We Had Rock & Roll
…but they had comedy
I am a Baby Boomer. Baby Boomers had (have) the greatest music ever produced. We invented Rock & Roll. We invented dying from a drug overdose at the age of 27 (the “27 Club” of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison). We own The Beatles. We own The Rolling Stones. We own Freddie and the Dreamers.
When you think about the group called “Baby Boomers,” Woodstock immediately comes to mind. If it doesn’t…wait a little while…it still might.
We made fun of the music of our parents. Frank Sinatra was good at what he did, but could he do a song like Joe Cocker? Mel Torme? Tony Bennett? Yes, they were greats…but they didn’t compare to the electronics of Keith Emerson.
We had the music. But our parents; our parents owned comedy. Recently, on YouTube I started watching bits from one of the original TV shows, ‘Your Show of Shows’ starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Howard Morris (Ernest T. Bass), Carl Reiner, and the list goes on. It was hilarious. It was brilliant. It was Comedy 101 for every emerging comedian. It was 1952. Three years before I was born.
The list of geniuses from that era is almost unending. Abbot and Costello. Alan King, Bob Newhart, Shelly Berman, Joan Rivers, Bob Hope, Mel Brooks, Jonathan Winters, Ernie Kovacs, and I haven’t even touched the surface. Every standup comedian will point to Lenny Bruce as the standup comedian who opened the door. In my opinion, it was Alan King. No one has ever been able to deliver a line as smoothly as Alan King.
I once had the privilege of interviewing Alan King for a radio show I hosted many years ago. He made me laugh so hard, and he told me he was impressed by how much I already knew about him. I was star-struck.
Us Baby Boomers had Cheech & Chong, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin and many others. I’m not disparaging them. Brilliant…all of them.
But when George Burns asks Gracie Allen about her uncle…fuhget aboudit.
There will never be greater comedy than Carl Reiner teaming with Mel Brooks and creating the 2000 Year Old Man.
Never.
Again, I once had the incredible privilege of interviewing Carl Reiner for the same radio show. I called him a genius, and he laughed. He told me, humbly, I should raise the bar for ‘genius’ a little. I disagree.
He still has dinner with Mel Brooks every Friday night. I asked him what it was like working with Mel Brooks…handling…Mel Brooks. He laughed again. “You toss out a subject and get out of the way..” he said.
I’m grateful for being alive during the era of the best music in the world ever. But to see those comedians in their prime?
That would be cool.
