Foster Brooks — aka "The Lovable Lush" — has passed away at the age of 89. They said it was "natural causes" which, in his case, should have meant alcoholism, which he portrayed so well on stages for decades. That is, it would if he really drank, which he reportedly didn't. But he sure played a funny drunk. I don't usually find that all that amusing — and less so as I get older — but I do recall the first time I saw him. There was a brief time on The Tonight Show when Mr. Carson was occasionally booking fake guests to come out and be silly. He'd bring them on with serious, deadpan intros and then, once they were seated in the chair next to him, they'd say or do something outrageous.
Brooks, who was then an unknown actor, was introduced as the Mayor of Burbank. This was back when Johnny was based in New York and occasionally doing his show from "Hollywood," which on NBC meant Burbank. Out came Brooks, looking for all the world like a Mayor of Burbank, and the first few exchanges were sober and somewhat boring. Mayor Brooks was sipping nervously from a cup and, around the third or fourth question, you started to notice him slurring his words. He got more and more tipsy and he did it so well that I suspect a lot of viewers actually thought, "Oh, my God…the Mayor of Burbank is getting drunk on The Tonight Show and embarrassing himself." By the end of the spot, he was practically falling off his chair and so was Carson, who was finally unable to keep a straight puss. He had Brooks on again a few weeks later, introduced as some other dignitary, and Foster was launched on a new career.
He embarked on a stand-up act that was, I thought, pretty awful — old, slightly blue jokes that would have gotten tossed off the Playboy Party Jokes page for sophomoric content — but he did have that funny, intoxicated delivery. It kept him working, especially in casino rooms, for a long time. I saw what I think was his last Vegas engagement — at the Sahara, as part of Milton Berle's Comedy Roast of Sid Caesar (mentioned in this column) — and he got around 10 minutes of solid laughs from pretty dreadful material. The one joke I remember was how Tang, the breakfast drink, now came in different flavors and he liked the prune, because "every man loves a little Prune Tang." I suppose we should have a certain respect for a comedian who can build a whole career on one drunk act and jokes like that.