As I said back in 2005, that's my all-time favorite scene on "Curb Your Enthusiasm":
Any scene with Shelley Berman ascends to a new level of greatness. My all-time favorite scene on the show was the old one where Berman kept beating around the bush, not wanting to reveal to Larry that his (Larry's) mother had died. "She didn't want to bother you. You were busy."Today, I'm sad to see that Shelley Berman has died: "Shelley Berman, Stand-Up Comic Who Skewered Modern Life, Dies at 92" (NYT).
Mr. Berman, one of the first comedians to have as much success on records as in person or on television, was in the vanguard of a movement that transformed the comedy monologue from a rapid-fire string of gags to something more subtle, more thoughtful and more personal....The obituary groups Berman with Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce.
In 1959, Time magazine referred to this new breed as “sick” comics, and the term (which Mr. Berman hated) caught on. But they had little in common with one another besides a determination to remake stand-up comedy in their own image. Mr. Sahl was a wry political commentator; Mr. Bruce was a profane social satirist; Mr. Berman was a beleaguered observer of life’s frustrations and embarrassments.Here he is on "The Judy Garland Show" in a scene that seems to be an elaborately staged musical with 9 singing office workers but suddenly shifts. Listen for the audience reaction at 1:25 as the idea becomes a classic one-man telephone routine (which goes on insanely long):
Perched on a stool — unlike most stand-up comedians, he did his entire act sitting down — Mr. Berman focused on the little things. He talked about passionate kisses that miss the mark so that ‘‘you wind up with the tip of her nose in the corner of your mouth.” Or what to do when the person you are talking to accidentally spits in your face — do you wipe the spit off or make believe it didn’t happen?...
Like his fellow Chicago comedian Bob Newhart, Mr. Berman specialized in telephone monologues, in which the humor came from his reactions to the unheard voice on the other end of the line. (Mr. Berman often claimed that Mr. Newhart stole that idea from him. Mr. Newhart maintained that the idea did not originate with either of them, noting that comedians had been doing telephone monologues since at least the 1920s.)
In one classic routine, Mr. Berman, nursing a brutal hangover, listened with increasing horror as the host of the party he had attended the night before reminded him of the damage he had done: “How did I break a window? … Oh, I see. … Were you very fond of that cat?”
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Curb your Enthusiasm was a comedy show?
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIAM is a comedy show. It's returning for a new season imminently.
George Jessel famously did his Phone Call from Mama bit in Vaudeville before Shelly Berman was born.
I didn't find it funny. Does that mean I'm transsexual?
When I was in college, I traveled down to Jupiter, Florida with my roommate to visit his parents for the weekend. THey had made reservations at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater, (so-named because Burt Reynolds, a Jupiter resident, owned it). The theater was presenting a Neal Simon comedy, GOD'S FAVORITE, starring Shelley Berman.
That was my first episode of Curb, and, Yes, it caught me off guard, but it was damn funny. Was hooked ever since, and delighted that Larry is returning.
The season where Larry played the lead Broadway role in Mel Brooks' The Producers was funny, funny, funny.
"I didn't find it funny. Does that mean I'm transsexual?"
No, (at least...not necessarily). It means you didn't find it funny.
Keep looking, though. It's hilarious!
He was professionally respected but not personally admired. Berman feuded with everyone and maintained lifelong hates. Ronnie Schell, on Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, recalls that Berman hated him as well but would never tell him why; he could only guess that he thought he stole his telephone bit.
I like my humor BIGGER and/or LARGER. Think Monty Python or SNL in it's heyday. I did warm up to Seinfeld after a while, and would probably warm up to this also. Where DO all of you find time to watch all of these shows? I guess I watch too much news and sports.
There's no way I can find that scene funny. I was raised in a family where relatives would pass through the state and not stop by to visit. I wasn't told when my brother's partner died of AIDS. This was unspeakably painful to watch, because it was too true to life. To lighten my mood, I'm going to watch "The Clown Who Cried" now.
Bob Newhart did the telephone monologue differently. Shelley Berman stirred up a lot more anxiety. Newhart made being very low key funny, more like it was the guy on the other end who was getting upset.
Yeah that's funny. Larry David isn't much a comedic actor but he writes funny stuff. And Berman really sells it.
I remember seeing a Twilight Episode and wondering who Berman was, and why someone with so little acting talent was on the show. Now I know. He as a well known comedian.
I could see people in my family doing that.
Berman, Sahl, and Bruce.
Bruce was the unfunny one.
Laslo Films has used the Telephone Routine.
"Laslo Films presents "The Girl On the Phone 2: High School Sexy!""
I don't think Bob Newhart applied lotion to a cheerleader doll, however.
I am Laslo.
"Where DO all of you find time to watch all of these shows? I guess I watch too much news and sports."
There you go! Sports is a huge and worthless time suck. I never watch the stuff, (shudder)!
That video was almost like how my friend found out his mother died. She was in the hospital for minor surgery and she coded on the the table. His father told him his mother told him not to call the the kids about her being in the hospital or having surgery so they wouldn't be worried.
Buttermilk.
RIP, Mr. Berman.
"Yeah that's funny. Larry David isn't much a comedic actor but he writes funny stuff. And Berman really sells it."
Larry writes the general script, but he encourages his actors to improvise, so much, if not all, of the dialogue is improvised between the actors. That could all have been Berman's dialogue.
Part of the pleasure of watching the complete Twilight Zone series I got for Christmas last year was looking up all the familiar and unfamiliar faces in the various episodes. Mr. Berman starred in one of the most famous - The Mind and the Matter. An impressive career but I was most impressed that he was married for 70 years and left a widow!
I'm fine, thank you.
Still not funny
Bob Newhart did the telephone monologue differently. Shelley Berman stirred up a lot more anxiety. Newhart made being very low key funny, more like it was the guy on the other end who was getting upset.
Maybe they were talking to each other
So who's left of the old-school comedians from the New York/Yiddish milieu? Jackie Mason?
(And jeez, Allan Sherman, from Chicago, died in 1973!)
Sorry, we went through this the other day. Mel Brooks.
Bob Newhart did the telephone monologue differently. Shelley Berman stirred up a lot more anxiety. Newhart made being very low key funny, more like it was the guy on the other end who was getting upset.
Short form: Berman's persona was emphatically Jewish. Newhart's was not.
That scene is roll-on-the-floor-funny. Sorry, it just is.
The theater was presenting a Neal Simon comedy, GOD'S FAVORITE, starring Shelley Berman.
Jews are funny. There, I said it.
The Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Wanda Sykes was on hand every time Larry David made a (purely unintentional) racially-insensitive remark was comedy GOLD.
rcocean said...
"Berman, Sahl, and Bruce.
Bruce was the unfunny one."
DITTO!
Berman not only accused Newhart, a much more talented guy, of stealing the phone routine, he also accused him of stealing his ACT. Not a guy I have much respect for. Newhart wrote his own material early in his career and people stole from him.
Bob Newhart's eulogy for Krusty the Clown
"Berman not only accused Newhart, a much more talented guy, of stealing the phone routine, he also accused him of stealing his ACT."
As others have pointed out, the "phone routine" goes all the way to the 1930s and radio/vaudeville.
I would not exactly say that CYE is "comedy." It is more humorous than ha-ha funny, specifically absurdist humor.
That's the best scene I have seen from that show. It is likely to remain so, as it is the only scene from that show I've watched -- and is likely to remain so.
It's off kilter. David is pushing relentlessly, so the idea doesn't emerge naturally, it is pulled. And if there's going to be a third character, he should be part of the obfuscation too, not "hi, sorry for your dead mum."
In case you haven't figured it out, most professional comics are assholes in real life. There are a few exceptions-- like Jay Leno.
I watched the scene from the Garland show. I remember him being funnier. Maybe it was new and different then or maybe the age of anxiety and organization men is so far behind us that we no longer recognize the stress that underlies the bit.......I suppose he made a living, but he missed out on the extraordinary money that later comedians made. At least he didn't die a tragic death, although such a death seems to have cemented the reputation of John Belushi and Lennie Bruce......Maybe he's the trifecta with Jerry Lewis and that other comedian whose name is now so obscure I can't recall it.
OT, but still in the realm of Big Goodbyes, Judge Richard Posner is retiring.
CYE can be crippling funny, especially the first few seasons. To his credit, David, a hardcore Lefty, clearly recognizes the hypocrisies and absurdities of middle-class Progressives. What I like about the Judy Garland skit is that it reflects the underlying decency and restraint of the times (I know, I know, no decency or restraint towards Blacks, homosexuals, women, or the transgendered).
CYE is fantastic. Just watched the episode in which Larry was whistling a Wagner tune in a line at the theatre and was confronted by a man who accused him of being a self hating Jew. David pokes a lot of ideas in the eye. The episode concludes with an orchestra playing Wagner in guy who confronted him front yard. Larry was conducting.
still not funny
My favorite Shelley Berman moment is his short supporting piece in The Best Man where he steals the scene from Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson.
Brilliant acting by Shelley Berman running from phone to phone to answer the calls. I thought it was a very funny one-man or one-person sketch. Thanks for uploading it.
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