Narcotics officers arrested a woman who flew from Ohio to California carrying 506 pounds of marijuana. It just wasn’t her day. Earlier, Delta had threatened to toss her off the plane when she was found to have more than the 20 plants they allow in the overhead bin.
In Philadelphia, an early seventeenth century colonial inn believed to be the oldest in the nation is on the market. Popular among the Founding Fathers, it’s believed to have been the country’s first BB and W -- Bed, Bath & Wench.
In Columbus, Ohio, a six-story Styrofoam statue of Jesus burned to the ground after being struck by lightening. Mutual of Omaha is refusing to pay the archdiocese the cost of a replacement citing their rarely-invoked “act of god-to-himself” clause.
Bowing to complaints from an Italian-American group, the scripts of “Jersey Shore” will include fewer derogatory references to Italians. All it took was a conciliatory meeting followed by an old-fashioned Italian dinner and a severed horse’s head Fed-Exed to the producer.
______________________________
Excerpted From THE LAUGH MAKERS
As comedically uninspired as the football segment was, it was Your Show of Shows compared to Hope’s interview of the Pasadena Rose Queen who annually showed up on stage with her entire eight-member court. Ranking among our most dreaded assignments, it forced us to do something that went against our very nature and training — think bland. It was difficult enough to dream up amusing repartee between Hope and a starlet, or a politician, or even an astronaut, but it was torture trying to come up with jokes for a rich high-school kid. (The royalty was chosen from tony institutions in Pasadena or La Cañada.)
After covering her love of horses, dream of becoming a brain surgeon, or her collection of porcelain elephants, we never failed to have the Tiara-ed-one play straight to Hope’s self-deprecating AARP-ster in an exchange like this:
QUEEN: Gee, Mr. Hope, you look so
QUEEN: Gee, Mr. Hope, you look so
young for your age. How do you do it?
HOPE: Well, I attribute it to clean living,
HOPE: Well, I attribute it to clean living,
a sensible diet, and a makeup man who
wants to see his children again.
Or, “a makeup man who has a summer home in Lourdes.” We had a drawer full of these responses. But no amount of pleading — and, believe me, we begged — could persuade Hope to drop the Rose Queen segment. Most likely because it unabashedly hyped the Rose Parade which NBC covered each New Year’s Day.
Like I should complain. Because of NBC’s tie-in with the Rose Bowl Game, Hope received free tickets on the 50-yard line each year. As long as I was on the staff, we never missed one. Ironically, I am still involved in Rosemania. Each New Year’s Day I co-host a live broadcast from the Rose Parade in Pasadena. The three hour audio description reaches fifty-one radio stations for the blind via NPR satellite. Staffed by volunteers, the program is heard by 2.7 million listeners and is streamed live online at 8-11 A.M., PDT at www.larrs.org. Further irony — until I began broadcasting it in 2006, I had never seen the parade except on television. And, before you ask, I don’t interview the Rose Queen.
Hearth Invader
The year George Lucas propelled Star Wars across America’s movie screens, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to spoof it. Our version, entitled Scar Wars, starred Olivia Newton-John as Princess Hialeah, Perry Como as Luke Sleepwalker, and Hope as Barf Vader. The epic would recount the abduction of Santa Claus, complete with his sled and reindeer, literally gobbled up by Vader’s space vehicle. (We ordered a small model of a space ship with a set of iron jaws in the front from the prop department.)
The Princess learns of the kidnapping and million-dollar ransom demand at Space Police Headquarters by phone — “If you speed, we can clock it, ’cuz we have a cop in an unmarked rocket!” Her deputy, Luke, challenges Barf to show up in person to collect the money. Hope says, “You’ll never catch me, you cosmic creeps!” Perry says, “That’s easy for you to say ten million miles away, but you’d never say it to my face!”
Or, “a makeup man who has a summer home in Lourdes.” We had a drawer full of these responses. But no amount of pleading — and, believe me, we begged — could persuade Hope to drop the Rose Queen segment. Most likely because it unabashedly hyped the Rose Parade which NBC covered each New Year’s Day.
Like I should complain. Because of NBC’s tie-in with the Rose Bowl Game, Hope received free tickets on the 50-yard line each year. As long as I was on the staff, we never missed one. Ironically, I am still involved in Rosemania. Each New Year’s Day I co-host a live broadcast from the Rose Parade in Pasadena. The three hour audio description reaches fifty-one radio stations for the blind via NPR satellite. Staffed by volunteers, the program is heard by 2.7 million listeners and is streamed live online at 8-11 A.M., PDT at www.larrs.org. Further irony — until I began broadcasting it in 2006, I had never seen the parade except on television. And, before you ask, I don’t interview the Rose Queen.
Hearth Invader
The year George Lucas propelled Star Wars across America’s movie screens, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to spoof it. Our version, entitled Scar Wars, starred Olivia Newton-John as Princess Hialeah, Perry Como as Luke Sleepwalker, and Hope as Barf Vader. The epic would recount the abduction of Santa Claus, complete with his sled and reindeer, literally gobbled up by Vader’s space vehicle. (We ordered a small model of a space ship with a set of iron jaws in the front from the prop department.)
The Princess learns of the kidnapping and million-dollar ransom demand at Space Police Headquarters by phone — “If you speed, we can clock it, ’cuz we have a cop in an unmarked rocket!” Her deputy, Luke, challenges Barf to show up in person to collect the money. Hope says, “You’ll never catch me, you cosmic creeps!” Perry says, “That’s easy for you to say ten million miles away, but you’d never say it to my face!”
(Hope, dressed in a sinister-looking black leotard with a
cape and wearing a Darth-like mask, crashes through the
wall.)
HOPE: Sorry I’m late. The traffic was nose
cone-to-nose cone!cape and wearing a Darth-like mask, crashes through the
wall.)
HOPE: Sorry I’m late. The traffic was nose
(Music up: “You’re the Top”)
HOPE: I’m the pits...
I’m an Edi A-meanie...
I’m the pits...
I am cold linguini...
I’m a lunar louse,
Who will tear your house to bits...
’Cuz, baby, I’m Barf Vader...
I’m the pits!
(He turns his back to the camera, and we see printed
across his cape: HONK IF YOU LOVE ROTTEN.)
Princess Hialeah introduces her sister, the grossly obese Princess Gluttonia, who waddles over to Perry and attempts to kiss him. Perry sings: It’s impossible, to get my arms around you, it’s impossible... (Can you believe the depths to which we would stoop to collect ASCAP royalties?) Following some swordplay with our version of light sabers called Life Savers, and the announcement by Barf that he now has an even more powerful weapon than The Force, called the credit card force (Did we run out of gas on this one or not?), the festivities conclude with the arrival of the real Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill, accompanied by some burly, uniformed Los Angeles cops. They cuff Barf and lead him off.
“What’s the charge?” asks Hope. “Public defacement of a marvelous movie!” says Hamill. After watching this sketch, we were on the verge of calling Hope’s lawyers to bail us out of jail; but luckily, Mark was only kidding and the cops were extras. But why take a chance? Just a year later, Hope would emcee the fiftieth Academy Awards presentation at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (on which we got writing credit). Standing beside Fred Astaire, Jack Nicholson, Natalie Wood, Kirk Douglas, Greer Garson, Joan Fontaine, Barbara Stanwyck and William Holden, Hope delivered this opening line: “Welcome to the real Star Wars.”
Continued tomorrow…
______________________
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