TALES FROM THE SCRIPT: THE BEHIND-THE-CAMERA ADVENTURES OF A TV COMEDY WRITER (3 page)

He said, “That’s interesting, because this is the first job i’ve ever
had as a comedian.”
i said, “i wish you luck in your career,” and hung up.
That’s how i spent the early years of my writing career—hustling,
trying to con comics into looking at my stuff, and scheming to get
them to part with a few bucks for a few jokes. Parting with a few
bucks was not one of their favorite pastimes.
One local performer, who used to do an act with his brother, was
then doing a single act. Somehow, a friend of his knew a friend of mine
that knew i did a little comedy writing, so a meeting was arranged either
by the performer, the friend of his, the friend of mine, or me. i forget who.
i arrived at the small club where the comic was working. it was
actually a bar in South Philadelphia. The only person in the place
when i arrived was the bartender. i told him i was looking for the
comedian scheduled to perform that evening.
“i’ll get him,” the bartender volunteered.
The comic came out, we exchanged pleasantries, and then he told
me exactly what sort of material he was looking for. i showed him my
pages and he laughed at a couple of the gags.
Then, the bartender came over and interrupted.
“Would you guys like something to drink?” he said?
i said, “Yes. i’ll have a scotch on the rocks and . . . .” i turned to
the comic to see if he would like to join me, but he was either gone,
had disappeared, or had dematerialized.
The bartender brought two drinks. i paid for them and started to
sip mine, but then my comic friend reappeared and said, “Yeah, i like
some of these jokes, but you really should see my act.” We discussed
his wants and needs for a while.
When our glasses were near empty, the bartender came back.
“Another round?” he asked.
i said, “Yeah, i’ll have the same and . . . .”
The comic was gone again.
Two more drinks came. i paid for them, and then the comedian
reappeared.
Every time drinks had to be paid for, that guy evaporated—and
took his wallet with him.
Eventually, he got on stage to perform. The bartender and i were
still the only people in the room. nevertheless, the comedian did his
act full out and i continued to pay for my own drinks.
Then, another couple came into the club—a young lady and her
drunken escort. They sat close to the stage and she kept loudly telling
him how drunk he was, and he kept loudly telling the comedian how
unfunny he was.
When the show mercifully ended, the comic and i talked again.
He said, “How about that, huh? There are only four people in the
room and i get a heckler.”
i said, “Well, i could write some good lines for you to use against
hecklers.”
He said, “Yeah, i’d like that. Hey, by the way, would you like a drink?”
i didn’t really want one, but i accepted the offer. i was determined
that the cheapskate would pay for something.
He turned towards the bar and said, “Hey, Charlie . . . .” That time,
the bartender disappeared. Those two worked together better than
Abbot and Costello.
We sat there without drinks and he said, “i like your stuff. i want
you to write for me.”
i was thrilled. i started to say, “My fees are . . . .”
He said, “i can’t really pay for material right now, but i’ll tell you
what. You write something that’ll get me on
The Tonight Show
and i’ll
send you a few bucks.”
If this guy ever mails me a check,
i thought to myself,
my mailman
would dematerialize
. He was strictly a “no sale.”
That was the frustration of trying to make enough money to justify the time i spent writing jokes. Comedians often spent a tiny fortune for a great looking tuxedo with piping on the lapels and pockets.
They’d gladly shell out an exorbitant amount for patent leather shoes
to wear only on stage. They’d pay greens fees to play golf everyday
because that’s what the classy performers like Dean Martin and Bob
Hope did, but they had no money to pay for jokes.
So, i pursued the ones that had money. i wrote letters to, placed
phone calls to, and practically stalked any “name” comedians playing
in local clubs.
At that time, Vaughn Meader was an impersonator hitting it big
with his album called
The First Family,
a take-off on President John
F. Kennedy and his family. Vaughn did a magnificent impression of
Kennedy. After the album went to the top of the charts, Meader was
booked into high-priced clubs. When he came to the Latin Casino
outside of Philadelphia, i was on the phone to him.
He agreed to meet me in his motel room before the show. As he
politely read over my samples, i worked up the courage to point out
one particular joke to him. “i did this joke in a talk i gave last week
and it was the biggest laugh in my whole routine.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the biggest laugh in my act,” he said.
if you’re interested in sainthood and would like to master the virtue of humility, consider becoming a comedy writer, especially one
who leads with his chin like i did with that idiotic straight line.
Meader finished reading my material and didn’t seem overwhelmed or even whelmed.
He said, “There’s not much Kennedy stuff in here.”
i said, “no, i do a lot of topical material, but you know you can’t
do Kennedy forever.”
He dismissed me after that impolitic statement, but i was right.
He didn’t do Kennedy impersonations much longer.
London Lee was a young comic making a big splash on
The Ed
Sullivan Show
. London was a variation of Jerry Lewis, although he did
mostly one-liners as opposed to Jerry’s physical shtick. His underlying premise was that he was rich. His dad was a successful businessman and London grew up with money.
When he was booked into new Jersey’s Latin Casino, he discovered i came with the terrain. That time, though, i was smarter. i
wrote material that was particularly suited to London Lee’s act. He
had been on television quite a bit, so i got to know the kinds of gags
he was doing.
Several people were in his dressing room when we met. i introduced myself, but he didn’t introduce me to the others. He took my
pages of gags and retreated into his private dressing room along with
all those other people. i sat in the anteroom for about an hour. When
London Lee came back out, he said, “There are some good jokes here.”
i was delighted.
“But i’m not going to buy any of them,” he said.
i was undelighted.
“Do you know why?” he asked. Before i could answer, he explained. “Because i’m already doing them.”
i traveled home disappointed and confused. not only did he declare me an incompetent, but also a plagiarist. When i wasn’t busy
feeling sorry for myself, i wondered why, if he was already doing those
jokes, it took him an hour to read them.
The next time i saw London Lee on television, he did a few of my
lines, which, of course, he claimed were already his lines. i suppose
by then they were.
i came closer with Henny Youngman. He was scheduled to do a
private banquet at some Philadelphia hotel. When i found out about
it, i gathered my pages of sample jokes and planted myself outside the
ballroom. So did another writer whom i didn’t know.
When Youngman showed up, we both swooped down on him like
stereo stalkers. Youngman was gracious, though. He said, “C’mon, we’ll
sit down for a few minutes and you can read me some of your stuff.”
The other writer was much more gregarious than i was. He was
a big mouth, and he wasn’t really a writer; he was a borrower. He
started reading one of his jokes and Youngman read him the punch
line. He’d begin another gag and Youngman finished it. The same
thing happened with the third joke.
Finally, Youngman said, “i don’t have time to listen to jokes i
heard forty years ago,” and left.
That time, i was rejected simply because i happened to be in the
vicinity of a very bad writer.
For a while, i seriously considered beginning a new hobby—collecting interesting rejections. i had an extensive assortment. They
poured in from magazines, book publishers, agents, and comics.
Practically anyone who could say “no” to me did.
The one from Joe E. Lewis was my favorite. i’d written to him and
offered to send along a few pages of sample gags if he was interested
in seeing them. Lewis wrote back to me on a small note pad from the
Fountainbleu Hotel in Florida. it read, “i already have a writer. Joe
E. Lewis.”
All those rejections could have been demoralizing to an aspiring,
young comedy writer, but they weren’t. English poet Thomas Gray
once remarked, “ignorance is bliss.” i was so blissfully ignorant at
that stage that i thought i was not only the best comedy writer in the
world, but the only one. Well, at least the only really good one.
i believe i did mention earlier that i was cocky. When those folks
turned me down, i actually felt sorry for them.
Boy, did they miss out
on a great opportunity,
i thought. That’s cocky.
i was so cocky that if the man i was then could have come to the man
i became later and asked for advice, i‘d throw the man i was then out on
his ass. So, in the midst of all that disappointment, my future continued
to look promising, but it also continued to remain in the future. not too
much rewarding or profitable was happening in the present,
Also during that time, the true secret of success manifested itself
to me. There’s a truism that applies to comedy writing, the legal profession, car sales, or any line of business, and it is to have a friend who
has a friend who has a friend who knows somebody.
Since people in the comedy profession wouldn’t buy my material, i
decided to buy it myself. i became a performer and planned to get rich
as a comedy writer selling jokes to myself. There was a flaw in the logic
of that strategy, but i was too blind with ambition to notice it at the time.
There was a private club in our area that periodically featured entertainment. i had a friend who had a friend who had a friend who
knew the General Manager of that club, the Drexelbrook. One of
those friends in the previous sentence arranged an audition for me.
Telling jokes in front of an audience of strangers was a frightening
experience. Telling gags to an audience of one was terrifying, but i did it,
and i did it half well. The general manager liked my jokes, but he wasn’t
sold on my delivery. nevertheless, he gave me a break. He let me perform, without pay of course, at the club. However, he wouldn’t let me
perform in the main room. i was relegated to the rowdy downstairs room.
On the night of the show, that same gentleman introduced me
like this: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have something special for you
tonight. This young man came to me and asked if i could give him his
first break as a comedian. i thought he was funny, but needed a lot of
work. And so i invited him here tonight to entertain you with some
funny stories and jokes. He’s only a beginner and, as i said, he needs a
lot of work, but i knew you folks would be kind to him. So why don’t
you give him a break. Gene Perret.”
i died that night, but blamed it on the audience and the introduction. There was no way that it could it have been my fault.
So, i had another friend who had a friend who had a friend who
knew someone who was putting together a show for the Knights of
Columbus. They hired me, for no money of course, to be the emcee
and comedian for the evening at one of their social events.
i was a smash.
That crowd laughed and applauded. Together, we even created
a little catch phrase for the evening. After one joke, some lady in the
audience cackled after the general laughter died down. i remarked to
her, “You, too, lady?” That got giant laughs, so i used it several times
throughout my performance.
After the show ended and the serious drinking, dancing, and partying began, i heard people shouting that phrase back and forth to one
another and laughing. i was thrilled that i had created a “catch phrase.”
it was a glorious evening. The audience loved the performance,
and the people who put on the show booked me immediately for another one a month later—at the same fee.
That time, i wanted people to share my exultation, so i invited my
wife and her mother to be my guests.
i died.
not even “You, too, lady?” worked. no one laughed and the applause was polite and peremptory. it said, “Get off the stage so we can
get on with our party” more than it said, “Thanks for an enjoyable show.”
Afterward, i learned that one of the Philadelphia college basketball teams, either St. Joseph’s or Villanova, was playing for the national championship that night and management had set up several
televisions around the room so the party-goers could watch the game.
Again, it wasn’t my fault.
Another friend had a friend who had a friend who knew someone
at WFiL-TV, who was organizing several traveling amateur troupes
sponsored by the station. One of those friends got me information
about applying for an audition.
Everyone in the Philadelphia area must have had a friend who
had a friend who had a friend because there were hundreds of hopefuls lining the corridors of WFiL-TV on tryout day. There were little
girls in tutus, who danced by on their tippy-toes, while i sat on a folding chair rehearsing my gags. it reminded me of some comedian’s
line, “Why do ballet dancers stand on their tippy-toes? Why don’t
they just hire taller girls?”
There were several youngsters in ill-fitting tuxedos with colored
scarves protruding from every pocket. They were the magicians, and
they paced back and forth because if they sat down, they’d probably
kill a dove that was secreted in their back pocket.
Some young ladies rehearsed their Joan of Arc soliloquies, sang
operatic arias in a near whisper, or tapped away in their red, white, and
blue sailor suits. it was probably the greatest assemblage of non-talent
and semi-talent in the Delaware Valley. i was awed to be a part of it.
Memorizing my lines distracted me from the chaos in the corridor. My eyes and my mind stayed focused on my script until i heard a
barking coming from somewhere near me. i ignored it at first, but the
second time i heard the noise, i looked up.