Friday, November 19, 2004

Shelley Berman P.S.

Two additional points on Mr. Berman: Turns out, his out-of-print CD — the one recorded in 1995 — is back in print, after all. At least, they seem to have it over at www.laugh.com, which features a terrific selection of great comedy albums, including many that were originally on vinyl. They also have CD versions of Shelley's first three albums, including Inside Shelley Berman, for a few bucks less than Amazon charges. I don't get a commission if you order from there but they're so good, I'll suggest you buy 'em there, just to encourage you to buy 'em.

(Actually, they're not all good. Inside Shelley Berman is great. Outside Shelley Berman is very, very good. The Edge of Shelley Berman is much weaker, and I believe Shelley has said that it was done as a contractual commitment and that he never cared for it. Live Again!, which is the one I heard recorded, is terrific. Maybe someday soon, they'll put out his other ones, including A Personal Appearance and The Sex Life of the Primate, both of which were wonderful.)

Also: Someone wrote to ask if there was any reason I didn't mention that I directed Shelley Berman when he did a voice on Garfield and Friends. No reason, other than that it was such a minor moment in his career that I didn't think it warranted mention. He was very funny and very professional, and he seemed a little embarrassed when I tried to tell him how much his work had always meant to me. One of the great parts of doing that show was that I got to hire a number of folks who were in that category, like Stan Freberg, Jonathan Winters, Imogene Coca and Paul Winchell. I'm sure Shelley Berman doesn't even remember that hour or so we spent in a recording studio but I sure won't ever forget it.

• Posted at 10:26 PM · LINK

Bad Meal With Good Comedian

Just back from a lovely luncheon in honor of the great comedian, Shelley Berman. Well, I need to clarify that: The lunch part was awful: A choice of turkey left over from the first Thanksgiving or fish caught during the Nixon administration. But the event itself — a function of the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters — was joyous enough to make up for it. The dais included comedians (Mort Sahl, Richard Lewis and Gary Owens), comedy writers (Arnie Kogen, John Rappoport, Hal Kanter, Rocky and Irma Kalish), a nightclub proprietor (Budd Friedman), a former mayor of Los Angeles (Richard Riordan) and Dr. James Ragan, the head of the entertainment department at U.S.C., where Mr. Berman teaches.

A couple things need to be said about Shelley Berman. One is that he's one of the most important figures in the history of stand-up (or in his case, sit-down) comedy. Along with Sahl, Lenny Bruce and just a few others, he was part of the revolution in the late fifties. Before then, it was all about jokes and one-liners and "My mother-in-law is so fat..." The lines were largely interchangeable between comics and you didn't think or care if the guy even had a fat mother-in-law. Once Shelley, Mort and Lenny took over, the comedy was the distinctive viewpoint of the guy with the microphone and, more significantly, it was in his rhythm: No more set-up / joke / set-up / joke...

Berman pioneered in two main areas, one being what some call "observational" comedy. He pointed out little things that annoyed him, which turned out to largely be little things that annoyed us all...or should have annoyed us if we thought about them for two seconds. Every comedian after him who started a sentence with "Did you ever notice --?" should have had to pay royalties to Shelley. The other area in which he led the way was in doing little scenes, usually phone conversations heard from his side. He was such a good actor that he didn't need a partner to play off. He made you "hear" the person at the other end of the phone call.

Both of these areas were well represented on his 1958 album, Inside Shelley Berman, which was probably the second record ever made by recording a comedian's act live in performance. (One of Mort Sahl's had been done the previous year by the same company, Verve Records.) I think Inside... is one of the five best comedy albums ever made, worth the price alone just for the bit where a guy tries to phone a department store and inform them that a woman is dangling from an upper-story window ledge.

It also includes "The Morning After the Night Before," a scene Berman had developed in improvisational comedy workshops in Chicago. I doubt there's a person who got into stand-up comedy before 1980 who wasn't inspired by this LP. (You can order an import CD from Amazon by clicking here.)

And one other thing I should say about Shelley Berman: He's still funny. Not everyone who was then is now...but Berman is still performing and still very funny. I had the honor of being in the audience when he recorded his most recent album, Live Again!, which is sadly not in print at the moment. The place was full of top comedians and, as the saying goes, it was a great night for envy.

So was the event this afternoon, as Shelley was serenaded with the odd mix of roast insults and genuine tributes that seem to define an "honor" these days. He seemed to be laughing himself silly at some of the jokes at his expense, but it may be that he's a good enough actor to fake enjoyment. However, he also seemed genuinely touched by the presence on the dais of Mort Sahl, some genuine words of love from Richard Lewis, a good assessment of his importance to comedy by both, and affection from many other friends, to say nothing of the audience. I hope he really was moved by it all because everyone there sure meant it.

• Posted at 7:49 PM · LINK

Cy Coleman, R.I.P.

Yeah, another damned obit. Cy Coleman wrote the scores for a stunning number of good Broadway shows, including Wildcat, Little Me, Sweet Charity, Seesaw, I Love My Wife, Barnum, On the Twentieth Century, City of Angels and The Will Rogers Follies. Those were all hits but I even like some of his relative flops; like, I didn't enjoy The Life as a whole but there were about a half-dozen first-rate songs in there, well worth playing over and over on the CD player in my car. He also composed the scores for some fine movies and the tunes for some wonderful standalone songs, including "Witchcraft" and the familiar Playboy theme. Here's a full obit. I just wanted to mention how much I admired so much of his work.

• Posted at 9:35 AM · LINK

Puppet Page

If you'd like to see a very elaborate website full of some fun stuff, the new Disney-controlled Muppet website is quite amazing...but don't go there unless you have a good, fast Internet connection. And try to track down and play the game where Bunsen and Beaker challenge you to discover their new coffee recipe.

• Posted at 1:09 AM · LINK