Sitting in the basement watching TV after school, a young Lou would watch The Gong Show and The $1.98 Beauty Showreligiously. RIP Rip Taylor. May glitter shower in heaven with your presence. Better than Rip was Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. The Gong Show’s own James Brown who busted a move, and showed The Unknown Comic that Papa’s got a brand-new bag.
As you might surmise, the young Lou was a student of comedy. At age eight, he attempted to write a stand-up routine and came up with one joke. “I went to the taxidermist looking for a job and he told me to stuff it.” Open mic night, here Lou comes. All the shows on Comedy Central were regular viewing and you will not be able to dissuade Lou from his firm believe that Allan Havey’s Night After Night was the best late-night show on television. Then, now, and forever. Long live Dave the Weatherman and shagging and bagging. Here’s to Nick Bakay asthe ultimate wingman and drinking forties out of a bag at the Mobley.
Keeping with the game show theme, Lou watched Make Me Laugh on many an afternoon playing along as the contestants tried to not laugh through the routines of three comics performing a minute a piece. (Tony Hinchcliffe fuck you) If you made it through the comic gauntlet you won $1.98 or something. The original version was on for three months in 1958, but Lou watched the 1979-1980 reboot hosted by Bobby Van, an actor and dancer that really came into his own in Lou’s opinion as a game show host and panelist. Van died during the Make Me Laugh run and his second wife, Elaine Joyce, picked up the slack before the show was cancelled. For years, Lou thought Bobby Van of Make Me Laugh was the same Bobby Van, who opened Bobby Van’s Steakhouse. Different guy. But that Bobby Van sounds like a fun guy. Liked his booze and cocaine apparently. For what it is worth, Mike, the bartender at Bobby Van’s makes the Mount Rushmore of bartenders Lou has ever dealt with. The other two are Reese at Stoney’s and Pete at The Northeast Taproom. The fourth slot remains open, although Darlene at Southside Burger deserves consideration. Lou is ever hopeful for the next great bartender. That is why he is always going to bars. Hope, you dig, not depression or addiction.
Make Me Laugh featured some great young comedians before they made it big. Garry Shandling, Bob Saget, Howie Mandel, and Richard Belzer to name a few. Both Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari were on before Bosom Buddies. Lou was always partial to the more journeyman comics like Vic Dunlop and Kip Addotta. But his all-time favorite was Bruce “Baby Man” Baum. Baum looked like the musician David Crosby and was described as “If it was possible to stuff Daffy Duck, some oatmeal, and Benjamin Franklin into a blender and hit the puree button, one might pour out a helping of Bruce Baum. Unfortunately, we may never know for sure.” He came up in California with Robin Williams, Garry Shandling and Bob Saget. While all those comics hit the big time, Baum remained the archetypal road comic. Baum’s specialty was props, but his Baby-Man character, which entailed the hirsute Baum doing his routine in a diaper always tickled Lou’s funny bone.
Besides his stand-up Baum was behind the scenes on TV and he wrote the successful Letters from a Nut books with Barry Marder, which were bestsellers. Bruce Baum appeared as himself on “The Last Temptation of Krust” on The Simpsons. Yet the pinnacle for Baum in Lou’s mind was his parody song “Marty Feldman Eyes” released as a 45 on Horn Records in 1981. This is a stone-cold classic. Better than anything Weird Al did. Horn Records was a label founded by Jimmie Haskell, a prolific TV and movie composer, in 1979, and they also released Baum’s album Born to Be Raised in 1981. Baum had a gift for comedy involving music. His stand-up routine involving rock music and two paper bags is inspired. But for Lou, it is all about “Marty Feldman Eyes”. Like all great poetry it deserves to be quoted in full:
Her head is growing bald
Her feet are twice her size
She says it's not her fault
She's got Marty Feldman eyes
She'll turn the sprinklers on you
And dry you off with her thighs
She'll confuse the hell out of you
She's got Marty Feldman eyes
And she'll woo you
Then she'll moon you
And forget to pull her pants up
She's obnoxious
And she knows it
And she knows how to blow her nose up
All the boys think she's fried
She's got Marty Feldman eyes
(Do it dirty!)
She's ferocious
Narcoleptic
Ambidextrous
Supercalafragalisticexpialadocious
Bogus
Vegamatic
(she slices and she dices!)
All the boys think she's a guy
She's got Marty Feldman eyes
You're so lame
You probably think this song is about you
You're so lame
You're so lame, yeah
Jimmy Durante's nose
And Jimmy Walker's lips
Liberace's clothes
Shelly Duvall's hips
She's got Willy Nelson legs
And Nancy Reagan's spleen
Dolly Parton's lungs
She's got Leon Spinks' teeth
Bob Seger's pancreas
All the boys think she's some kind of guy
She's got Marty Feldman eyes
And Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize. This is the stuff and Vinyl Vogue has a promo copy of the Horn 45. A true collector’s item. Now Lou will let his readers have first crack at purchasing this gem but if after one week, seven days exactly, after this post runs, nobody buys it, Lou is going to add it to his collection. With pride.
Suggested Sites and Sounds:
Gene Gene the Dancing Machine: Gene Gene, the Dancing Machine
Shagging and Bagging: Night After Night: SHAG and BAG
Bruce Baum Interview: Bruce "Babyman" Baum One of the Best Road Comics Ever Interview Show #91
Baby Man: Bruce "Baby Man" Baum Live on Stage#4
Make Me Laugh with Baum and Saget and Mr. Whipple!!!: Make Me Laugh 1979 Bobby Van, Bluestein, Baum, Saget, Mr. Whipple
Bruce Baum Paper Bag Rock and Roll: Bruce Baum - Paper Bag Rock N Roll
— Lou Waxman