Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [44]
Marlo: When does a comic truly know he’s killing?
With Alan on location for Jenny. Were we really ever that young?
Alan: When he’s got the whole room rocking with laughter. I remember I was once waiting to go on stage for some event and standing in the wings with Dan Rather. Alan King was on stage, and the place was his. I said to Rather, “Listen to him—listen to what he’s done!” He’d been on stage only two minutes, and the audience was in his complete control. Everything he said—every syllable—caused this eruption of hilarity in the audience.
Marlo: What a great observation. What did Rather say?
Alan: He said, “Oh yeah . . . What do you mean?”
Marlo: That’s so funny. What about actual comic delivery? It’s a given among comedians that there are people who say funny things, and people who say things funny—like Jack Benny. He’d say one word—“Well!”—and it always brought the house down.
Alan: Right. A funny person doesn’t need word-jokes or puns to get the laugh. A funny person doesn’t need formulas—like that thing with threes that you always hear in every amateur joke-teller’s joke. You know: “So this guy walks into the bar for the third time . . .” Whenever I hear the first thing, I think, Oh, shit, now I have to sit through two more of these . . .
Marlo: I know exactly what you mean. I love the stories you’ve told me about your childhood. When you were nine, your father took you with him to the Hollywood Canteen to entertain American troops. What do you remember about that?
Alan: We did Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine.
Marlo: Wow, really?
Alan: Yeah—I did Costello’s part.
Marlo: That’s the part that gets all the laughs. Were you nervous?
Alan: I was shaking with fear in the wings beforehand. But as I went out, I felt the warm spotlight on me, and within the first couple of lines, I heard this roar of laughter coming at me. It was such a feeling of power. Soldiers, sailors on their way to the Pacific, and here I was this nine-year-old kid.
Marlo: Nine. That’s amazing
Alan: And I could make them laugh.
Marlo: Isn’t that great? It really says something that your father trusted you to come out there and do that routine with him, because if you weren’t good you could have killed it. His faith in you must have been empowering.
Alan: It was. I remember the rehearsals. They were very loose, and he left a lot of the choices up to me. So the energy that came out of me was genuine.
Marlo: And alive.
Alan: Yes. And starting that way—planting my feet on the stage and feeling comfortable and confident that I could come up with that kind of energy—is what gave me the ability to go out there.
Marlo: Right. It made you fearless.
Alan: Yes, but there was also that sense of power. You know, people always talk about the dark spirit of comedians. Well, I think it comes from a deep feeling of powerlessness, a desire to score, to be there and to deserve to be there; and the feeling that, unless you control them, they’ll control you. They’ll kill you if you don’t kill them first.
Marlo: What a combo—people you want to please and also want to kill. The language says it all. I can’t count how many times I heard that as a kid—my dad or one of his comic friends talking about having a bad night on stage. And how did they describe it? “I died.”
Alan: And there’s nothing worse. Carol Burnett told me that when she was just starting out, she was once on stage in a nightclub and really bombing. After her act, she went backstage and was practically in tears. Suddenly this guy from the audience comes walking down the hallway, on his way to the bathroom. He says, “Hey, didn’t I just see you in the show out there?” Carol says, “Yeah.” And the guy says, “Jesus, you stink.”
Marlo: Oh, God!
Alan: So, yes, they will kill you.
Marlo: But the best comedians always come bouncing back.