You'll love this. One of my favorite veteran comedians is Irv Benson, who was born in 1914 and is still with us. He is, I believe, the last surviving comedian who worked in "real," Minsky's-style burlesque. I used to go to Vegas and Reno, largely to see Irv perform with the last burlesque straight man, Dexter Maitland.
In the sixties, Irv had a recurring role on Milton Berle's variety show as Sidney Spritzer — I'm not sure of that spelling — a character who would heckle Uncle Miltie from a box seat each week. The material was sometimes older than Irv even but it was very funny and it's obvious the bits inspired the creation of Statler and Waldorf on The Muppet Show.
Here's one of those routines. Watching it, I'm amazed that Berle isn't better in it. I recall him being pretty good at playing straight for Benson but at least in this episode, he's too busy reading cue cards to react properly. In the seventies, Johnny Carson would sometimes bring Benson on as a rude stagehand to do pretty much the same thing. I have a few of those routines on video and though Johnny was reading cards off-camera, he never let that inhibit his performance. Anyway, here's Mr. Television sparring with Irv "Sidney Spritzer" Benson. My money's on Irv…
