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By Root 1193 0

two old ladies were walking in the stadium, they were carrying their own liquor and they were drinking throughout the game. By the middle of the game they were so drunk they couldn’t see the scoreboard. So they made up their own score and this was what they came up with—bottom of the fifth and the bags were loaded. [Mild bemused laughter from crowd] But … but you know, speaking about baseball and sports …” The material, of course, got even less coherent and less amusing and his real eyes darted and he finally paused at great length and he heaved the sighs of crisis as people laughed. Then: “… Um, I don’t understand one thing … no, seriously … Why is everyone going boo when I tell some of the jokes and then when I don’t want you to laugh, you’re laughing, like right now? I don’t understand…. [Real eyes now grew wet as he became more disconsolate.] Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. I think I … it’s not working, so … I think … thank you and I’m sorry and there’s other acts and so I really shouldn’t have done this….” And, after further apology and stalking offstage in shame, he returned and Conga-Cried his way into various harvest songs (doing slick gibberish audience patter in between—as though he were Foreign Man’s more uninhibited brother, Conga Man, working the Borscht Belt) then left to exuberant applause and walked to the corridor at the rear of the club where he pushed a hand into the faces of everyone standing there.

Clifton emerged later in his black suit and clip-on bow tie with the greasy mustache and hair waxed down and he held a cigarette and clumsily opened with “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” as though it were a gift—“What’s so funny? I’m not up here for my health, all right?”—then began his attack—“Ya know, I’m not useta playing small places like this. I’m doing it as a favor! So if you wanna be a good audience, I’ll sing for you, I’ll tell you some stories, we’ll have some fun. You wanna be a bad audience, I’ll walk right outta here!” As ever, all such threats were met with much applause and, as ever, Clifton persisted—brought up audience members, including Mel and Bob, to join him in the syncopation chestnut, “If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands,” which fell to ruins when Zmuda got the glass of water dumped on his head and later a female heckler took bait—“What are you, women’s lib? I’ll push your face right in your drink!”—and jumped Clifton, who ended his set declaring, “I just want to say—If I could make one person happy tonight, it’s all been worth it.” (Mel and Bob waited in the corridor afterward and physically assaulted him on camera as final punctuation.)

And Robin Williams finished the event, having to follow the mayhem that was Andy, whom he had gotten to know somewhat through Elayne Boosler (the three of them had gone to see Chief Jay Strongbow wrestle at Madison Square Garden—“He loved the good-versus-evil phenomenon,” Williams recalled, “that people believed enough to hate the supposed bad guys up there”). And on this night, and the few others that he found himself following Andy to a stage, he was fascinated to encounter the condition of the crowd in aftermath. “It was like walking into a vortex. The audience all looked like deer in front of a Peterbilt semitrailer. They had that stunned expression, where the mouth drops all the way down to the table like in the Tex Avery cartoons. Andy once ate a meal onstage, saying nothing while he ate and the audience stared at him. And Clifton was the extreme—the ultimate nasty side of show business, the dark side-Jersey meets Vegas. Andy toyed and toyed with every possible facet of human reaction. Like a Fisher-Price Laser—be careful how you play with it.”

Deck shuffled accordingly, with deeper purpose. Real him was introduced October 15 by host Hugh Hefner on the Saturday Night stage (emblazoned with large Playboy rabbit symbol) and, bouncily, he stepped out to execute “Oklahoma” and sat at piano to lead audience in “The Cow Goes Moo” and stood to become Elvis—without explanation or segue—and performed “I Need Your Love Tonight,” which was his very