“Halftime shows [of football games] really stink. They
start psyching you up for the halftime about a half-hour
before the
halftime, so you won’t switch to the other league. [Mimicking voice of
announcer] ‘What do we have here for them, Bill, at halftime?’ ‘The
Phillips High School Marching Band, Ralph. They’re state champs, as you
remember.’ [Imitates sound of viewer snoring.] They work so hard, the
kids! Really. And what happens? ‘Come on, Frank. Let’s get a couple of hot dogs
and take a leak! Come on!’ There are very few people who really care. One goes,
‘Not me. I’m not going to miss this halftime show! They’re the high school
marching band—state champs!’ They always pay tribute to something, a salute.
‘And now [echo], under the direction of Jay Carlton Blanton [echo],
the Phillips High School Marching Band [echo] will pay a tribute ... to
mayonnaise!’ They form a gigantic mayonnaise jar on the field. One kid missed
practice, doesn't know where to go with the trombone. He's running around like
a chicken without a head. From the stands it looks like a fly in the mayonnaise
jar. And they announce it: ‘There's a fly in the mayonnaise jar! Very
clever...’"—American stand-up comic and actor Robert Klein, Child of
the 50's LP (1973)
I was lucky enough to see Robert Klein at the Dr.
Central Park Music Festival in late July 1977. He had the ability to make the
crowd starting at the Wollman Ice Skating Rink and sprawling out to the
surrounding rocks feel like a small, intimate room. To use the term of the
stand-up profession, he killed.
The Bronx-born comedian, who appeared numerous times
on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and in HBO’s first comedy special
back in 1975, influenced a host of subsequent comedians with his observational
humor, including Jay Leno, Richard Lewis, and Jerry Seinfeld. Remarkably, even
routines like the above, dating back nearly 50 years, have aged little or
nothing.
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