HBO has been running Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project, a documentary by John Landis all about Guess Who. It's filled with clips of Rickles in Vegas, interviews with Rickles at home, excerpts from old Rickles appearances and — of the greatest interest — interviews with Rickles friends and his fellow performers. It's a nice tribute to a guy who deserves a tribute if only for sheer energy and endurance.
What intrigues me are the excerpts from the man's current Vegas act, which is not all that different from what he was doing when the world first heard of him. Along the way, there were detours — attempts to position him as an actor, as a sitcom star and even as a musical performer — but they never stuck. In the early eighties, I saw him at either the Sahara or the Riviera in Las Vegas. I forget which it was but I recall my reaction to his performance. He was truly awful. A lot of people walked out on him and my party would have joined them but we couldn't believe that what we were seeing was all he was going to do. It was about an hour of singing and dancing and talking about his life and career…and most astonishing, a long speech about how each and every one of us should be constantly thanking God for blessing us with the greatest human being who ever walked this Earth…Frank Sinatra.
It was the most amazing example I've ever seen of a performer not knowing what he did for a living. Imagine you go see the world's best juggler and instead of tossing things in the air, he comes out and just tells "Knock Knock" jokes for an hour. That's kinda what it was…Don Rickles not insulting anyone and as a result, not being particularly funny or entertaining.
At some point though, the old act seems to have kicked in. One imagines God visiting him one dark and thunderous night, appearing before Rickles in a dream, telling him, "Don, you big dummy! I put you on this planet to call your fellow man a hockey puck!" However it happened, I'm glad it did. Rickles started being Rickles again. When I heard, I went back to see him again in Vegas and breathed a sigh of relief when he came out on stage, spotted a fat guy purposely placed in front by the ushers, and called out for Captain Ahab to come spear Moby Dick in Row A. (I was also relieved the designated fat guy wasn't me.)
Thereabouts, he stomped about on stage, sweating and free associating, spitting out semi-coherent but always amusing palaver. He said something about sitting in a hot tub and watching a duck sink. He suggested something about going to Vermont to suck sap out of rubber trees. He even offered up my favorite, which was the line — I'm not sure what it means but I love it anyway — about dropping his pants and firing a rocket. Every third sentence began with "I tell you this" or sometimes, "I tell you this, gang." Over and over: "I tell you this, I tell you this…"
It was wonderful. I don't know why it was wonderful…maybe just the rhythm and attitude. He was just so Don Rickles. The documentary is 90 minutes of Rickles being Rickles, and that's why it's wonderful. Try and catch it if you can. You hockey puck.