RODNEY DANGERFIELD
Rodney
Dangerfield, American stand-up comedian, born Jacob Rodney Cohen,
born November 22, 1921, died October 5, 2004.
I
approached Dangerfield with some trepidation for a few reasons. The
first being, that not everyone cares for stand-up comedy, and the
second being that Dangerfield built his whole career around being the guy
who gets no respect. Then, I read about his early life and thought,
“This is perfect. This guy had a sense of humor about himself from
the day he was born. Game on!” So, let me summarize his early life
per Wikipedia.
"I tell ya, when I was a kid, all I knew was rejection. My yo-yo, it never came back!
Rodney
was the son of Jewish parents, born in Suffolk County, Long Island,
New York. His father, Phil Roy, was a vaudevillian performer and his
ancestors hailed from Hungary. His father was never home and Rodney
would see him only once or twice a year.
After
their father abandoned the family, his mother moved him and his
sister to Kew Gardens, Queens and he attended and graduated from
Richmond High School in 1939. To support himself and his family he
took jobs selling newspapers, for which he would receive a dollar; he was also
delivering groceries and selling ice cream at the beach.
"I worked in a pet store and people kept asking how big I'd get."
When
he was 15, he began to write for stand-up comedians and began to
perform himself under the name of Jack Roy at the age of 20. He
struggled for several years, at one point, performing as a singing
waiter, until he was fired. He also worked as an acrobatic performing
diver (all that's missing is the juggling – my words) before giving
up show business to take a job selling aluminum siding to support his
wife and family. He later said that he was so little known then, that
“at the time I quit, I was the only one who knew I had
quit!”
I
could not keep a straight face while I wrote this; it's just too
damned funny! Apparently, he understood the more ironic side of the
biz and kept on going. He spoke of one night club that he worked in
that was so far out in the sticks or the boondocks, that his act was
reviewed in the magazine, “Field and Stream”. But along the way,
he was deftly working his persona of the “guy who gets no respect”
and coming up with brilliant one-liners.
"I come from a stupid family. During the Civil War, my great uncle fought for the west."
Along
the way, he came up with the name Rodney Dangerfield which is
also an amazing story. The name had originally been used as a name of
a fake cowboy by none other than Jack Benny, another hilarious
comedian (who played the violin!) on his radio program in 1941 and then was
later used as a pseudonym by Ricky Nelson on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett. The Benny character also received little, or no
respect on Benny's show, thus served as a great inspiration to
Dangerfield in building his own character. Jack Benny himself,
visited Dangerfield backstage after one of his performances and
commended him on developing such a wonderful comedic style and
character. Dangerfield, however, kept his legal name, Jack Roy.
He did however, once, during a question-and-answer session during his
No Respect tour, joke that his real name was Percy Sweetwater.
After
working in relative obscurity for several years, Dangerfield was
asked to step in as a last-minute replacement on March 5, 1967 on the
Ed Sullivan show and he stole the show. Dangerfield went from there
to headlining shows in Las Vegas and appearing regularly on the Dean
Martin Show, as well as the Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson, where
he appeared a total of 35 times. In 1969, Dangerfield went into
business with longtime friend Anthoney Bevacqua to build
Dangerfield's comedy club, which then became a showcase and jumping
off point for hot, young talent. Dangerfield now also had a venue to
perform in without having to travel and was able to help younger
talent get a start.
For
a guy who “got no respect” he was well-liked and admired. His
comedy album, No Respect, won a Grammy. One of his TV specials
featured a musical number titled “Rappin' Rodney”.
A
seeming anachronism, as the one-liner seems to be pretty much passé,
I found several of his jokes to be screamingly funny, as I researched
this article. I think that truly funny material withstands time and
culture and place, as I hope you'll see by some of the examples.
There are entire websites devoted to his one-liners and jokes. I hope
you'll find time to read them and “give him some respect”.
