In 1967, Groucho Marx published a book of his letters called — of all things — The Groucho Letters. These were letters he'd donated to the Library of Congress, and you can see one of them on this page.
Several years ago, my buddy Frank Ferrante, the great Hackenbush Impersonator, read some of them for a BBC radio special. It was recently rebroadcast and for the next few days, you should be able to hear it from a link on this page. Do not dawdle as it will only be there until the end of the week.
Thanks to some reader of this site named mightygaijin, who sent me the tip. I believe the BBC has some upcoming Groucho specials and if anyone sees them online before I do, please let me know.
This is great. Bill O'Reilly sometimes sends his producers out with camera crews to "ambush" folks who won't come on The O'Reilly Factor. At the National Conference for Media Reform 2008, one of his guys — a hapless fellow named Porter Barry — confronted PBS host Bill Moyers and...well, you'll want to watch this for yourself. Moyers handled the guy in a polite but firm manner and made the ambusher wish he'd never ambushed.
But that wasn't the end of it. After Moyers was done with Barry, other reporters began ambushing the ambusher, peppering him with questions in the same way he'd hectored Moyers. Always nice to see a troublemaker getting a dollop of his own medicine...
As we predicted here, the David Mamet play November will close next month when Nathan Lane departs the starring role. I wonder if the delay in announcing this was because they were trying to find someone spectacular to replace him and couldn't. I don't mean Nathan wasn't spectacular, and I doubt anyone could do the part better...but there might have been someone whose appearance on Broadway would have been such news — say, if Dustin Hoffman or Peter Falk was willing to do it for a few months — that audiences would have flocked.
The Tony Awards are this Sunday...and this year, the thing might even get semi-decent ratings. True, there isn't a lot of buzz out there about any of the nominees and the host, Whoopi Goldberg, doesn't seem like the kind of selection who'd draw an audience. But for the first time in recent memory, the telecast doesn't seem to be on opposite anything too formidable...so maybe the numbers won't be awful. They've been trending upwards the last few years, perhaps because the total number of awards shows on TV has diminished. They're starting to feel like events again.
Many years ago, I dated a lady who had a videotape I desperately wanted to copy but never did. It was a tape of about thirty Albert Brooks appearances, all done back in the days when he used to show up on talk shows with routines. Sometimes, they took the form of stand-up. Sometimes, he was sitting down with the host. They were always fresh and outrageously funny...and he rarely repeated. He'd do a bit once, get huge laughs with it...then retire it forever.
I used to watch the tape at her place when I went over to pick her up and she wasn't ready to leave. When she emerged, ready to head out to dinner or a show or whatever, she'd say, "How do I look?" Usually, when your date asks you that, you say "Great," because...well, if she doesn't, going back and putting on a different top is not going to make a bit of difference. With this lady, I used to say, "Uh, I don't think that's a good color for you," because I wanted to see the rest of whatever Albert Brooks routine I was watching. When we finally broke up, I thought of calling and asking her if I could take the tape out for an evening.
Our clip today is from Mr. Carson's Tonight Show...and the best part of it is watching Johnny's delight. He obviously had not seen Albert's routine in advance...though in that skillful way that neither Leno nor Letterman are able to do, he helped Brooks set up the premise of the bit and clarified it slightly to make sure the audience understood it. Here's Albert Brooks demonstrating his new kit that allows you to do impressions at home...
June 10, 2008
