Category Archives: Video Links

I think Eugene Levy is one of the funniest men alive. Here he is in a short film which I believe was made to be shown at the ceremony for the award discussed herein…

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…

And on a lighter note: This is for those of you who are fans of the vocal stylings of Mr. William Shatner…

From a different time: My favorite folk-singing group, The Limeliters, hawking cigarettes…

I'd like to see this montage on next year's Academy Awards ceremony…

Bob Elisberg sent me this link, noting that now that Oprah's retiring, there's room for another great TV interviewer…

You know, I was never a fan of Star Trek in any form. I don't fault you one bit if you love it. I've just always been indifferent to it…which has made it awkward a couple of times when I've been introduced to, for example, Leonard Nimoy or Walter Koenig or several writers or producers who were involved in various Trek ventures. They seem to kind of expect you're going to gush all over their Star Trek connections and hit them with catch-phrases and itemize your favorite episodes…because from what I can tell, almost everyone they meet does. When you don't, they can't help but notice.

About twenty years ago at a convention, a friend introduced me to George Takei and I had absolutely nothing to say to the man. I said it was a pleasure and a privilege — or maybe a privilege and a pleasure — and I told him (truthfully) how impressed some people I knew would be to hear that I'd met Sulu…and I think that by scraping the bottom of my memory, I managed to recall some non-Trek acting work he'd done and compliment him on it. But I could tell that he was quite aware that I wasn't saying, "I really loved you on Star Trek." I don't mean that he was bothered by it but there was this kind of awkward silence between us and you couldn't miss it.

I know what I'd say if I met George Takei today. I'd tell him how much I admire him for things like this…

Here's a great bit of time-lapse video of the prettier parts of Las Vegas. Take this one full-screen for maximum effect…

Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC gloats a little about a dead-on prediction come true…

Johnny Carson's first real TV show was called Carson's Cellar and it ran on KNXT, the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles for not-that-long. The history on this is a bit murky. Most sources say it lasted 13 weeks commencing in January of 1953 but some say 26 weeks and some place it in 1951, 1952 or 1954. All agree that it was done for almost no money and that the show didn't last long. [UPDATE: This episode aired 11/23/52.]

Its most infamous moment came one time when Johnny announced that his guest was Red Skelton. Then he had a stagehand rush through the shot so you couldn't see who it was and Carson said, "That was Red Skelton." Not a bad joke. The next week, Johnny was getting ready to do his show and Red Skelton walked in and asked, "What time do we go on?" He appeared that week and perhaps another and that led to Johnny becoming a member of Skelton's writing crew for a while. He also filled in for the star one night when Skelton injured himself and couldn't do his program…and that led to bigger and better things for Mr. Carson.

Those episodes are apparently lost forever and it was once thought that no episodes existed anywhere of Carson's Cellar. Someone, however, found a kinescope of one and we have it here today for you. It features Jack Bailey, who was then a popular TV host with Queen for a Day and other shows…and Johnny had somehow found enough money in the budget to bring in the one and only June Foray as an occasional cast member. You'll see the two of them in the middle sketch…and if you stick around after that, you'll get to see Johnny get into drag and do the kind of routine that comedians only do when they're out of ideas and desperate to get laughs. You may also see a glimpse of the persistence and ability to ad-lib that eventually turned this guy into Johnny Carson…

Here's four minutes from a Jack Benny TV program with Jack, Don Wilson and Mel Blanc. Looks to me like the reference to Bugs Bunny was an ad-lib by Jack…

This is a rerun on this blog but it's a better copy than I linked to before. It's eight minutes of an episode from some incarnation of Hollywood Squares, most of that time spent with Gilbert Gottfried. If you haven't seen it before, it's well worth the eight minutes…

So this woman named Rayna Ford is in the audience for a Paul Simon concert. She yells out that he should play "Duncan" and adds that she learned to play the guitar with that song. What then does Paul Simon do? Does he play it? No, he invites her up on stage to play it. In so doing, he gives the lady the thrill of her life…but don't you kinda wish he'd joined in on the last part and made it a duet?

Last evening, our pal Chuck McCann debuted the first full episode of his Internet TV show, Bits & Pieces…and here it is. It runs a little under an hour and despite some tech problems at the opening, it's a lot of fun. This is live TV so they don't edit out the mistakes.

Chuck's guest is his occasional partner for 40-some-odd years, Jim MacGeorge. Jim is a comedian and an actor and a puppeteer and a voiceover specialist. In his youth, he worked on Bob Clampett's puppet shows on TV including Time for Beany. The original stars of that show were Stan Freberg and Daws Butler and when they quit, a gent named Irv Shoemaker replaced Stan as Cecil and Dishonest John while Jim replaced Daws as Uncle Captain Huffenpuff and, often, Beany. (Walker Edmiston sometimes did Beany…and of course they all did other supporting characters.) In the 1962 animated Beany and Cecil, Jim played Beany and Uncle Captain.

His work with Chuck has mostly been playing Stan Laurel when Chuck plays Oliver Hardy. It was Stan himself who put the two of them together and bestowed his blessing on their impersonations. They talk about that and a lot of their misadventures together in the show…

In-N-Out Burger has arrived in Texas and for some, it's akin to a religious experience. I am pleased that Five Guys — which I like a lot more than I ever liked In-N-Out, especially lately — has come to California but I am nowhere near this happy about that…