To Be or Not to Be ****

I was never a big television fan, especially after the shows went to tapes, but a couple of decades after my demise, I discovered the Dean Martin roasts.

Considering my undying love of Dino, I decided to mix myself a very dry martini in his honor and check them out. Within minutes, I felt ancient because there on stage are my contemporaries Red Skelton, Bob Hope and Milton Berle looking like they all just got back from the taxidermists.

In the middle of the show, the marvelous Don Rickles starts to get heckled and he snaps back at the crowd that “one more outburst and he’s going to let Bob come up and do his jokes.” Of course, everyone laughed. It was a funny line. I didn’t laugh. I just thought, “I didn’t heckle you, Don. Why do I deserve this?”

It was depressing enough seeing these guys looking one step from the grave (with that one step being on a banana peel), but it’s even worse thinking that those three clowns would be joining me soon. When I died, I didn’t see too many benefits to it, but, in time, I noticed the bright spots – my hangovers weren’t that bad and I never had to watch those above referenced jackasses again.

Well, now they’re here, and headlining all the hot spots. Huzza. Before I got to change the channel in a fit of rage and sadness, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of the stage sat the man, the king, the funniest man of all time – Jack Benny.

This is proof positive that I only love old movies or performers because they’re old. I just love the one’s that are good. My opinion on drama is more set in stone because making a dramatic movie can be taught. No one can teach comedy. You’re either funny or you’re not, and Jack, Red and Uncle Miltie, aren’t.

Do you’re eyes need some exercising? Maybe you can roll them here with some of Miltie’s bon mots.

“The company accountant is shy and retiring. He's shy a quarter of a million dollars. That's why he's retiring.”

“We owe a lot to Thomas Edison - if it wasn't for him, we'd be watching television by candlelight.”

How about a couple from Bob Hope?

“Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.”

“You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.”

Those all got big laughs during Reconstruction. I can’t even be bothered to deal with Skelton. Just his face will give me another heart attack.

The lines are bad enough, but the brilliance of Jack is the fact that he could probably say the same lines and they’d be hysterical. The quality of the line didn’t matter to Jack because his timing was so perfect.

One of his most famous gags was during his show when he was the victim of a hold up. The robber stuck a gun in his face and said, “Your money or your life.” Jack paused for what seemed like forever until the robber said, “So what’ll it be?”

“I’m thinking it over,” Benny said.

The line doesn’t look funny in print, but it was Jack’s expression and timing that sold it.

To prove my point about comic timing being a natural instinct I could either review one of Hope or Skelton’s movies, but I’m not where near drunk enough for that or I could watch Benny’s classic, “To Be or Not to Be.”

It was a strange idea. Benny and the wonderful Carole Lombard were members of a theatre group in Poland at the time of the Nazi occupation. Benny disguised himself as a Nazi officer to filter information to the underground. Not exactly what you would call prime comic material and there were more than anyone’s share of tasteless jokes. (“We do the concentrating and the Poles do the camping,” the pseudo-Nazi Benny said.) But Benny made them work.

How? I couldn’t tell you. To show the man’s brilliance, Mel Brooks remade the movie. I like some of Mel’s stuff, but to say he lacks Benny’s timing and understatement would be like saying – I don’t know – there’s nothing to compare.

I usually like to try and teach something in these little reviews, but the only lesson here is that a great comedian is like a great wife, cherish them, because they don’t come around too often.

Take Bob Hope – please.