TALES FROM THE SCRIPT: THE BEHIND-THE-CAMERA ADVENTURES OF A TV COMEDY WRITER Read Online Free PDF

that and told him so.
“Yeah, but they put me on new Year’s Eve.” He was obviously annoyed at that. “Who watches on new Year’s Eve?”
i withdrew into my own fantasy for my own amusement and to
shut out the noises coming out of that man’s mouth as he did his act,
“Animals from A to Z.” He started with the aardvark.
My mind began to imagine what would’ve happened if he’d been
given a shot on Ted Mack’s show on a night with more viewers. He
would’ve been a smash. He would’ve gone on to great heights. i
pictured him opening in Las Vegas in a glitzy tuxedo, wowing the
audience. i fantasized about him taking a breather from the performance—somewhere between the Hippopotamus and the iguana—
sipping a little bit of scotch like Dean Martin, unloosening his tie like
Sammy Davis, and hearing his adoring fans shout out requests.
“Do the porcupine sliding along an icy road,” one would yell.
“Do the impersonation of the elephant impersonating Jimmy
Durante,” another hollered.
“i’ll do them all folks. You ain’t heard nothing, yet,” that master
showman would reply.
Then, someone called my name and released me from my reverie. i shook hands with the impersonator and wished him luck in
his career. He whimpered and rubbed up against my leg. “Miniature
poodle,” he said.
i hastened in to my audition—and i died. i wasn’t assigned to any
of the traveling troupes. Once again, it wasn’t my fault. i would’ve been
great if i hadn’t been distracted by the Rich Little of the Animal World.
One person was impressed with my performance, though. it was
an aspiring singer, who thought we could do an act together. “With
my voice and your comic talents we’d be great. We’d be another Martin and Lewis,” he said.
Finally, someone recognizes great talent! Except for the billing,
which should have been, “With your comic talents and my voice,” i
agreed with everything he said.
So we teamed up. i wrote a Martin and Lewis type of act. it
opened with him singing “Put On a Happy Face,” and from there on,
it was hilarious mayhem. His voice was not that great, but it didn’t
matter. The comedy was brilliant enough to overcome that slight
flaw, just like Jerry Lewis had remarkably carried Dean Martin.
That time, my partner had a friend who had a friend who had a
friend who knew a guy who owned a club. One of those friends got us
booked into the club on a Saturday night—for no money, of course.
One night, my partner and i sat in my kitchen planning how we
would approach our theatrical debut. i said, “i usually like to work in
a tuxedo.”
My wife, who was preparing some snacks or something in the
kitchen at the time observed, “What do you mean ‘usually’? You’ve
never worked before.”
We agreed that business suits, which we
wouldn’t have to rent, would be sufficient.
Remembering the Knights of Columbus fiasco, i didn’t invite
anyone to the opening. My singing friend, though, invited several.
When we got to the club, we saw that it was just a tiny little bar on
the outskirts of the outskirts of Philadelphia. A three-piece combo
was seated behind the bar playing to three patrons in the bar, counting the one who had his head on the bar and was taking a nap.
i wrote a big act with enough action and motion to fill a Las Vegas
stage. it required a stage larger than that entire bar, and it wasn’t going
to work.
“Let’s just call this a bad idea,” i told my partner.
He said, “What are you talking about? When the band takes a
break, we’ll rehearse with them and then we’re on.”
We rehearsed with the band and then we were on stage.
The stage was the bar itself. it was a long, elliptical bar. The two
awake patrons and one comatose patron sat facing the far wall, where
the other end of the ellipse was. The band sat behind the bar and we
worked on the bar.
Fortunately, the singer opened the act. The bartender introduced
him to the three patrons.