▶︎ Follow that: reading about Tommy Cooper

In his article about Tommy Cooper in British Comedy Greats, Barry Cryer quotes Eric Morecambe:

That bugger just has to walk on and they laugh.... I have to start working. (p.56)

As Cryer observes, that was Morecambe being 'typically self-deprecating'. If ever there was a comedian who made you laugh before he opened his mouth, it was Eric Morecambe, who could get a laugh out of a line that wasn't all that funny, who could get a laugh because the line wasn't funny. Frankie Howerd was another comedian whose material could be almost irrelevant: he was just funny, and even if it was appalling material, he'd get a laugh out of his own discomfort, his awareness of how bad it was. Come to think of it, that's just why I like David Letterman.

Cryer showed me, though, that I don't even need to see Tommy Cooper to laugh. Just reading about him is enough.

Shortly after coming on stage, he would look into the wings and say, 'Come off? I've only just come on.' (p.56)

Not only did I laugh when I read that, I kept thinking about it through the day and laughing again. Of course it helps if you can picture Cooper in action. If you've seen him you don't forget him, and you can imagine his sad, startled, dismayed look as he said it.

The opening of Tom's act was unique - the band would play his signature tune 'The Sheikh of Araby' and he wouldn't come on. I repeat: he wouldn't come on. After a deathless pause, the audience would hear his voice, muttering that he was locked in his dressing room. This was, of course, Tom behind the curtain, on a microphone. I can vouch for the fact that it was one of the funniest openings if an act I have ever seen. He would then emerge, to rapturous applause. (p.56)

This is uncanny. Not only do I not need to see Tommy Cooper for him to make me laugh, but it works even if I'm reading about not seeing him...

I had to say the next one out aloud a couple of times before I realised how brilliant his thinking was. As Cryer tells it:

One of his favourite jokes was: 'A man walked into a bar and went, Ooooh! It was an iron bar.' [Cooper] put the stress on the word 'bar', not 'iron'... (p.57)

Cryer pointed out this technicality to Tommy Cooper:

He gazed at me, uncomprehendingly. 'Did they laugh?' he said. 'Yes,' I admitted. 'Shut up,' he growled. And then he laughed. (p.57)

I heard an interview with Matt Lucas of Little Britain, talking about the difficulties of being a comedian opening for Blur. He said it reminded him of when Tommy Cooper was disastrously engaged to open for The Who. After a dreadful reception from an audience that really only wanted to see The Who, he walked off and said triumphantly, 'Follow that!'

You know, I didn't even have to be there.
..........................................................................................
Annabel Merullo and Neil Wenborn (eds), British Comedy Greats, London, Cassell Illustrated, 2003

▶︎ Baby (You've Got What It Takes)

Listen again to Baby (You've Got What It Takes), that bouncy, light-hearted duet by Brook Benton and Dinah Washington (1960).

At 2:03 Brook launches into the verse, and so does Dinah. She quickly pushes him aside with, "You're in my spot again, honey" and takes over. Brook throws in, "I like your spot!" and they recover enough to finish the song. Dinah gets in one more swipe at 2:17, though, when she prompts, "Now it's you..."

For me, it's another case of having missed a detail in a song I'd listened to often over the decades. I found out about it only after I read Robert Pruter's notes to the reissue of The Two Of Us, the album that included four Washington-Benton duets, including the hits Baby (You've Got What It Takes) and its follow-up, A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around And Fall In Love).

I've always thought the appeal of the duets was down to the fact that they obviously liked each other so much. It's disillusioning to find that the album was rounded off with some solo songs because in the end they couldn't be persuaded to put up with each other long enough to complete a whole album of duets.

The two hit duets (#5 and #7 Billboard) are full of good-humored asides and banter between these two great, great singers, and the goof-up in Baby (You've Got What It Takes) lasts only 4 seconds, so somehow the detail just passed me by.

As Pruter tells it, Brook Benton was annoyed that producer Clyde Otis released the take with the gaff in it (he thought it was cute, and the record sold anyway). Not only that, but Brook had to be restrained by Ray Charles in a nightclub when he took umbrage at a crack Dinah made onstage about his work on the duets.

Enough! I'm sticking with the CD and its bonus tracks, revelling in the delicious arrangements of Belford Hendricks and the flawless production by Clyde Otis, not to mention the smooth and warm singing of Benton and Washington. Perfect, really.

▶︎ Attention all personnel...

David Long, at his M*A*S*H fansite Best Care Anywhere, has not only identified the actors who did the PA announcements in M*A*S*H (Sal Viscuso and Todd Susman) but he's actually on the way to transcribing every announcement and listing them, episode by episode.

Attention all personnel. By order of Major Frank Burns, lights out in ten minutes sharp. Anyone not in their own beds at that time will have to spend the night wherever they are.

This kind of obsessive fandom you just have to admire.

The site's front page is at BestCareAnywhere.net.

▶︎ It's Always a Good Idea to Attach the Head Set (1921)

Over at Allan Holtz's comic strip blog, the excellent (but mischievously named) Stripper's Guide, there are three panels of Today's Hook-up from the early 1920s . This was a daily cartoon by J.C. Henderson that sent up the new craze for radio.

The radio aficionadoes in Today's Hook-up are obsessed with pulling in that signal (hard work at times, apparently) and checking those program guides, to the point of neglecting everything else.

You can't help being reminded of the Internet, especially when it was just taking off and people were struggling with setting up their new computers and connections and, yes, getting a bit obsessed in the process.

There's a frustrated listener in the first panel who has 'worked and worked for over an hour' and 'didn't get a thing'. He's forgotten the classic first step of any tech support protocol: First and foremost, check to make sure all cables and cords are plugged in and firmly seated.

Or, as the caption says, It's Always A Good Idea To Attach The Head Set.