So here's what happened at the Comedy Store this evening. A lot of Larry Storch fans packed the place. The evening's producer Matt Beckoff and emcee Wally Wingert brought out a bunch of Larry's friends and admirers — comedienne Helen Hong, Hank Garrett (who appeared with Larry on Car 54, Where Are You?), Marion Ross (from Happy Days), Bob Burns (who co-starred with Larry on the live-action Saturday morn series, The Ghost Busters), Peter Marshall (from The Hollywood Squares), Ted Lange and Bernie Kopell (from Love Boat) and Ken Berry and Jackie Joseph (who appeared with Larry on F Troop).
Fine, good, fun. Some very funny stories were told.
Then came Larry, who at age 91 is still able to stand on a stage and make the audience laugh a lot. He didn't have to be that funny. The people in the house loved him and would have been happy just to see him walk erect. But as it turns out, he was very funny. He told a couple of jokes that I fully intend to steal and put to my own use…not that I'll be able to tell them as well as he did. He looked like he was having a very good time, too.
The audience arrived adoring Larry and left adoring him even more. There were some great anecdotes about his long, wonderful career. Here's something I didn't know: Ken Berry told how he was cast first in F Troop, then brought in to read in auditions of actors for the role of Sgt. O'Rourke. At this point, the role of Agarn did not exist in the script. Storch came in to read for O'Rourke and Berry was thrilled at the prospect of working with such a fine comic actor.
Then Forrest Tucker read for O'Rourke and it was obvious to all he was perfect in the part. Berry thought, "Well, there goes my chance to work with Larry Storch" but as it turns out, the producers were so impressed with Larry's audition for the wrong role, they decided to add the right role to the script. That was how Ken Berry got to work with Larry Storch. For our sake, I'm glad he did.