It was Bob Williams who had the act with the dog that didn't do anything. See? I remembered the "Bob" part. Thanks to Bruce Reznick, Stu Shostak, Kevin Greenlee and Dan Varner, who all e-mailed me within ten minutes of each other. Two of them also suggested this video link to a clip from Hollywood Palace. The first minute or so is a montage of novelty performers and the last few are Bob Williams with his dog, Louie. I think he had a couple of different dogs over the years, including one named Red Dust.
It's odd…I remember thinking this was the funniest act in the world when I was younger. Now, I'm a little more conscious of the fact that some animal acts are not very good to the animals and I can't help wondering how this pooch was treated. Maybe Louie was well fed and very happy but wondering about it gets in the way of enjoying the act for me.
I worked on a show once where they tried to book Bob Williams. As I recall, he wanted a sum of money that our producer thought was excessive and some agent had an imitation act that was priced more reasonably…so they hired this other guy, who wasn't nearly as funny. He treated his dogs (he used two) quite well and we even had a Humane Society rep on the set who concurred. So I tell myself Williams did likewise. Here's the clip. Bob Williams and Louie turn up for the second half of it.
