Cartoon One Two Two Nine
Tour
A family is driving down Sesame Street. All the characters — Big Bird, Grover, Oscar, and etc — are standing frozen and bent-over in classic “fentanyl fold” style. One parent says to the other: “Boy, this neighborhood’s changed.”
Last week I showed you a comic by Hal Kanter, a guy I used to know from the Friars Club. I used to see Steve Allen at the Friars Club, too:
Steve Allen was one of the biggest comedy stars of early TV, and the original host of “The Tonight Show.” If you were a comedy nerd in the fifties, you LOVED Steve Allen; he was the Conan O’Brien of 1954. I’ve never been a fan. I guess he was super innovative, but the stuff I’ve seen (and it hasn’t been a lot) has never really made me laugh. And it’s not like I don’t enjoy weird 50’s comedy — I love Ernie Kovacs, for instance. Anyway, he wasn’t very nice the few times we spoke, so maybe that’s part of it.
Draw.
He was really of a different generation. In the '60s, he was the big square who thought he was hip, yet so often ridiculed younger artists, though he had them on his show a lot. (Maybe so he could ridicule them.)
That lines up. I never enjoyed his songs but maybe now that I'm in 50s I'll look up some old clips. Perhaps I missed something. Then again, I am not sophisticated. Also, the daily show and Fallon were at their best when you were involved, so thanks for keeping the good stuff alive. As a right leaning fellow, the humor was still accessible, which is rare these days.