Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [54]
Q16 What about the next generation of Colberts? Do your children have your family’s sense of humor?
My daughter is very funny. When she was three, I heard her create her very first joke. We were walking down the street; she was on my shoulders and my son was in the old papoose on the wife’s belly. And I said to my daughter, “What does the dog say?” And she said, “Ruff-ruff.” And I said, “Right! Now what does the cow say?” And she said, “Ruff-ruff.” And I said, “No, no—the cow doesn’t say ruff-ruff!” And she said, “Yes, he does. He has a dog in his mouth!” And she knew it was a joke! I thought, That’s fantastic! I had to tell Jon Stewart that story—proud papa, and all. And he says, “She’s three, and she’s writing New Yorker cartoons?”
Q17 Speaking of Stewart, is there anything you could teach him about the art of comedy? And, by the way, I’m going to ask him the same thing about you.
No, and I’ll tell you why: I think I have a pretty good idea of what I’m doing, yet I’ve never had a discussion with Jon Stewart about an idea I wanted to go after, or the structure of a joke, or even the presentation of a joke, that I was not . . . “impressed” doesn’t begin to capture how I feel about the clarity that he brings to it all. It’s frightening.
Q18 Have you and Jon ever disagreed on how to make something funny?
I only went to the mat with Jon maybe four or five times in the entire time we worked together, and I was never right—and I don’t like saying that because I have as big an ego as the next guy.
Q19 You lost your father and two of your brothers in a plane crash when you were ten. How difficult that must have been for you.
Yes, after they died, I became quiet, distant. A little bit of an outcast. In school, I didn’t necessarily talk to other people from, like, fifth grade until my junior year. For six years I wasn’t particularly a funny person. And then I started making people laugh. I started making the popular people laugh, if you know what I mean. I don’t know what it was, but people started laughing at everything I did, and that sort of reintroduced me to the society of my school, you know? A year later I was voted wittiest in the school.
Q20 But what about at home? How did you all ever find laughter again?
We just did. I remember coming back from the funeral in the limo, and one of my sisters made another of my sisters laugh so hard that her drink came out of her nose. And the first sister actually got up in the back of the limo and started dancing for victory—celebrating that she’d been able to do that to the other sibling. It was as if we were sitting around the dinner table. And it was wonderful.
And I remember thinking, I want that. I want to be able to do that. Because we all felt wonderful—or at least relieved. At that moment, the coin of the realm for our family was making each other laugh.
Chapter 28
Dinner at the Goldbergs
The Jews and the Lebanese have a lot in common. The food they eat is just about the same, their music sounds the same and they have the same noses. So I guess it’s no mystery why most people thought my dad was Jewish. And playing the cantor’s son in The Jazz Singer—singing the Hebraic hymns with such ease in his throaty Middle Eastern tone—cemented the impression.
When I was going out with Leonard Goldberg, we were visiting New York during Passover, so he invited me to Seder dinner at his family’s home in Brooklyn. I love Seders. We even had our own version of them at our house for Uncle Abe and Aunt Frances Lastfogel, since we were their adopted family. I love the ritual of the Four Questions—Why is this night different from all other nights? I love the songs, the prayers, the candles, hiding