Memoirs of a Muppets Writer: (You mean somebody actually writes that stuff?) (21 page)

I did the best I could. But most of the time I was framing up a very fast moving basketball game, while trying to hit the shutter when it was exactly 10 feet away. I did the best I could. But in my mind, I was composing the shots I could have taken with my own 35mm SLR Pentax. I did get one decent shot of the two basketball teams’ centers on rollerskates, facing off for the ball in front of the Eiffel Tower. But I know it could have been so much better.

And so went our Parisian rendezvous: the bad pictures; the separate rooms; those intimate, candle-lit dinners for seven - not exactly the script I had imagined in London. It was all summed up very nicely in a postcard Gail sent me from Casablanca. Quoting Humphrey Bogart in the movie of the same name, it simply said,
We’ll always have Paris.

Chapter 38

Milton Berle

M
ilton Berle was such a seminal force of comedy, I had to give him his own chapter.

One usual rainy Sunday morning, I was suffering with a terrible cold and wondering how the hell I was going to be funny that day. Suddenly, the door to my office flew open and in marched Milton Berle.

Like many of the great old comedians who appeared on
The Muppet Show
, instead of waiting for the script meeting to meet the writing staff, Milton Berle made the writer’s offices his first stop in the studio. As I would find out later, comedy was serious business with him.

There are showbiz legends about guest stars who abused or aggravated writing staffs. Don Hinkley told me that the old time writers would put their heads together and write a sketch that required the guest star to wear a chicken suit. The bit would always be very funny. But there’s no way not to feel like an idiot in a chicken suit. And, they’re hotter that Hades under the studio lights. But, Milton Berle was serious about his comedy.

“Here, kid. Have a heater.”, he said, jamming an enormous Cuban cigar at me. I was so surprised, I opened it up and lit it. Now, I wish I had had it cast in Lucite.

“You think you’re looking at an old Jew?”, Berle asked. “Wait until George Burns gets here next week.”

I damn near choked on the cigar.

Working with Milton Berle was an education in comedy. At the time I met him, he had already been in show business for more than 60 years. He started as a child actor in silent movies, moved on to vaudeville, night clubs and finally one of the first hit shows on television,
The Texaco Star Theater.
The show ran from 1948 to 1956, and earned Milton Berle the sobriquet, Mr.
Television.

His show was so popular, a half million American families went out and bought television sets just to see it. The
Texaco Star Theater
regularly garnered 80% of the television viewing audience. It’s been reported that the New York City Water Department could tell when the show cut to commercials - so many people went to the bathroom during the commercials that the water pressure dropped dramatically in New York City.

In 1951, NBC signed Milton Berle to an exclusive 30
year contract,
at $100,000 a year, just so he wouldn’t work for anyone else. Most of that time was spent hanging out at the Hillcrest Country Club in Beverly Hills.

One day, I had lunch with Milton Berle in the studio canteen and explained my chagrin with television comedy: You write a skit, and then you wait weeks until production to see if it works. And then, it’s weeks or months until it runs on the air and, finally, somebody laughs (or not). I was looking for some wisdom from someone who had done live comedy for most of his life. At the time, Milton was teaching a course in comedy at UCLA. I asked him what he was teaching his students.

“Say I’m playing Vegas. I tell the class that I always open with the same three jokes, or variations on them. I’ll tell a middle of the road joke, something about my wife or my mother-in-law. Then, I’ll do a mild political joke and then one that’s slightly off color. Judging by the laugh I get from each joke, I know exactly which monolog to use.”

“You’ve got three “A” monologs?”, I asked him.

“Sure,” he answered. “First you test the crowd. You don’t want to do blue material to a room full of Methodist ministers. But you don’t do kiddy jokes to a truckers’ convention.”

I’ve told that story to dozens of comedians. Most of them responded, “I do my “A” material, and if the audience isn’t hip enough to get it, screw ‘em.” Those are the comedians whose names you’ve never heard, and never will.

In the writers’ meeting, Milton announced that he wanted to work with the two old hecklers in the box, Statler and Waldorf. (named, by the way after hotel salads.) Milton Berle was famous for his heckler routines.

True to his reputation, Mister Television showed up with a pile of heckler jokes several inches high. Then he started working his way through it in rapid fire progression, one right after another. He continued for more than 20 minutes. Fortunately, Jerry Juhl got most of it down on tape. Here’s a sample:

HECKLER

Berle!

BERLE

What is it?

HECKLER

When you were a kid, did you want to be a comedian?

BERLE

Yes, I did.

HECKLER

Well, what happened?

BERLE

I’ve got a good mind to punch you in the nose.

HECKLER

Please, not while I’m holding it.

BERLE

That’s pretty funny.

HECKLER

Then you can use it.

BERLE

I don’t need your material. I have a million good lines in the back of my head.

HECKLER

How come they never get to your mouth?

BERLE

If you don’t stop heckling me, I’ll have the usher take you out.

HECKLER

I don’t go out with ushers.

BERLE

Will you stop putting me down?, I’ve been a successful comedian half my life.

HECKLER

How come we got this half?

BERLE

I’m not going to put up with you guys any more. I have a show to do and if I have to, I’m calling the police.

HECKLER

I don’t blame you. You need all the protection you can get.

HECKLER

Hey, Berle!

BERLE

Now what?

HECKLER

Berle, I just figured out your style. You work like Gregory Peck.

BERLE

Gregory Peck is no comedian.

HECKLER

Well?

BERLE

Do you have anything else to say about me?

HECKLER

Only one thing, that you stand too close to the camera.

BERLE

How far away would you like me to be?

HECKLER

How about Cleveland?

BERLE

Since I came on, you have insulted me 25 times.

HECKLER

Oh, yeah? What’s the record? …

BERLE

You have the mind of a three-year-old.

HECKLER

Why? Do you want it back?

BERLE

Did you come in here to be entertained or not?

HECKLER

That’s right.

BERLE

What’s right?

HECKLER

I came here to be entertained … And I’m not.

BERLE

Oh, I’d like to see you get up here and be funny.

HECKLER

You first.

BERLE

I dare you wise guy. Why don’t you come down here on the stage and entertain?

HECKLER

I should.

BERLE

Can you sing?

HECKLER

No.

BERLE

Can you dance?

HECKLER

No.

BERLE

Can you get laughs?

HECKLER

No.

Then what can you do?

HECKLER

Just what you’re doing.

BERLE

You should be ashamed of yourself.

HECKLER

I know. But I’m hoping nobody saw me come in.

BERLE

Well, if you don’t keep quiet, I’ll have you thrown out and I won’t let you see the rest of the show.

HECKLER

Don’t do me any favors.

BERLE

Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me I’m not funny, is that it?

HECKLER

That’s it!

BERLE

I’ll have you know I have a ready wit.

HECKLER

Let me know when it’s ready.

HECKLER

Berle! Do I have time to go out and grab a bite to eat?

BERLE

Yes. Why?

HECKLER

You’re pretty hard to take on an empty stomach.

BERLE

I’ll teach you to make a fool of me.

HECKLER

Who needs lessons?

BERLE

Does anybody want to buy my interest in this conversation?

The second sketch we had written for Milton Berle involved his being interviewed at the stage door by a gang of Muppet reporters. Basically, each reporter’s question would be a set up line and Berle’s answer would be the punch line. This instigated a lecture on the comedian’s sense of laughter and the timing of a comedy routine.

Since vaudeville, when you had a comedy duo, straight man and a comic, the straight man was always the boss. He owned the act and he always got top billing. Think of Abbot and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Burns and Allen, Rowan and Martin.

In fact, the straight man would often change comics. The thought was that anyone could do the punch lines. After all the punch lines were funny. All the comic had to do was look silly in baggy pants and deliver them.

The straight man also controlled the timing of the act. That is the time between the punch line of one joke and the set up of the next one. It’s difficult enough to come up with a good joke. But as good as it might be, a bad straight man could kill it simply by delivering the straight line to the next joke
before
the audience had finished laughing at the previous joke.

Conversely, if a joke bombed, the straight man had the option to move more quickly to the next joke, or skip it all together. So, the straight man had to constantly be aware of the audience’s reaction.

Of course, many of the great comics who worked alone, like Milton Berle, Bob Hope and Jack Benny, still had complete control over the timing of their acts. Hope’s “But I want to tell you …”, for example, was a handy segue.

The problem arose when a solo stand up comic had to work live in an ensemble, say on a television or a radio show. Now, whoever delivered the straight line, usually an actor, had control over the timing of a laugh, not the comedian.

Berle contended that a good comedian knew the value of a joke and how long the audience would laugh at it. As Berle explained it, “They can only laugh for four and a half seconds. I timed it.”

His fear was that the Muppet reporter would feed the next straight line too soon and kill the laughter. Even though
The Muppet Show
was taped and “sweetened” later, the laugh track could only go as long as the time between the joke and the next straight line. Berle was asking us to give him a “handle” on the joke, or control the laugh track until he thought the joke was laughed out. For example, a routine without a handle goes like this:

1
^st
REPORTER

First straight line.

BERLE

First punch line.

(LAUGH TRACK)

2
^nd
REPORTER

Second straight line.

BERLE

Second punch line.

The first joke laugh track can only run until the 2
^nd
reporter’s straight line for the second joke. So, he has the control of the sketch’s timing, not the comedian.

Here’s the same routine with a “handle.”

1
^st
REPORTER

First straight line.

BERLE

First punch line.

(LAUGH TRACK)

BERLE

Next question?

2
^nd
REPORTER

Second straight line.

BERLE

Second punch line.

The “Next Question” line is the “handle”. It allows Berle to control the length of the laughter and the pace of the bit.

Milton went on to explain that in the early days when he worked live without a studio audience, the laugh track was laid in as the show was broadcast. Berle had a little flicker light installed on the front of the camera. When the laugh track ran, the light flickered. When Berle thought the joke had run its course, he threw in a “handle”, and the laugh track was faded out.

He then went on to explain how the great comedians were even more insistent when they worked with an inexperienced straight man.

“That’s what Bob does. You work for Hope, he says, “Will you wait?” And Bob always has the next line. Did you ever work for Jack Benny? Did you ever see a Benny script? Benny has the next line and he will never trust anybody else”.

Berle went on to map out Jack Benny’s greatest joke. For those too young to remember, for 35 years, first on radio and then on television, Jack Benny had created a comedic persona for himself as the cheapest man on the planet. Thousands of jokes and sketches had been written around how Jack Benny hated to part with money, and how far he would go not to spend it.

The joke was first done in front of a live radio audience. It goes like this:

Jack Benny is walking down a deserted street. Suddenly, a robber with a gun jumps out at him and says, “Your money or your life!”

The joke has no verbal punch line. Benny just stood there with his arms folded and a frown on his face. Finally, someone in the audience catches on that the cheapest man in the world is on the horns of the greatest dilemma he has ever faced: His money or his
life?
Once the laughter started it never stopped. Milton Berle claimed the laughter went on for 35 seconds, an eternity in comedy.

There’s a “topper” to the joke. After the laughter dies, the robber says, “Well? Well?” And Benny says, “I’m thinking. I’m thinking!” More laughter.

The danger with the joke, of course is that it depends on the audience catching on to Benny’s dilemma. If the robber gets nervous, he might deliver the second line, “Well? Well?”, before the audience catches on, in effect, killing the joke.

So, as Milton explained it, after the robber delivered the, “Your money or your life!”, line, he was instructed not to deliver, “Well, well?”, until Benny cued him by stroking his chin and saying, “Hmmmm.” And that’s how Jack Benny got a handle on the joke, and had full command of its timing.