THURSDAY, June 17, 2010

The 100-inmate strong Grand Orchestra and Chorale at a  maximum security prison in Manila gave their first public performance of “A Salute to Broadway Musicals.”  Prison officials beamed proudly until three convicted murders flew over the wall during the helicopter scene in “Miss Saigon.”

San Francisco recently passed an ordinance requiring all cell phones sold there to post the amount of radiation they emit.  San Francisco has always been hard on cell-phone users.  They only allow one ring tone within the city limits -- the Rice-A-Roni jingle.

An 87-year old former track and field athlete from San Antonio, Texas is in training to challenge the world record for his age group in the pole vault.  Well, actually he uses his cane to hop over the velvet rope at upscale restaurants that offer an Early Bird menu.

Officials at New York’s Citibank fired a teller who, despite numerous warnings, insisted on wearing revealing, low-cut dresses to work.  Actually, she should have been given a raise.  Last week, the FBI finally nabbed a bank robber who kept asking her to reread his demand note.

Recently discovered in an attic, a photo believed to have been taken by an apprentice of Matthew Brady in 1860, shows two black children in tattered clothes who are identified as slaves.  The photo was authenticated by an ID card on one that reads “Wal Mart-Second Shift.”

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Excerpted From THE LAUGH MAKERS  

In 1978, we flew to Australia to tape a two-hour special Down Under.  Our flight from Los Angeles to Perth would take twenty-three hours, and on board our Quantas 747 were guest stars Barbara Eden, Florence Henderson and Charo as well as twenty Hope staffers that included Les Brown’s musical arranger, Bob Alberti , makeup man Don Marando and Hope’s longtime cue card wizard, Barney McNulty.

Eighteen hours after lifting off at LAX, we touched down in Sydney for a two-hour refueling stop before completing the five-hour hop to Perth.  The Aussies’ welcome was as warm as the water of the half-mile wide Swan River that flows through the pristine city’s center. “I Dream of Jeannie” and “The Brady Bunch” were still in their first runs on Australian TV, so from the moment they stepped off the plane, Barbara and Florence were stalked by screaming, autograph-seeking fans.

Armed with one of the longest monologues he’d ever deliver, and with 8,300 Aussie fans cheering wildly, Hope strode on stage dressed in a crisp, beige linen suit.

* I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here in Perth, the most
isolated city on earth. Now I know why you didn’t send a man
to the moon — you’re on it.

*  Perth is strategically located — between nowhere and nothing.

*  It’s such a long flight from Los Angeles, by the time we got here, I was starting to look like my passport picture.

*  I love to fly, but I have a terrible fear of being hijacked to a
country where they never heard of me.

That line was strangely prophetic. A little over a year later, along with his wife, Dolores, Gig and me, Hope would carry his own luggage from a China Airlines 707 that had just touched down at the Peking Airport.  Thanks to a welcoming committee that had been delayed, one of the most recognizable faces in the world would belong to just another visiting American.

*  And Perth has to be the friendliest city in the world.  Yesterday, I saw two lobsters propositioning a kangaroo.

Perched on the far western edge of Australia’s vast Outback, the city is a demarcation point between that dusty red desert and the Indian Ocean and supports enough indigenous wildlife to keep Crocodile Dundee in business indefinitely.

*  And you have such clean air here. My lungs aren’t used to it.  This morning, they got up two hours before I did.

*  The water here is so clear, I hear the shark from Jaws has to swim all the way to New Guinea just to change his shorts. Is that right?

Great Whites call the Indian Ocean home, so any reference to Peter Benchley’s heart-stopping classic was sure to draw a tremendous reaction.  And there’s no air or water pollution in Perth. Where have you gone wrong?

Considered one of the most desirable areas in Australia, the city of Perth looks like what one imagines — someone my age anyway — Los Angeles must have been like in the twenties.

*  I can’t tell you how happy I am to be standing here on the stage of the biggest theater in the world, with eighty-three-hundred seats. The last twelve rows are in Indonesia.

Though maybe not as far away as Jakarta, the uppermost rows were a good 300 feet from the stage which meant that, for our sketches to be seen and understood by the entire audience, we’d have to use simple sets and readily identifiable props.

Continued Tomorrow     

Order THE LAUGH MAKERS on line:

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Also available in an unabridged audio version read by the author: 

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