Okay, pay attention now. Today, we have an excerpt from one of the funniest things I ever saw on television. You'll laugh at this but you have to trust me: If you could see the whole thing, you'd truly laugh yourself sick.
It occurred on The Tonight Show in 1973 or maybe 1974. Joey Bishop was the Guest Host…and because of that fact alone, the full tape of this may be lost forever. You all know how the early years of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show were lost. Someone at NBC decided to reuse the tapes or to not waste the storage space…or something. Whatever the reason, those years weren't preserved. At some point, Johnny and others realized this and they began to save his episodes…but even then, they were still negligent for a while about preserving the one with guest hosts. The shows with Mr. Carson had rerun value in the near future. When Johnny took a week off, as he did often, they'd sometimes slap in a week of recycled shows…and there was also a weekend Best of Carson broadcast of an old program. So they saved the ones Johnny hosted. The ones without him were apt to get lost forever since they didn't rerun shows with anyone else behind the desk.
I remember watching this, laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath and then thinking, "Geez…I'm never going to get to see that again. I can't show it to anyone. It's gone forever." (And by the way: Don't get your expectations up. All we have here is an excerpt which doesn't even include the funniest parts.)
All right. I'm going to try to describe what's missing…and remember, I'm doing this from memory based on one viewing 37 years ago. If a tape of the full thing ever surfaces and it doesn't match exactly, don't flog me.
Joey Bishop is guest hosting. I don't know about you but I never felt Mr. Bishop had many more qualifications to be in show business beyond the fact that Mr. Sinatra found him amusing. His 60's sitcom was great but that was the writing, not the star. As a talk show host, on his program or subbing for Johnny, I thought he had a tendency to suck all the humor right off the stage.
He introduces Brooks with one of those "don't blame me if this guy bombs" intros. I don't recall the words but it was something like, "Here's a young man I'm told is very funny." He didn't seem to know what was coming…or maybe he did and was just plain afraid of it.
A curtain comes up and there's Albert Brooks sitting in a small living room set which, he explains, he brought from home. He says he has something important to talk to the audience about and he felt that he should do it in comfortable, familiar surroundings. His mood is serious and I'm not sure there's a single real laugh — only nervous audience titters — for about the first minute. He explains, seemingly deadpan serious, that he has nothing to perform for us this evening.
The audience, which at first wasn't sure what to make of this earnest heart-to-heart, is starting to figure out it's a bit and starting to laugh as this clip begins…
But despite the way the above clip ends, it goes on. Right after he says, "This…this isn't me," he hauls out an eight-by-ten theatrical-style photo of himself and proclaims, "This is me!"
And then, in seeming earnest, he announces his retirement from show business. The band starts to play a flowery song — it may have been "My Way" — and the curtain comes up behind him on a dark area illuminated by three spotlights.
Years earlier, Jimmy Durante would close his TV shows with a similar exit. He'd walk into the first spotlight, turn and wave goodbye to the audience…walk into the second, turn and wave goodbye to the audience…then walk into the third, turn and wave goodbye to the audience…then walk off into the darkness.
Now, Albert Brooks attempts to do the same exit. With dramatic farewell music swelling, he heads for the first spotlight — but remember, he has his pants around his ankles. So he doesn't walk…he kind of waddles. He waddles into the first spotlight, turns and waves goodbye to the audience. Then he waddles into the second spotlight, turns and waves goodbye to the audience. Then he waddles into the third and by now, I'm laughing so hard that I miss what's going on. I have a vague idea that he trips, falls on his face in the third spotlight and the curtain comes down on that but maybe not. Maybe he just waddles into the darkness. Whatever it is, it is explosive.
The audience goes insane. Screaming. Clapping. Yelling. Cheering.
And then the camera cuts back to Joey Bishop looking utterly mystified, sputtering a few puzzled words before throwing to commercial. That was the funniest thing about it to me. Joey Bishop had no idea what had just happened. He didn't get the joke.
At least, that's how I remember it.
I do recall that moment of despair, thinking "I'm never going to see that again." Apparently, the entire show is lost. The above clip reportedly exists only because Albert Brooks pointed a 16mm movie camera at the TV screen that night and shot a homemade kinescope for himself. He ran the film or parts thereof in a few places. Whoever put the clip on YouTube probably got it from a VHS or Laserdisc of an obscure show that Milton Berle did a few years later. I'm not sure if it was a series or a couple of pilots but it was a thing called Milton Berle's Mad Mad Mad World of Comedy — kind of a cross between a talk show and a comedy history program.
Each week, Berle and a guest comedian would look at clips of great funny performances — theirs and work by others — and discuss the fine art of evoking laughter. Brooks was a guest on one of the episodes and if you ever get a chance to see a copy, watch it. He completely upstaged Berle and Uncle Miltie didn't like it. If ever there was one piece of videotape that summarized the passing of the torch, a new generation of comedians driving out the old, it was Albert Brooks topping Milton Berle at every turn. The sight of Joey Bishop not understanding the routine on The Tonight Show, — even though the studio audience sure did — was another such moment.
Anyway, I think that's everything I have to offer about this clip. I wish you could see the whole thing. Heck, I wish I could see the whole thing. Just a few years later, Andy Kaufman would rise to fame expanding on this kind of thing. Intermittently, there was something kind of charming about Kaufman but often there was not. And even when he was at his best, I never thought he was half as good as Albert Brooks.