After a week in which, holy Toledo, freakin’ glaciers melted in Nepal and all-world all-star champion megawatt entertainers Dolly Parton and Tim Curry passed, the question of how the heck Monsieur Blogmeister can write today’s post arises. The answer is. . . NACHO LIBRE!
Something about this bit involving The Lord's Chips cracks me up.
Yes, Jack Black is clearly a fan of luchador movies, which definitely number among the favorite psychotronic cinema goodies of the gang here. The B-movie devotees at Dark Corners Reviews and The Cinema Snob concur!
The utter cheesiness of the killer robots and grotesque Aztec mummies battling El Santo remains something to behold.
The lucha libre genre was definitely influenced by such robot-filled American B and C studio serials as The Mysterious Dr. Satan and The Monster & The Ape. Did Mexico's professional wrestlers don masks because they saw them in Republic serials?
These productions, regardless of budget (or lack of one), GO FOR BROKE! Pedal to the metal!
Mexico's amped-up answer to American horror films/monster movies and sci-fi feature masked wrestlers, mummies, mad scientists, robots, vampires, werewolves, zombies, extraterrestrials and derriere-kicking wrestling women started in 1957. It resulted in delirium.
The many lucha libre movies include an offshoot genre involving wrestling women and are even more bizarre when dubbed into English. In such enjoyably demented ultra-psychotronic films as The Wrestling Women Vs The Aztec Mummy, doubly deranged mad scientists and robotic ladies who transform into derriere-kicking wrestling wonders are the order of the day. Would double billing this with A Touch Of Evil work? Think so, although both might have to be preceded by The Three Stooges in Grips, Grunts and Groans, plus Bugs Bunny in Bunny Hugged.
Yes, there are lots and lots of El Santo flicks - check out this Santo playlist.
The masked wrestler starred in 52 films!
Now, getting back to Jack Black, the following may be the single funniest, rudest sketch I have seen from SNL in quite some time. Jack spoofs his own over-the-top persona and "take it to the extreme" ethos.
Love the trifecta of SNL stalwarts Kenan Thompson, Ashley Padilla and Jack Black in the following sketch. They are three brilliant comedy performers.
Now, just how the segue from Jack Black to Santo to Lewis Black happens, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog have no idea! So. . . enjoy, on Jack Black's birthday, the satiric, caustic, biting and hilarious comedy of Lewis Black.
Here are some amazing Lewis Black stand-up sets.
Have been aficionados of Black's "The Rant Is Due" videos for quite a few years.
This Lewis Black clip from 20+ years ago strikes the gang here as weirdly like 2026. While the names have changed, the story persists - and Lewis Black enthusiastically skewers all miscreants in his path.
Indeed, laughs are getting harder and harder to find these days - and that brings us to Billy Crystal.
Billy, born on this day in 1948, was one of the last cuts from those scheduled to perform in the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975 and would be on the short list, along with Michael McKean, of those who hosted SNL before becoming a cast member.
Not that surprisingly, present-day comments regarding Mr. Crystal's stand-up act way back in the 1970's and 1980's demonstrate that many young people have no idea who Sammy Davis Jr and Muhammad Ali were. The superstardom of both Mr. Davis, the seriously driven entertainer/Rat Pack cornerstone and the heavyweight champ back in those days is downright difficult to explain to those 25 and under in 2026.
Suffice to say that while Billy Crystal has done a gazillion things in showbiz over the past five decades, the favorite of this blog remains his eulogy at Muhammad Ali's memorial service.
Billy started his career, way back before he started appearing in the Susan Harris Productions show Soap, with a very funny impression of Muhammad Ali. The pugilist/social activist saw it and the two became lifelong friends.
Before Billy hosted SNL in 1983, there was his prime-time Billy Crystal Comedy Hour, co-starring SCTV stalwarts John Candy, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.
We like Saturday Night Live season 10 a great deal, even given its reliance on pre-taped segments and the downright astonishing fact that producers Dick Ebersol and Bob Tischler opted NOT to have Geena Davis or Andrea Martin in the cast.
Guaranteed to leave young'uns completely, utterly baffled: the following spoof of the hit 1980's TV series that teamed formidable comic character actress and former SNL cast member Jane Curtin with Susan St. James, co-star of McMillan & Wife (who was married to SNL's second producer, Dick Ebersol). Here's hopin' Kate Hepburn and Muhammad Ali got the joke and at least found it somewhat funny.
Fernando may be my singular favorite Billy Crystal persona.
Another standout from SNL season 10: the masochistic night watchmen played by Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest.
Still find it amazing to see Crystal, Guest, Eddie Murphy, Martin Short and Rich Hall - yes, all of them - together in the Broadway Gumby Rose sketch.
We respectfully tip the Jimmie Hatlo hat and wish a Happy Birthday to Billy, with additional hat tips, kudos, bravos and huzzahs going to Muhammad Ali, Johnny Winter - and the YouTube channel Saturday Night Network for terrific summaries of each season of the show, plus interviews with cast members.
High atop the list of reasons we're here writing a blog on a bordering on frigid winter day is . . . comedy. Used to see lots of San Francisco stand-up comedy way back when, many moons ago (1970's and 1980's), in the olden days of the Holy City Zoo on Clement Street and the Other Cafe in the inner Sunset. Got lucky and saw a 1:00 a.m. set by Robin Williams!
Definitely prefer stand-up comedians who are off the beaten path. Two favorites: Gilbert Gottfried and Stephen Wright!
Love stand-up comics who are not just off the beaten path but WAY off the beaten path. Two stand-ups along those lines who used to appear frequently in the San Francisco Bay Area were Bob "The Ol' Rube" Rubin and Bobcat Goldthwait, just two among a slew of talented and way-out comedians back then.
The only comedian I can think of recalling Stephen Wright in exploring the cosmos of the stand-up comedy universe was the late, great Mitch Hedberg (1968-2005).
And that brings us to the main topic of today's post on unorthodox standup comics: Emo Philips, born on this day, February 7, in 1956, a fabulous year for rockabilly, jazz, blues, Frank Sinatra at Capitol Records and outstanding sketch comedy starring Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs.
Emo Philips was hitting the big time during the same era (1980's) as Bobcat Goldthwait and Bob Rubin.
TV's Weird Al Yankovic Show had its share of very funny bits involving Emo Philips.
We extend a big time Max Linder top hat tip to Emo and all the outstanding stand-ups of yore!
In the oddest of odd coincidences, our comedy-centric beat recently has been focused on late night TV - and behold, big time changes are underway in that world.
The latest and not greatest is that Stephen Colbert has been canned by the pathetic craven cowards and greedy bastards at CBS and Paramount. CBS' not so grand poobahs, very likely smarting over Colbert's criticism of the pending merger of Paramount Media and Skydance Global, will pull the plug on the show when the Late Show host's contract expires next May.
That said, as we stifle no small degree of anger, disgust, contempt and revulsion towards CBS, Paramount, Shari Redstone and the Ellisons (Larry and David), we continue our series Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was the biggest thing in showbiz, so big that The Beach Boys devoted a song to him. This ditty is as catchy as can be and even the nasal vocals of Mike Love are enjoyable! We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog agree wholeheartedly with Brian Wilson's assessment, as Johnny was the coolest guy ever, especially in his 1960's and 1970's heydey as The King Of Late Night. Reportedly, Johnny HATED the song, but what the heck, it's our blog, so here it is.
There are innumerable extremely funny Carson clips, even with so many of the 1960's shows still missing - WAY too many Tonight Shows were taped over.
Herrrrrrrrre's Johnny, first with vocalist and actor (then on the Daniel Boone TV series), Ed Ames.
Can't believe I forgot all about Johnny's hilarious routine with Jack "Joe Friday" Webb from a 1968 Tonight Show. As Webb's radio shows (Pat Novak For Hire and Dragnet) and his guest star appearance on an episode of All Star Revue starring the wacky Ritz Brothers indicate, he possessed a wry sense of humor.
Do we miss the ridiculously talented Betty White, always flat-out hilarious on The Tonight Show with Johnny and other hosts? Yes. Did Betty ever get the opportunity to be a Tonight Show guest host? I don't know, but that would have been great.
Today we pay tribute to the many terrific stand-up comedians seen frequently on Carson and Letterman (note with the exception of Groucho, there weren't tons of comics on Dick Cavett's show, at least in his 1960's and early 1970's incarnation which aired between 10:00 p.m. and late night).
Johnny Carson's Tonight evolved into a showcase for stand-up comedians.
George Carlin, with Richard Pryor the best of the monologists, actually guest hosted The Tonight Show, as did Groucho Marx, Mort Sahl and Bob Newhart.
Johnny often featured his contemporaries in the standup world: Jackie Mason, Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart and, especially, Rodney Dangerfield.
Richard Pryor, most trenchant of all stand-up philosophers, was a frequent guest on both the Carson and Letterman shows.
As was Stephen Wright.
One of the outstanding albeit lesser-known stand-up philosophers was the excellent Native American comedian and actor Charlie Hill, featured along with Robin Williams on The Richard Pryor Show.
Among the satirists seen on Late Night With David Letterman: Bill Hicks (1962-1994).
Sam Kinison, friend and cohort of Bill Hicks, brought his incendiary Pentecostal preacher persona and severe fallout from multiple bad marriages to the stand-up world.
In another galaxy of the stand-up comedy universe: Mitch Hedberg (1968-2005).
And then there was Norm, like Mitch Hedberg an original thinker with a singular view of the world.
Here, David Letterman pays tribute to his friend (and friend of all late-night TV shows) Robin Williams.
Robin cracked up Johnny and David and thus got dozens of appearances on their shows.
Here's the monologue that got Stephen Colbert, here sporting a mustache reminiscent of the octogenarian version of Groucho Marx, fired. Colbert is correct in his assessment that CBS' craven 16 million settlement of a frivolous lawsuit by Off-Brand Orbán was, indeed, a BIG FAT BRIBE.
Desperately hoping the merger will get FCC approval, CBS announced that the decision to cancel Late Night With Stephen Colbert is for "financial reasons." Even given that high-rated late night TV shows don't bring in anywhere near the dough-re-me they did in the past, ESPECIALLY during the 1960's heydey of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, to suggest that this decision is not at all politically motivated remains laughable.
The behavior of CBS/Paramount over the potential merger with Sundance (producers of dumb, lousy action flicks) and the pusillanimous actions of the cowards at Columbia University and the Paul Weiss law firm, alas, is par for the course these days.
And, yes, Your Correspondent makes this observation even after having listened to Keith Olbermann's extended excoriation of Colbert, the guy who followed David Letterman at the CBS Late Show franchise. It would be an understatement to suggest that Mr. Olbermann, both the most erudite and scathing of commentators, vehemently dislikes Mr. Colbert.
At CBS, 60 Minutes, the show the "don't you mess with me" likes of Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley and Harry Reasoner worked on, will be next to go.
That's because in 2025, plummeting television viewership and the related popularity of streaming with young viewers has dramatically reduced the potential for TV shows, including news-related programs which in the past were loss leaders for the networks, to make not just the big bucks but ANY bucks.
As far as the Paramount/CBS 16 million bribe by brazen, lily-livered and yellow-bellied appeasers of fascists is concerned, no doubt those pocket-lining Teapot Dome boys of 100+ years ago would say "geeeeees, Louise, can you guys tone down the sleazy corruption, graft and grift just a smidge?"
Rant over! In closing, thanks, readers, for your patience. After realizing that it appears to be the end of the road for the format which began with Steve Allen and hit its high water mark with Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett and David Letterman - while admitting that his own viewing of Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live over the past decade has invariably been via YouTube, NOT at time of broadcast - we shall return next weekend with the fourth installment of Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV.
On December 1, 2024, the addled mind that writes this blog wanders to the question of who would be considered unequivocally the Godfathers of the Psychotronix Film Festival (which we hope just might MAYBE return to Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, CA sometime in early spring 2025).
One answer would be the highly original standup comedian and actor Dick Shawn, born on this day in 1923.
Many of us way back in the halcyon days of the 20th century first saw Dick Shawn dancing with the nimble and graceful Barrie Chase in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
Shawn's character of Sylvester Marcus in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World is the son of. . . an even more over-the-top character, played beyond the hilt by Ethel Merman.
And then there's Dick Shawn's performance as Lorenzo St. DuBois in Mel Brooks' 1968 movie The Producers.
Mark Evanier delves into the career and standup comedy of Dick Shawn, as well as the role of Lorenzo St. DuBois, in an outstanding post on his News From Me website. Unlike most of us writer/historian types, Mr. Evanier has the advantage of actually having seen Dick Shawn's standup act multiple times.
The earliest Dick Shawn appearances we've seen are from 1954-1955 on The Steve Allen Show.
It's true - Dick Shawn was a guest on The Judy Garland Show. These were two performers who went for broke; to use a hackneyed sports expression, they left it all on the playing field, only every time.
Didn't know there was still a Colgate Comedy Hour in 1967, but, instead of Bob Hope, Martin & Lewis, Eddie Cantor or Abbott & Costello as seen in its 1950's incarnation, here's Dick Shawn, introduced by another long-gone but not forgotten comedy great, Allan Sherman.
We especially love Mr. Shawn's role as Bing Bell the singing cowboy in the unique, inventive and comedian-packed 1972 western spoof Evil Roy Slade.
Dick Shawn appeared twice on the shows of Bill Boggs.
It is not lost upon us here that at the end of the following show, Dick Shawn shares the scene with a highly original and inventive standup comedian after his own heart, the indescribably hilarious Dana Gould.
Dick Shawn's last TV appearance would be on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on November 11, 1986.
In closing, we note that Madame Blogmeister saw Dick Shawn do a standup comedy set three months after this Tonight Show appearance, and noted that he was having difficulties just maintaining a basic level of coherence, so the heart condition that took him out just a few weeks later was not the only severe health issue he was suffering from. This brings to mind what happened to another highly unorthodox, creative and brilliant standup comedian, the great Jonathan Winters, who officially retired nine years before his passing in 2013.
Noting that Father Time, as always, is undefeated, we'll close this post with kudos, bravos and huzzahs to Dick Shawn and a clip of him demonstrating the latest and greatest dance craze, "The Cockamamie," on The Edie Adams Show.
What got this scribe through the too-many months of COVID related lockdown in 2020-2021 and the unending years of pure awfulness that followed? Standup comedy and our pets (a.k.a. official mascots)! One standup comic we like a lot is Patton Oswalt, who links to National Fried Chicken Day as follows.
When it comes to the topics of fried chicken and fast food in general, can't think of anyone funnier than Jim Gaffigan.
Jim is in frequent rotation here, as is Mr. Oswalt.
Just realized that fried chicken is just about the only food that's NOT in the Saturday Night Live Taco Town sketch, which features Jason Sudeikis, Bill Hader and Andy Samberg.
Shifting from comedy to food, the skilled and frequently very funny chefs at Babish Culinary Universe have tried to replicate the epic Taco Town mega-taco-gordita-crepe-pizza, etc.
Tops in the category of the funniest, most informative and most scientific of cooking show hosts? Hands and measuring devices down, that would be Alton Brown of "Good Eats."
How to we top Alton? Chicken-centric tunes from long, long ago.
The British blues band Chicken Shack didn't play Chicken Strut or ChIcken Scratch as part of their repertoire, but there is a familiar face here - singer/songwriter/keyboardist Christine McVie, a year or so prior to her joining Fleetwood Mac to counter the departure of guitarist Peter Green and a few years before the band's pop juggernaut years in the latter 1970's.
So, the official post for National Fried Chicken Day 2024 ends as many Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog posts do, with cartoons from long long ago.
RE: Sudden Fried Chicken (1946), a Famous Studios cartoon directed by the great Bill Tytla, the animation by such talented Fleischer veterans as Orestes Calpini is invariably quite good and the voice work by Sid Raymond, Jack Mercer, Arnold Stang and others is also terrific.
On one hand, the premise of marital abuse as yuk-yuk comedy falls as flat as a poorly cooked pancake. On the other hand, the cartoon becomes quite funny about 4 minutes in, starting with Herman the Mouse smoking cigarettes.
How storymen Jack Mercer and Carl Meyer missed the opportunity for a hilarious topper gag in which horrific Henrietta Hen, after seeing Henry as an hard drinking ultra-macho tough guy, instantaneously becomes a sex-crazed love machine a la horny hot-to-trot hillbilly Possum Pearl (the star of a very enjoyable Noveltoon cartoon Jack Mercer wrote the story for a decade later), we'll never know. Blame the Hays Office!
Viewing the Noveltoons' Herman & Henry series makes one wonder if someone on the Famous Studios staff in the mid-1940's was stuck in a hideously awful hell on earth marriage. Readers, if you find yourself in a similar situation, GET OUT IMMEDIATELY AND RUN! RUN FAST AND FAR! DON'T TURN BACK!
Closing this National Fried Chicken Day tribute: the Jay Ward Studio's Super Chicken.
March 2024 is not rabbit season or duck season, but, continuing a pattern which was painfully evident throughout 2022, open season on those who, like Bugs, Daffy and Chuck Jones, made us laugh out loud. The latest is the brilliant Richard Lewis.
Richard Lewis was, bar none, the fastest standup philosopher in the East - the fastest in the West was the late great Robin Williams - and an excellent actor to boot.
Used to love seeing him on Letterman and Carson back in the day!
The late night host I REALLY REALLY wanted to see as the host of The Tonight Show was Craig Ferguson. He didn't get that gig, unfortunately, but did have Richard as a guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
Richard also appeared on Conan O' Brien's late night show, which is also much missed.
There have been podcasts by several who were friends of Richard Lewis, since his passing on Wednesday, with the most eloquent tribute thus far posted by Keith Olbermann.
Today, we pay tribute, three years short of his 100th birthday, to the highly original, groundbreaking and brilliant standup comedian Jonathan Winters.
The improvisational standup comedian and comic actor (in such movies as It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World and The Loved One) was born on this day in 1925.
First became familiar with him via comedy records.
What was this pop culture vulture's favorite part of The Dean Martin Show? No, not the comely and undulating Gold Diggers, but the very funny guest star comedians, among them Jonathan Winters, Paul Lynde, Dom DeLuise, Bob Newhart, Foster Brooks, Jackie Vernon, Allan Sherman and Guy Marks.
The Tonight Show, especially the incarnations hosted by Jack Parr and Johnny Carson, provided a showcase for standup comedians. Winters was a favorite of both Tonight Show hosts.
Parr's Tonight offered free rein to comedians, including Jonathan Winters.
Jonathan Winters would continue making frequent appearances on The Tonight Show when Johnny Carson hosted.
Favorite Winters appearances on Carson? Those featuring both Jonathan Winters & Robin Williams!
He also periodically could be seen on Late Night With David Letterman - sometimes with Robin!
Winters was also responsible for gazillion cartoon voices. Author Jerry Beck wrote at length about Jonathan Winters' many contributions to animation in The Animated Jonathan Winters 1925-2013. These voices included a continuing role as Papa Smurf and key characters in the I GO POGO special.
In closing, here are, from Archive.org, some of the earliest Jonathan Winters TV appearances.
A roomful of varied hats off to the great Jonathan Winters!
