About ten minutes ago, I was watching a show on The History Channel all about Las Vegas. Alan King was on the screen talking about the town just as I received an e-mail from someone telling me Alan King had passed away. I respected the years and the skill but I somehow never warmed up to the guy on TV. I think at times it was that he dressed too well. I'd see him on Ed Sullivan's show bitching about the airlines and he always struck me as a very wealthy, successful guy who shouldn't have been pretending to speak for the Little Man. My father laughed at him and my aunt asked, "How can he get away with saying such things?"
But I never really laughed, nor did I feel like I was supposed to. He was the comedian of my parents' generation and he sure knew how to entertain those folks. Here's a link to the New York Times obit.
My all-time favorite Alan King performance was not a standup performance but a "concept" record album he made in 1960 called Alan King in Suburbia. It featured monologue material about living in the suburbs, interspersed with very funny songs written by Bobby Worth and Jack Quigley. It's quite hard to find — I scoured the Internet and couldn't even locate a JPEG of its cover to post here — but if you ever spot a copy at a garage sale, grab it. Maybe Dr. Demento will play a couple of cuts in memoriam.