I’m sorry I missed the Burksy’s. I was in Little Rock Saturday night, though rumor has it that I wasn’t entirely absent from the third annual awards festivities. It seems that the SA hired a Clax stand-in to whip up the crowd, which — truth be told — probably worked better than booking the original. As Dr. David B. Burks told me, “He held up a paper mustache and talked. He went on and on.”
Yep — sounds like a spot-on impression.
I would have gladly attended, but at the last minute I had the chance for a nostalgic evening at Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, where I, too, saw an impressionist. Tom Mullica is a magician and comic who has spent the last decade perfecting a tribute to his idol, one of the most beloved comedians of the last century. Red Skelton (1913-1997) is sadly no longer a household name, but if you ask anyone who grew up watching TV between 1951 and 1971, I’ll bet he or she will remember Red with a smile.
The audience at Murry’s was packed with folks of that vintage and older, prompting Mullica to quip that he had stumbled into an AARP meeting. The youngest person there was an expressionless teenager whose grandparents had apparently dragged her to Little Rock and — surely this qualifies as child abuse — made her put up her phone. I suspect she’ll start speaking to them again sometime in late June.
But the rest of us had a grand time, laughing with reckless abandon at Mullica’s dead-on imitations. He skillfully mimicked Skelton’s slapstick pantomimes and unabashedly corny material — “Did you hear about the two antennas that got married? The wedding was a bust, but the reception was great.”
Where do I begin to describe Red Skelton? He called himself “One of America’s Clowns,” and few could match his combination of gentle humor, physical comedy and quirky characters. A brilliant sketch comic decades before “Saturday Night Live,” he created such lovable goofs as Freddie the Freeloader, the bumbling Clem Kadiddlehopper and San Fernando Red, a shady politician who never met a taxpayer he didn’t like.
A redhead like Lucille Ball, Skelton gave Lucy permission to adapt his signature sketch to her own comedy style. Playing a spokesman for Guzzler’s Gin who had to drink the product on the air, Skelton would pretend to get a little more sloshed with each commercial take. Later, Lucy created a hit with her tipsy promo for the juiced-up medicine Vitameatavegamin. The more she drank it, the harder it became to pronounce. Check them both out on YouTube.
Skelton was a master at ad-libbing. I once met one of the writers on his show — Bob Orben — who related this story from the days of live TV. Red was doing his opening monologue one night when he swallowed a fly. He started choking and called for water. Things turned into pandemonium backstage, as everyone fell over each other trying to find a glass. After a long pause, Red said, “Aw forget it — let him walk down.”
He appeared in more than 30 films and gave hundreds of live performances. Flashback to April 4, 1987. As a teenager I went with one of my best friends to see Red at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. It wasn’t the typical teen concert. While my peers were rocking to Whitesnake and U2, I was watching a 74-year-old clown ham it up for two delightful hours. After the show we and a few other fans hung around the backstage door for over an hour. As a reward for our patience, we were ushered in one at a time to Mr. Skelton’s dressing room, where the old pro was cooling down in sweatpants and chewing a big cigar. As he signed our programs, I thanked him for the show and said, “You’re the best!” Humbly pointing above, he corrected me: “Well, second best.”
As the crowd shuffled out the door after last Saturday’s show, Tom Mullica greeted each guest. Many thanked him for keeping Red Skelton’s memory alive. For old time’s sake, I hung around at the end of the line for an autograph.
Fast forward to 2057. You’re working a Sudoku while your spouse is turning up the volume on the TV for the fourth time. “Hey! Guess what,” your beloved shouts from the living room. “Tina Fey is coming to Branson this week!” Your granddaughter barely glances up from her digital homework: “Who’s Tina Fey? She sounds gross.”
You won’t know where to begin.
