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COMEDIANS REMEMBER HENNY*
by Doug Graham
| Man, it's a tough world out there! I searched InfoSeek for information on the late Henny Youngman (using just his name as the keywords), and the most I came up with was 336 pages, most of which just have a credit on him. Didn't anybody ever hear of Henny? Geez,
even a search of Jack Benny (1450), Groucho Marx (2445) and Milton Berle (1073) turned up more pages.
OK, you have to be close to 40 or over (and notice
I'm saying close to 40) to fully remember the "King of the
One-Liners." Although I shared a bill with him one weekend,
I never listed him in my stage introduction unless it was an older
audience or else I faced my opening moments with a crowd distracted
by asking each other who Henny Youngman was. |
 Henny's "Business Card" about three times the size of a normal business card with his name and address printed on the back. |
I knew who he was since I was a kid and dreamed of
being a stand up comedian. I have to admit he wasn't one of the
strongest influences in my early comedy development; my act has
more influences of Benny, Marx, Don Rickles and Rodney Dangerfield.
But in 1990 Youngman became a strong influence on
me when I worked with him for a week at Mr. C's Comedy Club in
the Sheraton Station Square in Pittsburgh. He was a living legend,
then just a week before his 84th birthday.
He was great to watch on stage. His advance age had
left him very frail, and he turned in only about 30-minute performance
for each show. Yet after every show he'd sit just outside the
main entrance, loosen up his tuxedo, and just talk with people
until no one was left or someone with some sanity hustled him
back to his room.
And he signed autographs, plenty of autographs, for
everyone, always with a joke or two while he painstakingly made
his mark. A fanatical anti-autograph hound, I still couldn't resist
going out to buy his newly released book, 10,000 One-Liners, and
asking him to sign it.
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He did more than sign it, he gave me some advice.
"Hello Doug," he wrote, "Learn some of these jokes."
Of course, as a neophyte in the industry you knew that the "can't
do" rule would never allow you to do material out of a book.
Even with the author's permission.
There was always people around him, from the moment
he stepped out of the elevator until he got back on to go back
to his room. The last night of his engagement, he burst out of
his circle and headed straight for me. |
"I got on a talking scale and it said, 'One
at a time,''' he said, then added, "You should do that line."
I chuckled at the old line and thanked him. Given the "can't
do rule," again, even with the author's permission, I summarily
dismissed his suggestion.
The weekend of five shows went way too fast. Every
night I learned more from watching him for a half-hour on stage
and then watching him interact with the audience than I could
have in decades in the business.
A few months later, I thought of the scale joke and
Henny's advice and thought to myself, to hell with the rule, who
am I not to take what he had said? I still do the scale line almost
every show. And it gets a laugh every time. Of course I changed
it a little. On the punch-line I say, "one at a time...please!"
My small tribute to a great man.
The deaths of the truly great legends of comedy are
always a sad moment for those who wish to emulate them. Take Henny
Youngman...no please don't!
COMEDIANS REMEMBER HENNY* HOME PAGE