In the mid-to-late seventies, there were a lot of memorable comedians to be seen up at the Comedy Store in Hollywood: Pryor, Letterman, Leno, Dangerfield, etc. The one some patrons will never forget was Lenny Schultz. He was big in New York comedy clubs, too…and I guess he was more often found in them. Stand-up comedy was Lenny's secondary profession. Ask him what his main line of work was and he'd tell you — truthfully — "I teach socially-maladjusted students to drive." He also taught Physical Education in the New York School System. That was when he wasn't ripping off his clothes on stage and covering his body with yogurt.
I only saw him perform a few times and one thing I remember is that when he was on the bill, patrons asked not to have the good seats up front. Or if they were in them, they made a point of moving to a rear table just before Lenny came on. His reputation was that he was liable to do just about anything up there and much of it involved spraying food in every direction. Other comics would tell tales that began, "Did you hear what Lenny did on stage last night?" And then they'd tell some story that you couldn't believe had actually happened…
…until you recalled things he had done and then you'd think, "Well, if anyone would do that, it would be Lenny."
Letterman and Seinfeld talked about him in that video we've been discussing here. He wasn't the workingest comic of his day but he may have been the most-discussed among his peers. Among the things they'd say about him was that it was a shame that what it was that made him so special on a stage just plain didn't translate to television. I'm not sure Dave ever had him on his show but if he did, it wasn't more than once or twice.
(Letterman makes mention in the video of the time Lenny brought a midget up on stage. If you're not easily offended, a third or fourth-hand account of that alleged incident can be found a few paragraphs down on in the article on this page. Is it true? I dunno. I'm sure a lot of what was reported about him was in the Urban Legend category. Thanks to Alan Burnett for finding that link.)
He was pretty funny when I saw him at the Store in the late seventies and apparently, he continued to perform, closer to his day job, through the end of that century and well into this one. I'm not sure if he's still at it but it wouldn't surprise me. Almost nothing about Lenny would surprise me.
Here's eight-and-a-half minutes of things he did on TV, which is not the kind of stuff that made Lenny the envy of his peers…for sheer guts if nothing else. I'm not sure what videos, if any, exist of him in clubs — that's what you'd really want to see — but most of this is from the 1979 revival of Laugh-In, the one that didn't feature Rowan and Martin but did have Lenny, Robin Williams, Sergio Aragonés and others. Sergio performed and also did some animations, one of which is in here for a second. It's not the best example of Lenny being Lenny but there's some very funny stuff in it. Also, you'll want to watch this video just to hear Ed Sullivan say, "For those of you who've never seen a cockfight…"