also displayed a charming gift for improvising dialogue. She appeared in her son's very first short, a 1964 comedy called It's Not You, Murray, which co-starred Mardik Martin who co-wrote the short with Scorsese and would go to co-write the screenplays for Mean Streets, New York, New York and Raging Bull. The comedy short about an accidental crook also featured future SCTV star Andrea Martin (no relation to Mardik). Catherine turned up again in Who's That Knocking at My Door? and Mean Streets, both of which starred Harvey Keitel who attended that memorial dinner and said of Mrs. Scorsese, "In my memory, Catherine was the epitome of a warm, loving Italian mother. She enjoyed watching me eat as much as I enjoyed eating her cooking." Then, as his feature filmmaking career had started to really take off, Martin took some time to make that 45-minute short documentary Italianamerican where the real Catherine Scorsese shines in all her glory. This segment details his parents' recent visit to Italy.
The end credits for Italianamerican actually ran the family recipe for spaghetti sauce and meatballs. The next time that Catherine contributed to one of her son's films, she only put in a vocal appearance as Rupert Pupkin's hector mother constantly yelling at him from upstairs in the great The King of Comedy with longtime fan of her homemade pizza, Robert De Niro.
Catherine Scorsese's next two film roles actually occurred in films that weren't directed by her son. First, in 1986 she played a birthday party guest in Brian De Palma's alleged comedy starring Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo. The next year, she waited to be served as a customer at the bakery in Norman Jewison's Moonstruck. Later, she would play a woman in a cafe in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III. She also appeared in a 1994 movie called Men Lie that played a lot of film festivals, but I'm not sure if it ever received a theatrical release. Watch this promo and try to count how many actors in it eventually showed up on The Sopranos.
Catherine's next appearance in one of her son's film remains her longest and most memorable role as the lovable mother of Joe Pesci's psychotic mobster Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas. Pesci also attended the memorial dinner party for Katherine and told The Times, "Katie was one of the sweetest ladies I ever met. She was a true innocent. She never did anything bad; she never knew anything bad. In terms of her cooking, it's a toss-up as to who's a better cook, Katie or my mother." The hysterical scene where Tommy, Jimmy Conway (De Niro) and Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) drop by her house in the middle of the night looking for tools to dispose of a body in the trunk of Henry's car and she wakes up and insists on feeding them remains a classic scene in a film that's wall-to-wall classics. Of course, embedding Goodfellas clips from YouTube strictly won't be allowed, so you'll just have to click on that word "scene" to watch it again. However, we do have a clip from an AFI special where Jim Jarmusch interviews Martin Scorsese about his mother's role in the scene.
The next movie her son made, the role wasn't as plum as Tommy's mother — she merely shopped at a fruit stand in his Cape Fear remake. To promote the film, Marty appeared as a guest on Late Night with David Letterman in November 1991, and even took Catherine along to make some of that homemade pizza that De Niro loves so much for Marty, Dave and another guest we all know and love.
I so dearly wish I could have found a screenshot or YouTube clip of her appearance in 1993's The Age of Innocence because it's such a touching gift to his parents. Charles Scorsese died on Aug. 22, 1993 and The Age of Innocence would end up being his last appearance in one of his son's movies. The movie itself didn't get released until Oct. 1, but the image Scorsese filmed of his parents, showing them moving slowly toward the camera in a snowy, white haze couldn't have been a lovelier image. His mother managed to appear in a character role in a scene in Casino, his next movie, and that would be her last appearance.
What a gift Catherine Cappa Scorsese and Charles Scorsese gave the world. It's the American story. They were first-generation Italian Americans, struggling to raise two sons in New York while eking out livings in the Garment District. Keeping careful watch on the one boy, an asthmatic child who couldn't go play sports as the other children could but discovered a grand universe in the movies his father took him to at a young age. Charles Scorsese's centennial doesn't occur until next year, but honestly this tribute belongs to both of them (Catherine couldn't have created Marty by herself or we would have an entirely different story on our hands). If you haven't seen it, try to watch Italianamerican. I'm not the biggest believer in otherworldly things, but I'm grateful for fate, higher powers or whatever joined Charles and Catherine together to give us the unbelievably wonderful gift of their son.
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Labels: Books, Coppola, De Niro, De Palma, DeVito, Documentary, Jewison, Keitel, Letterman, Liotta, Murray, Pesci, Scorsese, The Sopranos
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Monday, April 02, 2012
The Larry Sanders Show Season 3 Ep. 10: Like No Business I Know
By Edward Copeland
Forgive my tardiness. So many projects and real-life issues injected themselves in the way that now, nearly a year later, I'm finally getting around to recapping the second half of the third season of The Larry Sanders Show. I've set a deadline for myself, so I WILL finish this and the remaining three seasons before August. It's been such a long time since I recapped a Larry Sanders season, I can't remember if I made this point before: How can anyone who watched this show then go on and on about the pale imitation that's called 30 Rock? Since it has been a long time, you can read Part I of Season 3 by clicking here. Also, I'm shaking things up a bit. Instead of trying to cover an entire season in one post, I may cover a single episode or just a few episodes, as I'm doing with this first one back, the memorable "Like No Business I Know" that plays off the then-recent incident of comedian Bobcat Goldthwait setting the guest chair on fire on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno at the same time that Hank's wife Margaret pushes him to look toward greener pastures when Regis Philbin tries to steal him to be his sidekick on a late night talk show that Philbin has been offered. It's yet another great third season showcase for Jeffrey Tambor with a lot of classic Artie moments for Rip Torn to bite into as well. That way, for the particularly great episodes — which we see with increasing frequency as the show goes on (something rare for most series) — I can go into more detail instead of the paragraph or two summaries I had to make do with in the recaps of Season 1 and Season 2 but which I'd moved away from in the first half of Season 3. It won't take me any longer (as when I do a detailed Boardwalk Empire or Treme recap or what I could have done with Luck recaps if the behind-the-scenes situation wasn't such a chaotic mess that I lacked the necessary support to do them the way I like) and probably will encourage me to conclude them faster.
We open with the TV in Larry's office playing the May 1994 Tonight Show With Jay Leno incident when Bobcat Goldthwait (once Larry's choice to host the talk show that follows him, if you recall) set the guest chair on fire and Leno tries to force him to sit in it. Larry comments with a smile on how pissed off Leno seems to be. (The YouTube clip above covers most of this.) "That Bobcat has serious mental problems," Artie says. "I think he's got incredible balls," Paula adds. "He's got something," Artie replies as he stops the tape and turns to Paula and urges her not to say "balls." "Men find that off-putting," he advises. (YouTube clip ends here.) Larry posits that what happened was that Goldthwait went on Arsenio, ransacked the set and the show received lots of press and that's why Leno booked him. Paula begins as each of the trio refers to the NBC show's staff as "whores" winding up with Artie asking, "Is Bobcat here yet?"
It's that rhythm, timing and straight-faced hypocrisy that continues to make this series my favorite comedy of all time. Certainly some of the specific references might have grown dated, but because the actors develop actual characters, if you don't know the incident in question, it doesn't matter. As Rex Reed tells Larry King on the radio at the opening of Albert Brooks' Lost in America, "If it's really funny, I'll laugh." This episode was co-written by Peter Tolan, executive producer and writer or co-writer of many of the classic episodes, and Mike Martineau, writing only his second teleplay ever, the first being the episode "You're Having My Baby" from earlier in the season. The show's most frequent director, Todd Holland, handled the helming duties.
Continuing the conversation, Paula informs Artie that Goldthwait has arrived as well as the night's other guests — Michael Bolton and Regis Philbin. Artie sternly wants to make sure that Paula emphasizes to Bobcat to behave himself and she tells him the comic promised he'll be zany and wacky but the sets will remain intact. "Well, I like pranky stunts — you know that — but if I wanted to see furniture destroyed or our set ablaze, I'd go over to Jimmy Caan's place," Artie declares, prompting a quizzical look from Larry.
What would an episode of Larry Sanders be without at least one classic Hank Kingsley line delivered by the masterful Jeffrey Tambor. Hank has enlisted some of the crew to inspect the couch on the set because, according to Kingsley, last night during the middle of the Helen Hunt segment a spring "went straight up my ass." Hank finds it and asks the men to fix it for him before the night's show. "Thank you. My ass is my fortune," he tells them. Hank then goes to complain about the microphone he uses to
warm up the audience before the show starts, claiming there's a lot of treble, but no bass. Before he can go off on the sound guy, Regis Philbin wanders onto the stage to greet him. Regis asks if he can speak with Hank somewhere privately. Once the two get behind the seats, Philbin inquires as to how things have been going for Hank on the show. "Well, I'm the luckiest man in show business. Everyone says so and I have to agree," Hank responds. Regis informs Hank that he's been offered his own late-night talk show because his demographics rank better than any of these "young punks" such as Leno and Letterman and it would be a network show covering 85% of the country in three weeks. Hank congratulates him, but Philbin hasn't finished — he wants Hank to be his sidekick. Hank reluctantly declines, telling him that he's honored even when Philbin tells him that he can top whatever he makes with Larry. Hank gets nervous and tells Regis that he's running late for lunch with his better half. "Larry?" Regis assumes. Hank corrects that he meant his wife, Margaret, who gets mad, which he quickly amends to disappointed. Philbin asks him to keep thinking about his offer.
Larry and Artie take turns coming in to kiss Bobcat's ass in his dressing room. Sanders wants to know all the gritty details about The Tonight Show incident and Goldthwait shares them, including some slight burns he got on his ass. "I don't want to toot my own horn, but I was pretty proud that I could get some jokes off while all this was going on," Goldthwait admits. Larry asks if he'll want to talk about The Tonight Show incident on the show and Bobcat tells him that his lawyers have advised him that he shouldn't say anymore about it. Larry claims that he understands and doesn't get what the big deal was anyway, though he can't help but ask how pissed Leno got. "He fuckin' snapped," Goldthwait tells him. Rip Torn does his best twirling Artie, buttering the comic up one minute about how he loved his movie about the clown. "I'm just a sucker for drunk clowns" before switching emotional gears and threatening him because the fabric on the guest chairs isn't manufactured any longer, those giant letters that spell out LARRY cost more than you'd think and "Don't get near my fuckin' plants. They're my babies." Then, in a split-second, glad-handing Artie returns to exit the room with a cherry, "See you on television," leaving the comic on the couch stunned and muttering, "Jesus Christ."
Hank, of course, dances his way to his office thinking he could be king of the world and we get another great appearance by the late longtime character actor Phil Leeds (78 when this episode aired) as Hank's agent Sid Bessell. Hank sings his way to his agent and kisses him. "Hank, please, I'm your agent, not your mother," Sid protests. "You're my mother," Hank responds. "OK, I'm your mother," Sid relents. Hank asks why Sid has made an appearance and the agent tells him that Kingsley's wife Margaret called and said
that he wanted to see him. Hank pauses before unconvincingly claiming that he asked her to do that. He then fills Sid in on Regis' job offer, but Hank isn't considering taking that. He suggests to Sid that if Regis leaves his morning show maybe it could become Live With Hank and Kathie Lee. Sid tells him that wouldn't be a smart move since The Larry Sanders Show is his base. "Where did you come up with such a farkuckt idea?" Sid asks. Hank tells Sid he came up with it over lunch and Sid guesses correctly that Hank's wife was present. "The last time I had lunch with my wife we ended up redoing the living room in a pattern that I'm not allowed to sit down on," Sid tells him. Hank insists that the decision comes from him when his phone beeps and Darlene announces that Margaret is on the line. Hank tries to whisper to her, but then asks Sid for privacy. "You realize I'll have to get up," the old man complains, but Hank makes Sid go and the agent slowly treks to the office door.
Artie briefs Larry before the show with some classic Artie lines. "If he touches my plants, he dies. I will move swiftly. He will be dead," Artie tells Larry. "Good. So you gave him just the normal welcoming speech," Larry says. Artie then lets Larry know that he has Hank news to share. "What's wrong with him?" Larry asks. "Not enough oxygen to the brain as a fetus. That's my first guess," Artie replies before telling him the real story about Regis trying to steal him away because of Margaret's meddling. Larry, always content to stay out of the loop, tells Artie just to handle it. "You don't want to know how I handle it?" Artie asks the host. "No — just handle it," Larry replies as he steps into the makeup chair, having finished one of the show's almost-patented
(for TV at least at that time) tracking shots. Larry wonders aloud what happened to Margaret — he thought she was quiet and sweet. "She was," Artie agrees. "What changed?" Larry asks. "He married her," the producer answers. Artie then calls Hank into Larry's office (without Larry) and demonstrates his amazing ability to know everything that's going on with Hank, much to Hank's amazement. Kingsley keeps trying to leave, but Artie continues to order him to sit back down. Anytime you get one-on-one scenes between Torn and Tambor, the viewer knows that hilarity, often painful hilarity, awaits. I imagine writers on the show felt blessed anytime they could put these two actors in a room together alone. "If I was pussy-whipped, you'd be talking to me the way I'm talking to you
now," Artie tells Hank, setting Kingsley off. Artie doesn't relent, admitting he never liked Margaret. "She looks at you like you she has X-ray vision. Gives me the creeps," he tells Hank. Hank defends Margaret, saying she loves him very much and thinks he deserves more than he's getting and he thinks she's right. "And that thing with her eyes — that is a severe astigmatism, OK?" Hank proclaims. "I'm sorry. Don't get me wrong. She's a lovely girl — but I can't allow her to lift her skirt for every other show that comes along!" Artie shouts. Hank quits. He says he'll do that night's show because he's a pro but then he's gone. "And let me tell you another thing. You do not apply the term pussy-whipped to Hank Kingsley. He has never been nor never will be whipped by anything — let alone a pussy," Hank declares just as Beverly hands Kingsley a note from Margaret that she says is urgent. Artie grins widely. Hank crumples the note and throws it on the floor. "See that? I'm really pussy whipped," Hank says to Artie before quietly asking Beverly if Margaret called from home or the car then saying loudly, "Like I give a shit."
Of course, the funniest recurring gag of the episode turns out to be making Bobcat Goldthwait appear to be the most normal person in the Larry Sanders studio and offices. As Hank storms back to his office, Phil and Bobcat walk in and Goldthwait innocently asks Hank how it's going and how his wife is. Hank stops. "You're the one who plays a real kooky guy, right? In your act? Now, you wanna see something really kooky? Ask me about my lady again," Kingsley snarls at him and stares for a moment before walking off. Bobcat whispers to Phil, "Guy's a fuckin' wingnut." In his office, Sid gives Hank the bad news that he phoned Kathie Lee and she doesn't think their pairing would work because she hates Hank and she made reference to a 1979 auto show in Buffalo where Kingsley locked her in the trunk of a Camaro "for laughs." Hank melts down because he thought that was Cathy Lee Crosby. Hank tells Sid he already quit, so his agent suggests that he go to Regis and take the sidekick job. "Can you live with that? More importantly, can your wife live with that?" Sid asks his client.
Backstage, preparing for the show, Bobcat entertains Beverly and Darlene informing them that he may face community service such as visiting children in a burn ward to warn them about the dangers of fire. Wouldn't I be the last person you'd want to see coming down the hall if you are in a burn ward, the comic suggests when Larry drops in on the gathering, sending the female staffers scattering. Goldthwait notices that Regis also will be a guest and mentions that he really wants to do his show. Larry asks why. First, Bobcat claims it's because he's a morning person. "No. Actually I want to do the show because I have this idea. What I want to do is I'm gonna have a big meal — a big Denny's Grand Slam — eat as much as I can. Eat some pork and everything 'cause I'm a vegetarian. And then the idea is I'm gonna have some ipecac in a coffee mug — that's the stuff that induces vomiting, So the first time, you know, I hear 'Cody,' I'm just gonna take a big fuckin' swig off it and boom! I'm gonna projectile-vomit all over Kathie Lee," he explains to Larry. "Hilarious," Larry says nervously. Aside from the basic thrill it would be to see that happen, Garry Shandling actually rules this scene by his reactions which begin as polite listening then slowly turn to a horror that he tries to mask behind his smile. Shandling's wordless acting makes me laugh almost as much as Bobcat's proposed prank. Goldthwait adds that he wants to hit Regis as well so he isn't perceived as sexist and Larry suggests trying to get Gelman while he's at it. "No, I don't have that kind of range," Bobcat admits.
Sanders wanders over to the other Sid, his cue card guy, to go over the monologue and again touches base with Artie on how things seem to be going. "Michael Bolton has a slight head cold. He's going to sing anyway," Arthur informs him. You really had to endure the awfulness of Bolton's songs to get the subtlety of that joke. Imagine if American Idol had existed when Bolton tried to leap from songwriting to performer. How fast do you think his ass would have been kicked out? William Hung would have lasted longer. Larry asks about the Hank situation and Artie cryptically tells him the situation has been resolved. "He offered a solution. I accepted," Artie says. Larry inquires about anything else and Artie informs him that his fly is open. Larry thanks him as he zips up. "Don't mention it. Part of my job," Artie declares. "Looking at my crotch?" Larry responds. "I consider it a perk," Artie replies before disappearing behind the curtain. Hank comes skipping by and lets Larry know that what has transpired has nothing to do with the two of them and he will go out there and give it his all. Larry, clueless as to what's really going on, tells Hank that he knows that there was a problem but a solution was found and he couldn't be happier with the outcome. "You are cold, baby," Hank declares before heading through the curtains.
Larry finishes his segment with Regis and makes a beeline to Artie at his monitor. He tells his producer that Philbin made him really uncomfortable and he doesn't want to have him on anymore if he's going to come and try to steal Hank. Artie seems more concerned that Bobcat is up next and could be "a loose cannon." He seeks permission to "get my baby elephant palm off the set. I raised it from a mere nut." On the couch, Hank tells Regis he's been thinking about it and he's in. Regis is thrilled. Hank asks when he's signing the contract and Regis says next week as Artie appears behind them half-listening, half-arriving to secure his plant. Once Artie exits again, Hank says he's ready to start as soon as Philbin wants him. "That's great. We're going to start in fall of '97," Regis informs him as Hank gets a stricken look on his face (this was taking place in 1994). Hank asks when he's leaving the morning show and Regis answers when his contract expires — in the fall of '97. Regis wouldn't leave now — that's his base. Hank, looking sicker and sicker, inquires if Regis' wife ever gives him advice and Philbin replies, "No, never. Why?" Hank wanders off the set looking as if he's about to vomit — which he does — right in Artie's precious elephant palm.
They return from commercial and Bobcat has taken his place in the guest chair. Of course, despite what they agreed upon earlier, the first thing Larry brings up is The Tonight Show. "Well, to be honest, I'm facing a year in jail and I didn't really think you were going to bring it up," Goldthwait responds. "Well, we don't have to if you don't want to," Larry says. "No — I distinctly said I didn't want to," Bobcat declares, sounding angrier — or is it an act? Larry smiles and suggests they talk about something else then but still adds, "I was just curious why you did that thing on The Tonight Show." Goldthwait starts rolling his eyes. "Well, it worked.…That's why you have me here now," he says. Larry swears that's not true and that they are big fans of his. "Oh, that's bullBLEEP," Bobcat replies. You gotta love it. The show's language has no boundaries but since this takes place during the mock talk show part, they do censor the shit. Goldthwait starts knocking a plate off Sanders' desk. "See that's why you had me on. Here go crazy. Go nuts," he yells as he overturns Larry's desk. "Dance for us, monkey boy, dance!" he sings as he bounces around sending Larry to the edge of the set and getting Regis to his feet. Bobcat then throws Larry's chair through the set's backdrop, but when he grabs one of the plants, Artie appears like a lightning bolt and tackles the comic to the couch. "This is usually when they go to a commercial," Goldthwait declares as Artie glares down at him. "We'll be right back with Michael Bolton. Right after this break, Michael Bolton," Larry announces.
Backstage, Larry lectures Bobcat, telling him that Leno was right. He thought he would stick to the questions. Someone could have been hurt. Goldthwait apologizes, saying he thought it would be funny. "Here's the man you should be apologizing to," Artie tells Bobcat as Hank brings Sid up in a wheelchair. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you were there," Goldthwait admits to Sid. "One minute I'm standing behind the curtain eating a mint. The next thing I know I've got a cardboard mountain up my ass. You young people don't know what funny is. Eddie Cantor was funny. If I didn't have arthritis, I'd knock you right on your ass," Hank's agent declares, pointing a judgmental finger at Bobcat. Artie decides to escort Bobcat to his dressing room "in case you get the urge to push a Coke machine over on Michael Bolton." Goldthwait, still shy and regretful, admits, "I wouldn't do it if it wasn't televised." After they leave, Sid tells Larry that Hank has something to say. He tries to get words out about being a mess and about his marriage but Larry tells him everything is fine and he'll see him tomorrow night, still completely in the dark as to what has transpired. Hank asks Larry to tell Artie for him.
When Larry gets to his office, Artie awaits. "So you know Hank is staying. Does that mean something to you?" Larry asks. "I'll bet he is. He found out Regis' show doesn't go for three years. What did you do — hire him back?" Artie inquires. Larry stops for clarification and Artie
explains that Hank quit earlier that morning. Larry complains that he didn't know that. Artie reminds him that he didn't want to know about things like that, though Larry amends that to people quitting. When Artie starts to give the pussy-whipped play-by-play, Larry doesn't want to know anymore as long as Artie handled it. Regis pops his head in and comes in to tell the two what a great time he had on the show. "Hey, that Bobcat is wild. You know what I did? I asked him to come on our show in New York next week," Regis shares. "Oh good. You're gonna have fun," Larry says with a devilish grin. Philbin adds that he can't do the same kind of stuff since they are a morning show, but he's promised to be a good boy. "Well, if he promised you, I don't think you have anything to worry about, but I'd tell Kathie Lee to stay about 10 feet back," Larry suggests. As Regis leaves, Paula comes in swearing that Goldthwait promised he wouldn't do anything, but Artie tells her that they'll talk about it in the morning. Larry shuts the door. "This is going to be all over the press in the morning. How is that going to make us look?" Larry asks. Pause. Artie grins and laughs and the producer and the host shake hands over the success of a job well done. Another keeper from the third season.
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Labels: 90s, Albert Brooks, Boardwalk Empire, Caan, HBO, Larry Sanders, Letterman, Luck, Rip Torn, Shandling, Tambor, Treme, TV Recap
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Sunday, March 04, 2012
"Buddy, no sax before a fight, remember."
By Edward Copeland
Since the first episode of Police Squad! remains the only flawless one, that's the only one I felt I needed to cover in a lot of detail. When we got to its second act, the first time they used the gag, it read ACT II: YANKEES ONE. I already showed you a photo from my favorite, from the second episode. (If you got here first and missed it, click here.) The remaining jokes for the other four episodes were:
Where Act II begins in "A Substantial Gift/The Broken Promise" ends up being hysterically funny, not so much for the scene itself but because one of those reactionary watchdog groups used it, combined with the rest of that episode of Police Squad!, as one of the most violent episodes of a TV series at that time.
Taking the information that Olson gave him about the discrepancies between Sally Decker's story and Olson's ballistics tests, Drebin returns to the credit union to test possible bullet trajectories — using real guns, real bullets and real people. Leslie Nielsen's deadpan narration works great again as he weighs theories in his mind, not noticing the increasing pile of corpses around him. The National Coalition Against Television Violence cited in May 1982 Police Squad! alongside such shows as The Fall Guy, The Greatest American Hero, Strike Force, T.J. Hooker and The Dukes of Hazzard as "the most violent programs," with ABC the worst network, showing "an average of 10 violent acts an
hour." I couldn't find a report on the average times an hour a coalition member had to adjust the stick shoved up their ass for more comfortable seating or if their sense of humor ever was located. Drebin eventually gets a tip about one of Sally's old boyfriends who works at "one of those all-night wicker places." He eventually finds out about Sally's dental bills and visits her dentist, Dr. Zubatsky (Terrence Beasor), who Frank shoves against the wall, his mouth full of toothpaste so he's foaming at the mouth and Zubatsky getting Drebin to insist, "I am not an animal. I am a human being," in reference to David Lynch's The Elephant Man. If any problems exist through all the episodes of Police Squad! today, it's that the series used many very time-specific references that will be lost on many over time. When Frank and Sally have their showdown, he unmasks her multiple identities, taking off a series of wigs, before they have a shoot-out behind benches just a couple feet apart, one of many gags that would be recycled in the movies, something ZAZ freely admit in the commentaries. Once Hocken shows up to help Frank apprehend Sally (complete with other officers and a police car conveniently marked "POLICE CAR" on the hood), he asks him how he figured it out. Drebin tells his captain it was a little hunch back at the office. Hocken says he thought so and that's why he brought that little hunchback with him which, of course, leads literally to a short, hunchbacked man arriving to shake Drebin's hand.
I skipped out of order a bit because I wanted to devote a fair amount of space to the second recurring character introduced in the premiere. William Duell, the fine film, TV and theater character actor who died in December at the age of 88, should be recognizable to
just about everyone for something. The last feature he appeared in was 2003's How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. His first film was an uncredited appearance in The Hustler. His most famous film roles probably remain the congressional custodian in the 1972 screen adaptation of the musical 1776 and Sefelt, one of the patients in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. On TV, his last appearances were on Ed. On Broadway, he appeared frequently, including playing the same 1776 role when the musical premiered and replacing the original actor playing Caesar Rodney when 1776 was revived in the 1990s. I got to see Duell play Erronius in the 1996 revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum starring Nathan Lane. On Police Squad!, Duell played Johnny the shoeshine boy who everyone went to for answers to their questions — and I do mean everyone. It always would start with Frank seeking a tip, as in that first episode. "What's the word
on the street, Johnny?" Frank asks. "I don't know. I hear a lot of things. Pick a topic," Johnny replies. Some variation on that would be how every conversation with Johnny would begin, followed by the person in Johnny's shoeshine chair slipping him some cash. "You're barking up the wrong tree with this Ralph Twice. He's a decent family man and makes a good living. Wasn't his fault he got fired from the tire company, but who could predict Brazil would cut off the rubber supply? They're nationalizing the industry in two weeks so he would have gotten his job back anyway," Johnny informs Frank. Yes, this shoeshine man seemed to know what was going on everywhere and leads Drebin toward Sally. After Frank leaves, someone else would always step into Johnny's
chair. In the first episode, it was a priest wanting to know if there really is life after death. "Are you talking existential being or anthropomorphic deity?" Johnny asks. Because the episodes aired out of order, the next two should have been the heart surgeon and the fireman but instead after the heart surgeon the celebrity parade began. First to sit in Johnny's chair was Tommy LaSorda, the legendary manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers seeking advice as to whether he needed to add another pitcher. Johnny explains the rigors of a season can punish a four-man rotation and he needs a left-handed swingman to fill out his long relief spot. He slips LaSorda some names and then adds, "You wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't given up Tommy John." In the next episode, Dr. Joyce Brothers turns up wanting advice about what to tell her female patients about the Cinderella Complex. They aired the fireman after that and in the last episode, Dick Clark steps up to ask Johnny about this new form of music some of the kids talk about called ska. He also requests more of that secret formula youth cream. The Johnny scenes were the one recurring bit that always worked and it's a shame that they didn't bring Duell back for the pseudo-tipster scene they had in the first Naked Gun movie.
While the Zuckers and Abrahams served as executive producers on all six episodes, they didn't write or direct any of the other five Police Squad! installments, though according to the commentaries, they kept a presence on the set to make sure their comic style held. With that in mind, they tended to hire dramatic directors over TV comedy directors because the TV comedy directors would have their own ideas about humor that didn't necessarily jell with the ZAZ wackiness. That's why they selected directors such as Georg Stanford Brown, who helmed episodes of Hill Street Blues, Roots: The Next Generation, Family and Charlie's Angels, among others; Paul Krasny, who directed episodes of Quincy M.E., CHiPs, Mannix and Mission: Impossible; and Reza Badiyi who directed episodes of Hawaii Five-O, The Rockford Files, Mannix and Mission: Impossible, though Badiyi did start by directing comedies, specifically Get Smart and The Doris Day Show. The only director who got the chance to helm Police Squad! twice happens to be Joe Dante, who prior to his work on Police Squad! had made Piranha! and The Howling. In the second of the two episodes that Dante directed, the final episode "Dead Men Don't Laugh"/"Testimony of Evil," he even got to include one of his trademarks — cult actor Dick Miller. ZAZ had to keep a watchful eye anyway to make certain that the humor stuck close to their style. One of the trio admits on the second commentary that news of the cancellation almost came as a relief. "If we're gonna work this hard, we might as well do a feature," one of the commentary voices says he thought at the time. I can imagine. When I rewatched the first episode, I laughed nearly nonstop from beginning to end but in each of the subsequent five episodes, the laughs became more sporadic. How Police Squad! could be maintained on a weekly basis for 22 episodes a year for multiple seasons would seem to be an impossibility for that format.
Of the writers who worked on the staff of Police Squad!, one, in a way, became the fourth member of ZAZ. Prior to his work on Police Squad!, Pat Proft wrote for The Carol Burnett Show, Mel Brooks' original Robin Hood spoof, the TV show When Things Were Rotten and even the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. (See — that was intended as a spoof.) On Police Squad!, Proft received story credit for "Rendezvous at Big Gulch"/"Terror in the Neighborhood" and wrote "A Bird in the Hand"/"The Butler Did It." When ZAZ finally decided to
revive Police Squad! as The Naked Gun movie, which only David Zucker directed, Proft wrote the screenplay with ZAZ. (One person who couldn't have been more thrilled by the news of the Police Squad! movie was Leslie Nielsen, who had reverted to straight roles and was on the set of the Barbra Streisand drama Nuts when ZAZ contacted him about bringing Frank back.) On the sequels, Proft and David Zucker alone scripted the films. Proft also wrote Hot Shots! with Abrahams, who directed that film solo. Outside ZAZ-related projects, Proft co-wrote Bachelor Party, Police Academy and Real Genius. The other familiar name hired on the writing stuff was actor/comedian Robert Wuhl, who co-wrote both episodes that Dante directed and recorded his own commentary. He first met ZAZ when he was one of the many comics, including David Letterman, auditioning for Robert Hays' Ted Stryker role in Airplane!. The brothers and Abrahams later caught Wuhl's act at The Improv and invited him to write for Police Squad! "It was such a short period of time. We were only together for six episodes and we were gone," Wuhl says, explaining why he doesn't recall much in his commentary, which was recorded in 2006, 24 years after his time on the show. It did convince Wuhl that network television wasn't for him and the only other time he wrote for network TV was an episode of Sledge Hammer!, a series that definitely owes its beginnings to Police Squad! Wuhl did go on to create and star in Arli$$ for seven years on HBO. Insert your own joke about whether or not cable television is a place for Wuhl either.
Before I forget, I should note the last of the recurring characters on the show, Officer Norberg, portrayed by Peter Lupus, who played Willy Armitage on Mission: Impossible from 1966-73. The joke always has been that when they made The Naked Gun movies, they changed his race, but technically the two officers don't have to be the same character since the role O.J. played was named Nordberg, not Norberg. Of course, Mr. Olson's last name switched between Olsen and Olson, so consistency wasn't a paramount concern, at least that's what Capt. Sgt. Det. Lt. Drebin told me. Lupus' Norberg certainly came off as being as dumb as O.J.'s Nordberg, but the TV show didn't have any running gag about him being constantly injured as Nordberg would be in the films. On the commentaries, ZAZ and Weiss briefly discuss the decision to hire Simpson for the movie with one of the four voices saying that Lupus "didn't seem violent enough for the part, so we cast O.J." One of the remaining three admits not having seen O.J. since the wrap party for the third Naked Gun movie "when I sold him a set of knives." Lupus did get some fun moments in the series even though he didn't show up until the third installment, such as when they ask him to "put a tap on the phone," or when they want him to test suspected drugs to see if they are real and he gets high as a kite and grooves to The Mills Brothers' "Glow Worm." Perhaps his crowning achievement remains in the freeze frame when he comes in while everyone else has frozen in place and Norberg keeps changing his mind about what position to take.
In the first half of this post, I mentioned how the then-president of ABC blamed the failure of Police Squad! on the fact that you had to watch it. Thirty years later, I don't believe attention spans have grown longer, but with the expanded universe of television, you can find the influence of Police Squad! in the most unexpected places. Not just in an obvious show such as the already-mentioned Sledge Hammer!, which audiences still weren't ready for in 1986, or the not-so-obvious "It's Garry Shandling's Show." that debuted the same year but petered out, though it lasted four seasons. The most obvious direct descendant, at least in terms of having to watch to catch those sight gags, is The Simpsons, though the animated series has characters with more depth and dimensions than Police Squad! That close attention to detail can be found outside the comic realm though as well. The Wire wasn't tossing sight gags in the background, but some minor bit in an early episode of a season often came back later and you had to watch closely. That has applied to many of the recent cable dramas such as Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire. They demand more of their viewers and it ultimately makes the viewing experience more rewarding. You wouldn't think of Frank Drebin paving the way for Walter White but, in a way, I think he did.
I grabbed so many screenshots and wrote down so many gags, I can't possibly squeeze them all into this piece, but Police Squad! should be watched anyway. Nielsen blamed the size of television screens as another reason for the series' failure, which might be true, but one unfortunate development that happened to the ZAZ style of comedy was that it eventually lost that magic deadpan touch. Nielsen and other cast members reacted far too often to the chaos around them and it lessened the humor quotient. Nielsen's work (as well as old pros such as Robert Stack and Peter Graves) wowed in Airplane! and he maintained that in Police Squad!, but when The Naked Gun movies came about, Drebin became more about being silly and accidentally catching the crooks. I missed the Frank who could go undercover as a boxing manager in "Ring of Fear"/"A Dangerous Assignment" and have this straight-faced, fast-paced conversation with boxer Buddy Briggs (Patrick St. Esprit).
DREBIN: Buddy, I'm here to help you. Do you think you can beat the champ?
BUDDY: I can take him blindfolded.
DREBIN: What if he's not blindfolded?
BUDDY: I can still beat him.
I regret to say that improved technology actually has ruined one of the best, most subtle jokes that Police Squad! ever pulled off. Anyone
who grew up with 1970s television probably recalls what an imperfect device color TV sets were even then. Often, you'd have to fiddle with the color and tint dials to try to get rid of inexplicable fuzziness. In that second episode, which I was watching on an old color TV set (forget the brand), Frank's suit kept driving me up the wall with fuzzy blue and green lines. I went up to the set to attempt to adjust it, but then I noticed that only Frank's suit had the problem. The rest of the screen was fine. Those clever people had designed a suit coat for him made up of subtle bands of blue and green to make viewers go nuts. Unfortunately, taking screenshots of the image of the suit from a DVD doesn't do justice to that inferior technology. That episode also had some other nice ones such as when Buddy shadowboxes and knocks his shadow out. When an earlier fighter (Thomas Rosales Jr.) managed by the crooked Cooper (Floyd Levine) is told that Martin (Rudy Solari), the man fixing the fight, will give the sign when he's supposed to take a dive, Martin signals a scuba diver in the back row who falls backward followed by a splash of water. When the undercover Frank gets in a poker game with Cooper to win Buddy's contract, he comments that the game was "as crooked as Cooper's smile" and we see that one of the players holds the Official Rules card in his hand. It also has a great freeze-frame epilogue where they bring Martin in. When he realizes that no one else is moving, he unlocks his handcuffs and tries to get out of the squad room.
The other episodes did have priceless moments as well. In "The Butler Did It"/"A Bird in the Hand," there was an overabundance of sight gags. A young heiress named Terri (Lilibet Stern) celebrates her birthday but she gets kidnapped when visiting the family's Chinese Garden with her fiancé Kingsley (Ken Michelman). The ransom note is tied to a window and
thrown into a rock garden. We see the typical shot of Frank driving his car except we soon realize that he's in the back seat and someone short must be driving because Frank scratches his nose while the hand stays on the steering wheel and later the driver hands the CB over the seat to Frank. Hocken decides to check a glove compartment which is, of course, filled with gloves. The kidnapper, the butler Thames (Byron Webster), holds a gun to Terri's head so Drebin tells him that "two can play at that game" and grabs a bystander and puts his gun to her hand, one of many gags that ZAZ freely admit to recycling later. Hocken asks Frank to cover him so he can sneak behind the butler so, yes, he throws a blanket over him. The final one before the epilogue is after the butler gets apprehended and Hocken announces that "the black and white is here." I'll let that photo speak for itself. This episode aired out of order. In each epilogue, they list all the criminals that have been sent to Statesville Prison and they mention a crook whose episode hadn't aired, presumably because ABC was eager to get those celebrities on to see Johnny.
Other sight gags and repeated jokes prevail, but returning to Police Squad!, what stands out above all else remains the incredible performance of Leslie Nielsen. It went beyond his deadpan delivery. In the last episode, "Testimony of Evil"/"Dead Men Don't Laugh," Drebin goes undercover as a nightclub entertainer and Nielsen performs an extended bit as a standup where we only hear punchlines such as "He looked up at her and said, 'Lady, I don't think I can take 60 more of those," and the crowd eats it up. He then segues into a medley of Judy Garland songs. He's awful of course, but it's a riot. That episode also has a great scene where a ventriloquist and his dummy pull a gun on Frank and the owner because he wasn't allowed to audition. Frank overpowers them — but he punches the doll first. The boss (Claudette Nevins), part of his investigation into a drug ring, commends him for taking such a chance. In great straight-faced delivery, Frank tells her, "You take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street or sticking your face in a fan." I've accumulated a lot of the gags and photos of them to share, but I should retire this tribute at some point. From the beginning, I planned to end this tribute with a YouTube assemblage of all six Epilogues and freeze frames the show employed. What other way could I?
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Labels: 80s, Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, D. Zucker, Garland, HBO, J. Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Joe Dante, Letterman, Lynch, Mel Brooks, Nielsen, Star Wars, Streisand, The Simpsons, The Wire, TV Tribute
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Wednesday, February 01, 2012
It's a Late Night World of Love
By Edward Copeland
The moment when I knew Late Night with David Letterman wasn't like other talk shows might have been the first time Dave did one of his smallest touches and flung either a blue index card or a pencil through the mock window behind his desk and we heard the sound of breaking glass. Before we begin reminiscing about that magical night 30 years ago when a gap-toothed former weatherman from Indianapolis changed the face of late night television. (If he'd stayed a local TV weatherman, perhaps across the country, more hail would be described on TV as
"the size of canned hams.") To commemorate the debut of this standup comic's breakthrough off-the-wall, wacky talk show that took NBC's airwaves hostage following the end of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, I feel that it's only appropriate that we recognize this anniversary with the proper reverence. You might have already played the YouTube clip above, but that's OK. Play the official anthem of Late Night With David Letterman again, only sing along this time, using the lyrics I've provided below. I'd have an animated bouncing ball if I were capable of creating one that was timed with the music but, alas, that falls beyond my capabilities. After you've paid due homage by singing the Late Night anthem, rejoin me after the jump so we can talk in more detail about Dave's impact on the talk show format, the culture and many impressionable viewers of a certain age. If you don't believe me, you should poll them — and we all know how painful that can be.You can feel it across the land.
It's clear blue skies,
It's grandma's eyes,
A place where you can stand.
Late Night is the reason
Our forefathers fought with pride.
It's surfin' fun,
it's dad and son,
A feelin' that's deep inside.
(CHORUS)
It's a Late Night world,
It's a world that we can share.
So turn on your TV
And watch it with me.
It's a Late Night world of love.
(END CHORUS)
There's a whole new generation
who are willing to say yes.
Soups and stews,
A wall of shoes,
A thing called happiness.
So change the channel,
Change your life,
Doesn't cost a thing.
We're talking loud,
standing proud,
now join us as we sing
(REPEAT CHORUS TWICE)
I wanted to make this tribute more thorough, but unfortunately I was hit with a long Internet outage last evening that made finishing this piece a bit of a rush job. In a way, that's more appropriate. Late Night With David Letterman always resembled a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation, that the tribute follow suit just seems right.
Letterman and I are both Aries born in Indianapolis, Ind. I lived there when he was a weatherman, but I was too young to remember him in that role though my parents do. When Letterman were merely a standup comic, I didn't care for his comedy much, so I don't know when or why I started tuning in to Late Night, which premiered in the second half of my seventh-grade year of school. I never saw an installment of his short-lived morning show. I do, however, remember what changed my opinion on him. Letterman had an HBO special, but not a standup special of the type comedians usually had, called Looking for Fun. Its premise had Dave trolling around Los Angeles trying to find fun things to do and displayed the type of absurd humor that would be perfected on Late Night. I couldn't remember the year of the special — my memory spoke to me and said I watched it in the house we lived in through my sixth-grade year, so I was guessing 1980 or 1981. I checked the "not as reliable as you wish it was" Internet Movie Database and it doesn't even list such a special in Letterman's credits. I did a Google search and found a comic's Web site making the same complaint about IMDb and dating it as 1981. He actually at one point had the special on the site in three video clips until Time Warner asserted its rights and forced him to remove it, so there's a lost gem of Letterman comedy out there somewhere. During my junior high years, I turned Late Night on and got hooked. It was a relationship that lasted through high school and college and even a little bit beyond. Somehow it lost part of that go-for-broke edge it had when it was on at a later hour on NBC when it went on earlier on the Tiffany Network. I'm sure people younger than I am probably feel toward Conan the way my age group did toward Dave. I don't know if there's a new generation that's embraced Fallon or Kimmel. One thing is clear across all age groups: Nobody likes Leno.
The montage the folks at Late Night put together to accompany "The Late Night Anthem" (official title) contains so many moments dear to my heart and the hearts of many friends I know who recall seeing those moments live or remember the individuals, some who have shuffle off this mortal coil. Now, it includes plentiful shots of Late Night regulars such as band leader Paul Schaffer, utility player Chris Elliott and "Where'd-they-dig-up=that-guy?" guy Larry "Bud" Melman. (In fact, Chris and Larry "Bud" played such integral roles in what made this talk show unique, I've written separate posts on each on them. Follow the links on their names.) Elsewhere in the video, we see the
great Bill Murray, who was Dave's very first guest on the inaugural show. Sandra Bernhard makes an appearance — her appearances always proved entertaining just by how uncomfortable she could make Dave. Who can forget Stupid Human Tricks or Stupid Pet Tricks? My college roommate and I cracked up for months over that monkey in a dress's expression after she paws at Letterman and then looks shocked. The other band members would get a moment in the sun, such as drummer Anton Zipp or was that Figg? I didn't see the nutty Crispin Glover appearance the night it happened, but I saw the clip plenty of times later — and this took place before YouTube or the Web. After all that fake gunplay, we see the great Penn and Teller. There's Pee-wee Herman taking Dave for a ride in a fake car that in retrospect looks quite similar to when Conan O'Brien drives around in his desk. Comic Jeff Altman gets an appearance (which seems strange in retrospect) followed by the band's guitarist Will Lee and then the great longtime movie star Van Johnson, who just left us in 2008 at the age of 92. Underground comic writer Harvey Pekar (who left us in 2010 and was the subject of the movie American Splendor) made the most of every appearance, usually making NBC's corporate owners extremely uneasy. Then it's a medley of wacky comics: Gilbert Gottfried, Bobcat Goldthwait and the one-of-a-kind stand-up philosopher Brother Theodore, who most of us never would have heard of in the first place if it hadn't been for Late Night With David Letterman. Ironically, it ends with a parting word from guest Jay Leno. How could they know how that would end? What surprised me at the time was the glaring omission from the "Late Night Anthem" montage, Where in the world was Teri Garr? She was one of Letterman's most frequent guests on his NBC shows and the two had such comic chemistry that no one could stop the rumors that the two were secretly married. Hell, Teri even took a shower on the show once. I can't remember the premise, but for some reason they had to do the show out of Dave's office. As a bonus, the clip below includes Dave's Dancing Waters.The incredible magic of Late Night With David Letterman can be found in how its appeal cut across the usual clique and class divides of your typical suburban high school. In my sophomore year, Late Night had achieved such a level of popularity that the student planners of the school talent show lifted the talk show as the framing device for that year's talent show with a student pretending to be Letterman introducing the acts. I'm not ashamed to say that their material was quite lame and the only two jokes that got riotous laughter were written by yours truly: one being a Top 10 list, the other concerning who paid for promotional considerations that referenced a mini-scandal after a school dance. I'd share them but they were so site and date specific that if you didn't attend that school 27 years ago, the humor would be lost. Weren't we lucky that NBC didn't hear we were stealing their "intellectual property?" This was before General Electric purchased NBC. Boy, they welcomed Dave, didn't they?
In addition to all the memorable guests such as Cher who doesn't mince words as to why she avoided his show. Later, when she and Sonny reunited. The countless appearances of Tony Randall. The features: Supermarket Finds, Viewer Mail, Small Town News, Dropping Stuff Off a 5-Story Tower, Crushing Things With Steamrollers or 80-Ton Hydraulic Presses. Thrill-Cams. Monkey Cams. The NBC Bookmobile. Inventing a catchphrase ("They pelted us with rocks and garbage.") One clip I wish I could have found was a bit they used to do about editing mistakes, talking about the rare times they had to edit the show before it aired. They showed a segment where a guest was keeled over in his chair with an arrow in his back and Letter was pointing at the audience and yelling, "You. Yes, you. You know damn well what I'm talking about." Then there were the suits.
I was so tempted to run every clip YouTube had of Brother Theodore just so those unfamiliar with him could see his act. He had to be seen to be believed, but I narrowed it down to one.
They did plenty of special shows: A mock Christmas special that gave Dave a family, the 360 degree rotation show, the reverse image show, the rerun shows, but perhaps my favorite were the Custom-Made Shows and I thought I would end with a clip from one of those because when Jane Pauley finally gets coaxed into speaking, I think she sums up the feelings of Late Night with David Letterman fans everywhere about the show they loved.
Please remember: This tribute has only been an exhibition. It's not a competition. Please. No wagering.
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Labels: 80s, Carson, HBO, Letterman, Murray, Tony Randall, TV Tribute
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Late Night wouldn't have been the same without Chris Elliott
By Edward Copeland
The key to the success of Late Night with David Letterman wasn't just Letterman but the crack writing staff he assembled that shared his bent sense of humor. One of those writers in particular proved to be a breakout star of his own by the many characters he would play during appearances on the show. His name was Chris Elliott and he was a mere 31-years-old when Late Night debuted. As far as Late Night fans were concerned, Elliott quite literally was the guy — as in The Panicky Guy, The Conspiracy Guy, The Guy Under the Seats, The Laid-Back Guy, The Fugitive Guy and The Regulator Guy.
I desperately tried to pin down Elliott's first on-camera appearance on Late Night and I think it may have been on the 25th or 26th show that aired either March 15 or March 16, 1982, in the role of "Garbage" in a sketch about "Urban Paranoia," but I can't be positive. Elliott also would appear as himself, usually in the Viewer Mail segments, as the "staff scientist" answering questions such as the one in this example from YouTube.
Eventually, Elliott would have his own career on television and in the movies. On TV, he starred in the short-lived cult sitcom Get a Life on
Fox and later had a recurring role as a brother-in-law on Everybody Loves Raymond, provided the voice for the TV version of Dilbert and served as a cast member on Saturday Night Live for a season. In the 1970s, his father, Bob Elliott, half of the legendary comedy duo Bob & Ray, hosted SNL with Ray and did a Bob & Ray special with the original women of SNL. Now, Chris Elliott's daughter, Abby, is part of SNL's cast, making three Elliott generations involved with the show. On the big screen, Elliott starred in and co-wrote the story with screenwriter and director Adam Resnick (another former Late Night writer) for Cabin Boy, which included a cameo by Letterman (using the name Earl Hofert) as Old Salt in Fishing Village. Letterman turned his single line — "Would you like to buy a monkey?" — into a gag when he hosted the Oscars with stars such as Anthony Hopkins testing for Letterman's role. Elliott's supporting roles in movies such as Groundhog Day and There's Something About Mary came off better. He even did small, noncomic turns in films such as Michael Mann's thriller Manhunter and James Cameron's The Abyss. Before I let the clips tell the story of the "guys," here are some impersonations and other sketches that Elliott performed on Late Night. First, Chris Elliott testifies during the Iran-Contra hearings.
Next up, Chris did his take on two talk show staples. First, Chris Elliott is the director of the Columbus Zoo, not Jack Hanna. Second, it's Marv Albert with the wild and wacky in the world of sports.
After Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and many of the other wackos we've seen and heard recently, Morton Downey Jr. has largely been forgotten, but back in the 1980s the loudmouth was a phenomenon briefly and spawned "The Chris Elliott Jr. Show."
I have to admit that this one was my favorite and it's hard to not pick every clip out there, but in the 1980s when the great actor Marlon Brando was a world-class loon giving rambling interviews to Connie Chung and Larry King (including a big wet kiss on the lips), when Elliott started showing up as Brando, that was funny enough. When he ended every appearance doing the "Bananas" dance to "Alley Cat," it was hysterical.
The joke about The Regulator Guy, a Terminator-like spoof that was supposed to be Elliott's new series, was that it never aired. Every time he showed up to show a clip or premiere an episode, something would interrupt it or pre-empt it.
One of the earliest running characters Elliott came up with was The Conspiracy Guy, usually seated in the audience spinning outlandish theories about all sorts of topics. Today they are knows as Birthers and Truthers but they have no sense of humor.
Picking just one guy under the seats segment was the hardest of all because they were so many and so varied. Go to YouTube and check out the other ones out there.
Finally, I think the only way to conclude a post on Chris Elliott is to end with the final installment of The Fugitive Guy since it is the one they put the most effort into with location shooting, dragging Letterman along, the credit sequence, etc. NBC can suck on my intellectual property rights as I salute Letterman and his cohorts today.
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Labels: 80s, Brando, Cameron, Hopkins, Letterman, Oscars, TV Tribute
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