I love Carl Reiner. Carl Reiner is one of my heroes. I think he's one of the ten-or-so most talented men ever in the world of funny. Maybe the five-or-so. I've met him a few times, never for long enough, and he's a lovely, funny man who intimidates me. Before I talk about his new book, let me tell you how much he intimidates me…
At the memorial service for his friend and co-worker (and mine) Howard Morris, Mr. Reiner led off the proceedings with the greatest, funniest eulogy I ever heard in my life…and as readers of this blog know too well, I go to a lot of funerals. I was sitting there, enjoying every syllable of it when I heard Andy Griffith, who was sitting right behind me, mutter to a companion, "Boy, I'm glad I don't have to follow that."
Which was a chilling thing to hear when you're the one who's supposed to follow that. Howie's son David had asked me to deliver the second speech.
I have no problem speaking in front of crowds at comic book conventions. My skills in the speechifying department are not great but they're good enough for that. More importantly, I kinda belong on those stages. Where I feel uncomfy is if someone else on the premises clearly belongs "up there" a lot more than I do. At the funeral for Lorenzo Music, for instance, Bob Newhart was in the front row.
Bob Newhart's in the audience. I'm up on stage where the microphone is. What is wrong with this picture?
Not only that but he was positioned so if I looked out at the crowd, it was "Hi, Bob!" He was right there…taunting me by deliberately looking exactly like Bob Newhart.
There are seasoned comedians, I am sure, who would be intimidated by trying to be funny with Bob F'ing Newhart less than three yards from them. A year or two later in the same auditorium, there was a memorial for the brilliant comedy writer, Pat McCormick. The speakers list was a Who's Who of comedy and I was so happy not to be on it. But I was in charge of the seating at that event and I could place all those great comedians wherever I chose. As a personal joke, I decided to select the guest I thought would most intimidate each person who got up at the lectern and put that person into The Bob Newhart Seat. As a result, every one of them except for George Carlin had to deliver his speech staring directly at George Carlin.
I got through my Lorenzo Music tribute largely by not looking at Mr. Newhart. Well, I did once. I said something that got a big laugh from the assemblage and while they were laughing, I peeked at Bob, saw he was laughing too and then never looked at him again that evening.
So here we are at the Howie Morris funeral and Carl Reiner delivers the perfect eulogy and then sits himself down in the front row in The Bob Newhart Seat…the seat I'll be staring at in a moment when the rabbi calls me up there to speak next. I am genuinely afraid. Carl Reiner in that chapel's Bob Newhart Seat is even more terrifying a thought than Bob Newhart in a Bob Newhart Seat…and Bob Newhart in a Bob Newhart Seat is pretty damn scary.
Fortunately, I get a reprieve. The rabbi forgets there's a predetermined order so instead of introducing the poor sap who's supposed to go next, he just asks for volunteers. Several others are quicker to put up their hands and/or just go charging up to the podium. So as each finishes, someone braver/pushier than I am goes next.
A few of them even talk about Howie. At Show Biz Memorials, there's always at least one fellow whose idea of a eulogy is to go on and on about himself and his own career, perhaps mentioning his "dearest friend in the entire world" (i.e., the Deceased) as a brief aside. I sit there, ever so glad to let all those other folks go ahead of me in order to put more distance between my speech and Carl Reiner's. I even come up with a thought of how I could maybe bring myself to look at Carl F'ing Reiner sitting there in the front row.
Here is my idea. You know how they say to overcome fear of an audience, you should imagine them all naked? That wouldn't work here. The average age in the room is Howie's and who the hell wants to see that? But what I decide I'll do is to tell myself over and over, "That's not Carl Reiner sitting there. That's Alan Brady." They look very much alike, you know, but Carl Reiner is a genius, whereas I always thought Alan Brady was kind of an untalented schmuck. It's not that hard to give a speech in front of an untalented schmuck…and maybe, I think, he'll even heckle me and I can tell him to shut up.
But then by the time I have that idea and a moment when I could claim the microphone, I realize it's just too late. Too many speakers, I decide, have gone on too long about themselves and even at times about Howie. The audience is getting restless so I motion to David and he understands and nods in agreement. So that's how I didn't speak at Howie Morris's funeral and it's all because of Carl Reiner.
Nevertheless, I want to recommend his new book, I Remember Me, which I purchased and am now reading on Kindle. But though I am Kindling it, this book is not kindling in the firewood sense. It is, like everything Alan Brady's look-alike has done, quite wonderful and delightful and I recommend you order a copy, on paper or not, by clicking right about here. As long as Mr. Reiner keeps putting out these little freeform memoirs, I will be purchasing and enjoying them…and now here comes the "But."
But! I am bothered by something that keeps happening in this book. I will cite two examples from around the middle…
A year before I had the opportunity to direct George Burns in the film, Oh, God!, we had one short but significant exchange. It was at a Hollywood party, where Mel Brooks and I were asked to perform The 2000 Year Old Man. At that time, we had no thought of recording it, as it was just something we did at parties to amuse our friends. At one of these soirees, after we had performed and received a goodly amount of laughs, George Burns asked, "Have you boys put this on a record?" When we said we had not, he puffed on his cigar and said, "Record it or I am going to steal it." It was excellent advice, and we took it.
I do not understand why that paragraph is the way it is. The first 2000 Year Old Man record came out in 1960 or 1961, depending on which source one believes. But it definitely came out at least sixteen years before the movie, Oh, God!
A few pages later, Mr. Reiner writes about an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show in which actor Lennie Weinrib was a last minute substitution for Shecky Greene…
It was the third year of the show, and we had invited Shecky to guest as an acerbic, Don Rickles-type of insult comedian. It had been written for Don Rickles, who had agreed to do the part, but a last-minute conflict with his recurring role on McHale's Navy left us one player short.
The episode in question was entitled "Buddy, Can You Spare a Job?" and it aired on December 26, 1961. It was the 14th episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show broadcast and it was in the show's first season, not its third. I'm not sure Don Rickles was ever on McHale's Navy but he certainly wasn't a regular and even if he had been, it wouldn't have kept him off that episode of Dick Van Dyke. That's because McHale's Navy didn't even go on the air until October of 1962. (There's a possible explanation for Reiner's confusion here. In 1961, Rickles had a one-time guest shot role on a different navy comedy that was then on the air — Hennesey starring Jackie Cooper. And I'm not sure if this connects in any way but Jimmy Komack, who had a recurring role on that series, directed the "Buddy, Can You Spare a Job?" episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show.)
Whatever the circumstances, there's no excuse for this kind of mistake…and I don't blame Carl Reiner. The publisher of a book is supposed to vet and verify such things and the dates are easily checkable with the tiniest amount of Googling. Just e-mailing an advance manuscript to an expert like Vince Waldron would have caught plenty of them.
There are other such lapses in the book which I may or may not list. I don't want to prevent you from ordering it because it's quite good and I'll bet Reiner's memory is perfect on the punchlines and clever story points. That's the kind of thing a good creative mind will retain forever even if it gets some dates wrong.
Carl Reiner, even at age 91, has a good creative mind. I was going to write, "I hope I have one half as good when I'm that age" but the truth is I wish I had that now. I'd settle for a third.