I suspect a lot of folks under the age of 60 respected Milton Berle — assuming they really knew who he was — not because he was funny but because he was first. He couldn't appear anywhere without someone (often, him) reminding us that he was Mr. Television, aka Uncle Miltie, aka The Man Who Invented TV Comedy. He spent his life in show business, commencing as a child actor being thrust into the spotlight by a pushy stage mother. He claimed to have been the kid who sold Charlie Chaplin a newspaper in Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), though some film historians question that. Throughout his career, Berle had many great accomplishments but he always seemed to be claiming they were even greater — that is, when he wasn't telling people how large his penis was. I have no idea if that last brag was true but the others weren't that far wrong.
He was in show business almost from the time he could walk. He was a major headliner in vaudeville and a star on Broadway. He was the impetus for so many American households to scrape up the bucks to buy their first television machine. He was even, at times, as notorious a stealer of other comics' material as he joked he was.
He was at his best when he was playing straight for other comedians. On his sixties' TV show, the best segments came when he was heckled by a rude audience member named Sidney Spritzer — in reality, veteran burlesque comic Irv Benson. Spritzer would insult Berle relentlessly and stop him from performing. Eventually, they'd always get to this joke which I loved…
SPRITZERYou're too close to the microphone.
BERLEHow far should I be?
SPRITZERYou got a car?
An old joke? Certainly. But one of the reasons Berle's material seemed so shopworn to many of us was that he'd been doing it for eons, and whole generations of comedians had helped themselves to it. (That particular Milton Berle Show didn't last long, by the way. In fact, when it was cancelled, Berle — probably with the aid of some writer — remarked, "I've figured out how to end the Vietnam War. Just put in on ABC and it'll be gone in thirteen weeks.")
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Berle on a couple of occasions, one of which is recounted in my article here on Henny Youngman. Another, which I just this second posted, is this article about a time I was poaching on the set of Love Boat. And, of course, he was one of the stars of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which is mentioned, ad nauseum, on this site. One of these days, when a little more time has passed, I'll try and write up a few other stories I heard or observed that perhaps shape or cloud my admiration for the man. For now, I'll just say that he had a rich, wonderful life and probably no regrets, apart from the fact that he didn't outlive Bob Hope…or die a few days earlier, so they could have mentioned it on this year's Oscars.