FRI, SAT, SUN, July 16, 17, 18

LAFFS From the PAST  (from our issue dated July 12, 2000)

Barbra Streisand will perform at a fundraising concert for Al Gore where Dem Bigwigs will shell out $25,000 per couple.     Any legitimate movie or TV producer who offers James Brolin a job will be admitted, along with a guest, free.

GOP vice presidential hopeful Christine Todd Whitman's chances to get the nod from Bush disappeared when a photo of her laughing while frisking an innocent black man came to light.   Unfortunate. Would have made a great bumper sticker -- "Vote For Frisk 'Em & Fry 'Em."

Brigitte Bardot has made a formal appeal to the pope to speak out against bullfighting in Spain as "an atrocious custom... this terrible way of treating animals.  "Not likely," said the pontiff's official spokesman, Cardinal Manolete.

Six people were gored, trampled or kicked and several other suffered cuts and bruises at the San Fermin Fiesta in Pamplona, Spain -- or, as it's known in Los Angeles, the “Presidents' Day Bra Sale” at Bloomingdale's.

Scores of SAG members protested outside a McDonald's in Studio City, CA because of the company's refusal to pay residuals to actors appearing in their TV commercials. The union is demanding $150 and one free McDonald's Meal Deal per rerun.

Naples, NY, near Rochester, is being plagued by swarms of house flies apparently attracted by 200 tons of manure spread on a farmer's field.   Either that or too many people tuned in Howard Stern at the same time.

Until next time, I leave you with the immortal words of Emperor Nero who once ran an ad in the personals that said "Love long walks on the beach followed by fiddling before an open fire."

Excerpted from THE LAUGH MAKERS

PREFACE

I first laid eyes on Bob Hope in person when I was seventeen. He came to my hometown, San Francisco, in 1954 to promote his recently published book, “Have Tux, Will Travel.”  A friend and I rode the streetcar from the fog-enshrouded Parkside District where we lived, through the Twin Peaks Tunnel, past the soon-to-be-infamous Castro District to Market Street. 

Within sight of the Bay and just a few blocks from the Ferry Building, one of the city’s largest department stores, The Emporium, stood grandly in the heart of downtown.  As we waited in the midst of the small crowd of expectant celebrity watchers that had gathered along the curb, our hearts beat like trip hammers — we were about to meet our first movie star! 

Since I had held the undisputed title of class clown at St. Gabriel Grammar School, it was no surprise that, just before I left the house, I grabbed a paperback copy of Bing Crosby’s autobiography, “Call Me Lucky.” I couldn’t wait to see Hope’s reaction when I asked him to autograph it instead of his own book. 

Soon, a black stretch limo glided up to the store’s ornate entrance and out stepped the instantly-recognizable, matinee-idol-handsome, 52-year-old Hope. As everyone in the crowd applauded, whistled or cheered, he quickly combed back a still-generous shock of brown hair that had been suddenly rearranged by a gust from the Bay. “Where am I? Chicago?” Laughter joined the sound of passing traffic. He was funny in real life, too!

As the star made his way through a path across the sidewalk that had parted for him like the Red Sea, we dutifully followed him to the book department. A special author’s table had been set up on a riser with stacks of “Have Tux” strategically stacked nearby.  A queue quickly formed and I got into it, my copy of Bing’s book clutched securely for action.

Hope began signing, and, as he asked each person’s name, would add a little joke or comment — “O’Callahan. Jewish, huh?” — an accommodation that slowed the process, but one that presaged something in his nature that, years later, I would observe time and again: whenever he had the chance, he made fans and supporters feel that they were somehow special. It was the mark of a consummate salesman which, I would someday learn, he was. 

I reached the head of the line and said, “Hi, Bob.” He nodded. Then, in that smart-alecky way only teens can handle just right, I said, “I can’t afford your book, but will this do?” He looked at the dog-eared paperback, held it up for the others in line to see — it had a picture of Bing with his pipe on the front — and tossed it straight up, where it hovered momentarily at mezzanine level and then fluttered to the floor like a wounded pheasant, landing beside a Hoover upright on sale in the adjoining housewares department.

The crowd reacted just as I thought they would. My visual gag produced a spontaneous, genuine laugh. I had created my first comic routine for Bob Hope!  I had no way of knowing then, of course, that some two decades later, he’d hire me to write thousands of them. There would be a few detours during my journey, but for a brief, fleeting moment I was in show business — and I liked it.

Next week: I'm Commissioned a Lieutenant in "Hope's Army"

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