Nice obit in the L.A. Times for our pal Vic Dunlop. And I'll toss in a quick story here…
Vic was a cast member on a show I worked on called The Half-Hour Comedy Hour, which was basically Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In rolled into one. We had a roster of funny folks including Jan Hooks, Arsenio Hall, Thom Sharp, Rod Hull & Emu, Victoria Jackson and others. Up in the writers' offices, we spent all day writing little sketches for these folks to do.
For a time, we had trouble deciding what to write for Vic. We all knew he was funny but we didn't quite have a handle on what kind of material would suit him best. Then one day, one of the writers — it might have been me — suggested that Vic was great at physical comedy and at playing a shlep/victim. That opened the logjam and the material began flowing freely.
Vic dropped by the office the next day and visited the various rooms where teams of writers worked. He came by the one where a fellow named Mert Rich and I worked and we told him, "Hey, Vic! We just wrote a bit where you get dragged through a buffet and covered with food."
"Great," Vic said. Vic knew the value of slapstick.
The next team of writers informed him, "We're working on a routine where a house painter keeps dropping buckets of paint on your head."
"Terrific," Vic said.
The next team explained, "We have a series of running gags here where you keep sitting on breakaway furniture and falling on your ass."
"Love it," Vic said. And so it went with all the other writers. We were all writing stuff like that for him.
Later that day after Vic had departed, our producer called all the writers in and said, "I've been looking over the material. Just what is it that you guys all have against Vic Dunlop?"