¶ Intro / Opening
Weary.
Wait, welcome back, midnight viewers.
Well, okay, listen. If you're listening on the Patreon channel, first of all, thank you for your continued patronage, and you're listening to Cable Box Theater. If this is the regular feed and you're listening to this for free, this is a show called HP Hates Me. We're tonight we're looking at a program now from the Cable Box Theater point of view. We like to take shows that were theatrical shows that were filmed and then presented on cable
and this fits the bill. It was recorded. It is a live theatrical performance that aired on HBO on August the ninth, nineteen eighty six. Tonight, we are looking at
¶ Background of the Billy Crystal Special
Billy Crystal Don't Get Me Started, also known as the Billy Crystal Special. I don't know.
I don't know if there's enough here.
For a show. Are you kidding me?
We got tons of footage. We got tons of footage here.
Yeah, madam, people aren't even gonna know what this show's about.
Laura, will you explain it to than We explained that you were going to do a special. You rented a big house, you had all the cast members come over there I went and documented the whole thing with my documentary film crew. I mean, you just explain that to him.
I don't know what it's beautiful.
We'll get to see these characters in a deeper light and with with with more nuance and more depth. I mean, it's it's a chance to really get the I mean, I think we only scratched.
The surface of the first time.
It sounds like a cheap way to make money.
Well it is that too, wouldee.
It's different to.
Me, and rather, it's not the money that I'm interested in. It's it's it's the.
Art, ye say. Well, that's where we differ.
I think money is part of the art. It's the art of making money. See, the thing is, we got all this footage. It's already shot. All we have is the course of the editing. Right, that's no big deal. We make a cable deal with HBO.
There you go.
Well, let's take a look at what you got.
¶ Cast and Characters Breakdown
This is directed by Billy Crystal and Paul Flaherty, written by Dick Blasucci, Billy Crystal, Paul Flaherty, and uncredited work by Rob Ryan or Stone, Billy Crystal, mainly Rob Reiner as Marty de Berghie his second appearance as Marty de Berghie. Is this the second official appearance? Do you think I.
Think it was? I think this is. I mean I mentioned to you I saw this before I saw Spinal Tap, so going back, I was like, wow, this is like the lost link between Tap and Billy Crystal's SNL sojourn. So yeah, this was anyway, short story long this, I believe this was the only the second time we see Marty de Burgie.
Speaking of Spinal Tap, Also starring Christopher Guest, Eugene the Levy, Theodor Gottlieb. That's brother Theodor for those of you who don't know. In fact, if you don't know Brother Theodor, what are you doing here? Also with Mark Shaman as a piano player and Billy Crystal and Billy Crystal and Billy Crystal because he plays multiple roles HB. The question remains, why do you hate me?
Don't get me started now this. I don't remember how I came across this recently. Maybe you can refresh my memory. We were communicating back and forth and I don't know how the subject came up. Maybe I just went down a YouTube rabbit hole. But at any rate, I I back then this would have been eighty six, so I was we were thirteen years older thereabouts, and the VCR for us was everything. I would tape everything on the VCR, movies, TV specials, you name it, and I remember videotaping this
and rewatching it. But I had mentioned to you that watching this and this is available free on YouTube. By the way, there was no real effort expended to find this.
That is a hallmark of cable box theater. Everything we review can easily be seen, so don't pretend you can't go watch this.
Yeah, they're very little effort expended. But the thing that I quoted to you, that I messaged you, I said, watching this all these years later is I felt like somebody who had amnesia and they suddenly remembered everything, like they got their memory back, because things, line, readings, shots, scenes all came rushing back to me. These are things that I haven't thought about in forty years. Almost eighty six were coming up on forty years. So it was
a remarkable experience, to be sure. But to try to answer your question, of course, I don't hate you, but I had to spread the gospel of this because the fact that we're on the precipice of a new Spinal Tap sequel. It seemed very current and appropriate to delve into this lost piece of the mythology where you have Marty de Berghie, who of course was the fictional director of Spinal Tap. So I was just delighted by the fact that he's in this and it's shot in a
mockumentary format. Although I'm not sure how much of it was actually improvised. I suspect most of it was written, but I just I was charmed by it and I wanted to see what you thought, So that was the genesis of this.
I think the improvisational parts that made it to the screen are the only funny parts of this special. Here's what I'll say, Okay, round about nineteen eighty six, Billy Crystal. In fact, everyone here, basically, in one way or another, seemed to have had a resurgence thanks to their appearances on Saturday Night Live. Christopher Guest and Billy Crystal were both cast members on Basically it seems like they finished their season on Saturday Night Live and then made this.
I don't know if that's the time works out there, but anyway, so I watched every one of Billy Crystal's specials. I remember the one previous to this one a whole lot better than this one actually, which is a much more straightforward, hour long one man show. This is not that this is part of a Broadway part of a one man's show, and then a bunch of filler to fill out the hour. Basically, he was a.
Weird hybrid for sure, and I for me I at the time, I remember I had Billy Crystal. He had a comedy album called Billy Crystal Marvelus, and that featured the song you Look Marvelous, which I think Paul Schaeffer was involved in. I think he might have performed and produced. But nevertheless, I was very aware of his stand up. I mean I saw him on SNL and I knew him from Soap. He was in Soap when I was a little kid. But he certainly was on the rise,
and I think the Marvelous album was a precursor to that. Shortly, I think I'm trying to think when it probably came out in eighty six, actually that's probably about the time it came out. But then all of a sudden he got on a roll. He was in Running Scared, that movie with Gregory Hines from the Train.
We should review this on We could potentially call this show Crystal Clear, Crystal Fest, no Crystal.
It really this kind of presaged a real I don't want to call it a renaissance because but it was because he had been doing this for so long and yet here he was having this sort of second act as a comic actor, dramatic actor in some cases, and a director. So it was like the second coming of Billy Crystal, if you will. And this really was the flashpoint, if you will, this these specials, but this one in particular, I thought of that way Billy with the crystal plumage, always going back to.
Argente.
That's it, Argento. I was gonna I was going to talk about.
Nevermind, Harlan Ellison. I love Harlan Ellison.
Harlan Ellison, That's what I was going to say.
That's a weird one to go to anyway. Weird, right.
¶ Problematic Elements and Cultural Context
So the conceit here is that, just like Spinal Tap, the conceit in Spinal Tap is that filmmaker Marty de Bergie has heard that Spinal Tap are going back on tour after an absence of some time, and now he wants to document that and now he's gotten away from documentaries and an attempt to make I wish I knew what that? Do you know the title of the movie he made? Like in between he says it at the beginning of this.
Attack of the Busty Women or something. It's implied that it's like something softcore.
Perhaps I said to myself, Marty, it's time to move out of that documentary bag and stretch yourself, get into feature films.
And I've done that. I just finished my.
First feature, The Attack of the Full Figured Gals, which I understand the studio is holding for Academy consideration.
So the documentary world was behind me.
And so now he hears that Billy Crystal is going to be doing this live special and wants to He's gotten the documentary bug. He's going to film the lead up to the special, and in that vein, I guess I'm doing the plot here hps is where it's okay.
So Billy Crystal has gotten this rehearsal mansion basically where he's gathered together this group of performers and hangers on, and well it starts at a party and then they show everyone away who isn't inv special but give us some of give us some of our guests, would you.
So the guests are Eugene Levey plays a producer. His name is Morty Arnold, and it's just an excuse for him to do his oily New York stick. He doesn't Eugene Levey doesn't have a ton to do. But he's fine Eugene Levy. But the people that come to attend this, and these are all people that are supposed to help him write this and perform this special. So first of all, I guess in order of stardom, it's Billy Crystal doing Sammy Davis Junior. We'll get to the problematic bit there, and it is a problem.
There's no, it's not the only one, not the only one. Can you dig it?
I know that you can not by a long shot. So there's Sammy brother Theodore, as you mentioned, brother Theodor playing himself. We'll talk about him. Chip dement to Bella, which is Clair. It's Corky Saint Claire A Jason I. This might actually be the same choreographer from the Synchronized Swimming definitely is. They never say his name.
And then let's say you were to point at each other, you're doing the same thing, aren't you.
No, you're not angry at him. No, you're just pointing at him, right, Hey you, I know you. I know you. But it's basically the same. Hey you, I know you. That's him. He's gonna be the choreographer. He's he works with Sammy in this Buddy Young Junior, which is another of Billy Crystal's characters. This might even be the first appearance of Buddy Young Junior. He's essentially he's an old borsch belt comic.
And mister Saturday Night. It's this weird obsession of his with the Boris Beelt comedians and paying tribute to. Billy Crystal is always paying tribute to everything of his fucking childhood, and this Buddy Young character, this bane of our existence, this unfunny bor spelt like like sub Don Rickles like he's like an insult comic kind of Yeah he is.
But I heard you say, mister Saturday Night. Do you mean the Oscar nominated picture Mister Saturday Night Father Malone? Yeah, because David Paymer was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for I'm as surprised as anybody to remember that because it wasn't a very well received movie he directed, He wrote and directed and started it. It was his passion project. But this might very well be, like I said, the first appearance of Buddy Young Junior, he might have been on SNL as one of his characters.
Probably he probably showed up on some special he did in the early seventies or something to late seventies or something like this.
Yeah, it's probably. That's probably the most fully formed of the characters that we see involved in this sort of I don't know this mansion that they're workshopping all of this material on, but those are the people that have been gathered to work on this special. Now, I want to talk a little bit before we get into the actual like nuts and bolts of it. You would you talked a little bit about Brother Theodore.
Yes, fascinating.
I admit I knew and still don't know much about Brother Theodore. My memory of him at the time was he was a recurring guest. He was a frequent guest on The David Letterman, which I was watching religiously around this time. But much like Harvey Peacarr, who I had no idea who he actually was, I only knew him as this, you know, grumpy, angry guy that would be on Letterman every once in a while. Brother Theodore was
basically in the same vein he was this. I saw him as this sort of Germanic, angry street preacher esque guy that would just basically shout at Dave and just be generally truculent and unhappy. You seem to know more about the actual Brother Theodore and his stick. Can you elaborate on who he was and what he represented? No, for sure, you were gonna say, well, he was a performance comic from blah blah blah.
Here's what I know about Brother Theodore. Here's what I knew about Brother Theodore. By the time this special rolled around, I recognized his voice instantly because I was a fan of those Pobbit and Return of the King animations, the rankin and bass covers of the adaptations of the Token. Thinks he was Gollum in those.
Good God really, Oh yeah, it is tricksy.
It says he doesn't know the way out, but it knows the way, my precious, it must no that way out.
And you know, it's a great voice as Gollum. It's oh, it's so wonderful. So I knew him from that, and I knew him from the Letterman appearances, and that's on. Then eventually, when I think of brother Theodore, now I think of the verbs because he's one of the Klopex.
Right, but that all stemmed from him his odd ball appearances on Letterman more than right.
So where did he come from? I have no idea, and I do not intend to know.
It's better him being a mystery, isn't it a little bit I time to think of it.
Now, He's one of the few mysteries left in my life, I think, so I intend to keep him that way.
Oh one guest I neglected to mention because he never actually makes it to this gathering. It's Fernando. I talked about the marvelous album Billy Crystal's biggest recurring character on SNL, I think we can all agree was Fernando's Hideaway, which was a he was doing Fernando Lamas basically, I think, without actually calling him Lamas, he was you know, Spanish sort of bone Latin lover.
Yeah, I like, but an aged one. He's got silver hair and he's basically talking about the past. Now everything is crazy, go nuts more doing.
I'm in the desert near a town called rizom speed.
Yeah.
I spent last night with the last remaining members of the Great Peace March. We had the Hobo Steward.
It was pretty nice.
I'll tell you that right now. Listen more. I don't think I can get there tomorrow. Even if I could, my agent and his infinite lack of wisdom and hide had booked me to do the Hands across America too. I got to be in Missouri holding hands with Peter Lupez from the Mission Impossible and Rodney Allen Rippey, who got so big people are going to think it's going Mitchell or something.
Yeah, And he would always there was his catch for.
So it's better to look good than to feel good.
Than to feel good. And he periodically during this mockumentary part of the special, he will he's he gets lost driving to this mansion and he'll call and say, Dolling, I don't know where I am, and he'll you know, it'll be a little bit of a comedy.
With the tribe. They want to use the payphone.
So so he is yet another character that Billy Crystal is doing. So they all gather and it's I think you're right. The stuff that you can tell is improvised. There is some stuff I know. When Rob Marty de Berghi is interviewing Buddy Young Jr. I am positive that he's actually delivering this comedy in the moment, because Rob, I keep saying, Rob Brander de Berghie's reaction is so genuine. He's actually laughing, real laughter, reacting really amused. He's acting very amusedly to his antics.
See, this is what we're talking off the top of my head. What's left of it that decided to recede around nineteen I'll tell you that suddenly wake up on my fod my neck. Are the same guy? It took me four hours to wash my face. I said, what the hell is this? I look doesn't ask what eyes?
Hey?
Oh the hell no that I gotta ask what eyes? I look like Daddy Wallbucks. I don't know whether to wash my head, A'll wipe it.
It's nuts.
Getting old is awful. I got a prostatect the size of a void basketball. Now I just sit around. It takes me an now what a pipe like a guy's studs?
It's awful.
This is what your kids at home have to look forward.
To, so that at least I know it is genuine so clearly is also a fan of that type of Boris Belt comedity.
He remembers them fondly, probably from his childhood, so he thinks that's hilarious. I'm glad somebody found that character, Fronnie. Yeah, but I agree with you. It's clear that he that's Rob Ryaner like genuinely enjoying himself and he's.
Laughing like it's not just a fake haha. He's really having a ball watching Billy do his thing. But one thing leads to another. I'm just gonna give you the nutshell and then we'll delve into the actual like nuts and bolts of what was so off about this thing. Eventually things fall apart. Buddy Young Junior's mother in law dies, so he has to leave this enclave. Then Chip Dementabella is working with Brother Theodore and Sammy and he's given them.
They're doing Who's On First? They're doing their version of Who's On First, and Brother Theodore gets so upset by the madness of it all that he hits Sammy in the head with a baseball bat, which prompts Sammy to leave. Then Brother Theodore leaves, Then Chip and the producer Fellow leave everyone leaves except for Billy Crystal, who decides that well, I guess now I have to do the special all by myself. And then we cue wait the actual stand ups part.
I don't I can call in one friend, right, this superstar will come and save the day. Who should I call?
Who does he call?
He?
Fernando shows up.
He calls what be Goldberg?
Oh? Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. I blocked that part out. That's the other trouble I could I forgot that's the premise. He goes, all, I'll call all in a favor. But what but Whoopee has to drop out at the last minute because.
Yeah, because brother Theodore also hits her in the head. Hey, who's playing with Goldberg? Who's playing whoopi Goldberg?
Here it's Billy Crystal. All right, you know what we can't we can't. Let's talk about the real you know, the discomfort of watching this in twenty twenty five. Now, I was uncomfortable watching it then, I if I'm being honest, it was a different time. It because he was doing Sammy all the time on SNL and no one had a problem with it.
The thing really, because here's the thing, Billy Crystal is never punching down. He's never punching anywhere. He's trying to do the most accurate recreations of these people that he can't. He is an impressionist in the truest sense of the word. If he's going to do Howard Cosell, then he wants prosthetics to make him look like Howard Cosell. If he's doing I don't know, jumpin Jack Flash, he wants to look like jumping Jack Flash. So he's just in the
I don't know. There's no way to defend it. It sounds like I'm defending blackface here, but I'm absolutely not it other than to say that everyone knew at that time that Billy Crystal was coming from a place of a deep love with his impression of Sammy Davis Junior. There is nothing but admiration and genuine affection from Billy
Crystal to that man. And I know they interacted with one another, and I'm sure Sammy Davis probably you know, had some comment or another, But the fact is he's not coming from a place of anything other than affection. And nevertheless, it was fucking how horrifying then and it's even worse now.
It's really bad to agree. Like, I'm not impugning Billy Crystal's motives for doing this. I think it is truth be told, putting aside the blackface part of it, which is impossible to do, I realize that. But taken as a as simply as an impression, it is a solid impression of Sammy Davis Junior.
At least, it is an incredible a little impression of Sammy Davis Jacks.
Hi, I'm Sammy, I'm a feodore for you. I've heard so much about you. We're gonna be doing a lot of stuff together. It's gonna be fun. It can hardly wait.
Ouch.
He gets the mannerisms right, he gets the cadence right. He could even do a little bit of a soft shoe and kind of do his thing. All of this, however, pales in comparison to the fact that it's a you know, it's Billy Crystal in blackface doing Sammy Davis Jutor and that's not right. Bottom line is it's not right. It wasn't right then, even though it was accepted, But thankfully it is not. Only is it no more right now,
but it's not accepted. So you will never see him doing Sammy ever again, which is I'm sure he would agree, is for the best. Also problematic is his impression of Whoopee, which made no sense to me because.
Why didn't he just call whoopi Goldberg's pay what they doing like fucking relief?
Comic relief. That didn't make sense to me because she Whoopy and quotes only appears briefly to relate this story about how brother theater or hit her in the head with a baseball bat. So I don't know why he couldn't have just had her come in and do five minutes and just say, okay, do your special now. That's because, to truth be told, his impression of Whoopye wasn't all that great.
I didn't think, but it's terrible. It's it's her character from her show, like it's not Whoopy Goldberg, like we all know even then, we knew what she talked like, spoke like this is that sort of bubbleheaded serve she does.
Well, he does the serve, okay, you know he does a little bit of that with her. It's I was very uncomfortable with this as a child, as a thirteen year old who didn't know any better. I wasn't troubled by it. Back then it was a different time. You can be fucking sure. I was very This was the biggest problem I had with this, and how could I not because this is not acceptable anymore. But again, it's
nineteen eighty six. We're falling all over ourselves to make this excuse, but we can't make any more excuses for this. It is what it is. So having said all of that,
let's move off of that a little bit. We'll talk a little bit and actually, truthfully though, if we're talking about problematic impressions, I have to say, Father Balloona, I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I rewatched all of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries in preparation for the Spinal Tap sequel coming out, and I have to say, almost equally problematic, maybe more so in the eyes of some people maybe watching this is his gay impression of his
take on the character of Chip Dementabella, which is a choreographer. But it's stereotypically gay in the worst sense, of somebody who's just lisping and doing this, you know thing. I have to say, I was as troubled by that now I think, and it's something I hadn't occurred to me thinking about Waiting for Guffman Quirky, which is the same character. Let's be honest, it's a little troubling now thinking back, and because that's one of my favorite movies, is Waiting
for Gufman, but trying to reconcile that. Now, did you have any thought towards that yourself.
I've thought that in the past, certainly, but this time the glowing sun that was Sammy Davis Junior Billy Crystal in blackface blotted out my vision for anything else that was going on here, and then certainly followed up by the sorbet that was the wax figure nightmare that was supposed to be Whoope Goldberg? Am I letting him off to hook my comparison, maybe, but it's easier to take than the full on makeup.
It was the only funny part. Well, I think one of the funniest parts for me actually involves both of them, because through the course of this mockumentary sequence, He's trying to marsh Sammy to do these routines, and Sammy's eventually just like I'm tired, my hip hearts, I can't do this anymore. I don't know why I'd found this funny. Then I found it funny now.
Is said the Samy sensing routine sap dance routine sam.
So Sammy says, I wait, I got it. I'm gonna I figured it out this I can rest and still do the tap dancing. So he gets a hard candy or a lozenge from Chip and he puts it into his mouth, and he has Mark Shaman do the little you know, the bouncy dance, the piano stuff, and when he gets to the part where the tap dancing takes place, he puts a microphone up to his mouth with the hard candy or lozenge and he rends it is deep,
so it makes it sound like someone tap dancing. And Chip loves it so much that he puts one in his mouth and he says, can we do a duet? And they do this little I don't know, I just.
I like that.
I like that a lot. Can I do it with you?
It was so weird and so I've forgotten totally about it that I, despite myself, I thought it was pretty funny. Because you can see on Christopher Guest's face this might be one of those improvised moments because there's a smile that comes up on Christopher Guest's face where he seems genuinely having fun with this ridiculous sequence of them rattling a hard candy in their mouth to imitate tap dancing. It's ridiculous, but I thought it was pretty funny. I don't know why. Silly.
Yeah. The only laughs in the first portion of the special, the documentary part of the special, the mockumentary, the yach youumentary part of the special, our Christopher Guest and Rob Reiner for me, Christopher Guests when we get his initial idea for Carl boreography is his gawky frame just bouncing all over that room is ridiculous. I could not stop
laughing during that scene. The other thing that made me laugh out loud is Marty de Bergie, in his opening has blocked the scene but not realized that the camera is basically going to go all the way to the wall, which he walks into. But it's so masterfully shot because we've stopped just before the wall so he can deliver part of his speech. So it's him starting to move on and walking into it and then recovering and then going the other way. That made me howl.
It's a wonderful callback too to the opening of this is Spinal Tap, where he's doing his introduction and if you listen to the commentary by guest mckien and Shearer, he's walking past every piece of film equipment known to man, and the funny joke is will none of this is going to be used for this shoe String documentary. But he's walking by all these fancy kleag lights and cameras and stuff. And I thought, I agree, that was a pretty funny little bit, and also to tie it back
into Tap, I thought was pretty cool too. But Brother Theodore is funny too that the who's on first bit, that the argument they get into because Sammy is just trying to be the consummate performer, but Theodore is getting legitimately angry and he's shouting, and Chip is left to try to be the peacemaker between Sammy Davis Junior and
Brother Theodore. I thought that was somewhat amusing. One of the best things about Spinal Tap being an improvised movie is despite the fact that they're coming up with this on the fly, they wrote down and they had blocked out where what the scene was going to start with and where they had to get to and the rest was up to the actors to.
Come up with.
I get the sense here there's no real plot to speak of. They get to this enclave, they try to work out the material, things didn't work out, and Billy Crystial is abandoned. Basically, it's not a lot of story. But then again, we're only talking about thirty minutes worth of material. Ultimately, because this is an hour long special, almost half exactly is devoted to this mockumentary, and then the other half is the stand up bit that takes place at Hofstra University.
Ooh, I'll say it's a little more than half takes place at the mansion, at the rehearsal mansion. Incidentally, that was Billy Crystal's house.
Really, Yeah, I did not know that. It's amazing. It's a palatial estate.
Yeah. You saved on a bit of the budget of the production budget here by just filming at this house.
That's impressive.
I'd also like to point out I mentioned them at the beginning, written by Dick Blasucci and Paul Flaherty in addition to Billy Crystal and Rob Ryner, Dick Blasucci and Paul Flherty are fucking SCTV giants. They've wrote like thirty nine episodes of that fucking show. And Paul Flaherty is Joe Flaherty's brother. Obviously, that was my assumption to you,
and those guys worked on fucking everything. Dick Blasucci in particular, seems to have written at least an episode of everything, Simpson's Fucking the Larry Sanders Show, Martin's Short special, just on and on. These are like, you know, those are the guys and anyway, I was just about to sell.
No, no, look it's there are scattered bits of amusement to be had through this if you can wade through the troubling aspects, the dated, troubling aspects of so much of the production and so forth. It's a little meandering, but I was charmed by it in some sense. Certainly I preferred it to the back half of this special, which was missing what's.
That Martin short?
See, I thought you were going to say, Catherine O'Hara, and I was going to.
Agree with you there too, well either one, yeah, well there you go and it. I know.
The odd thing was the brother Theodore thing I thought came out of nowhere, like I was questioning why he was there, But then I later learned that he had a television show Billy Crystal did in the early eighties, and apparently Brother Theodore was involved in that, so it wasn't just a head scratcher of like, how did Billy Crystal and Brother Theodore get connected? I guess they had
some connections to this other television show. But it also must be it has to be mentioned that we're making it sound like this was Billy Crystal's second act in his career, and that's true. But also bear in mind this was eighty six, so he would have been thirty nine years old, so it's not as if he was this over the hill comic actor who needed a break. I mean, he was in the literal prime of his career.
It only seemed like he had been around for a long time because he had been doing stuff like Soap, like I said, which was a groundbreaking character for its time, and of course SNL. He was on there for a season, right.
Yeah, like I said, like the year before here he was everywhere. We always knew about Billy Crystal, and but this was when this is the time period where he took off. This is right around City Slicker. This is right around you know, all the comic relief stuff. This is Billy Crystal's everywhere all the time, and this is on the heels of you owned the album that you look marvelous album. That fucking video was playing on MTV
fucking non stop. We couldn't get away from Fernando. He was involved with the WrestleMania there for a while.
But that was that was mister T and Hulk Cogan. We're on SNL the weekend of the first WrestleMania, right, was it the very was it the first of the third? I don't remember.
It was first WrestleMania.
Okay, it was the first and other things go bomb bit bomb bumpany bumpany bumpy. We all remember that. Because Hogan couldn't hold it together. He was just he was breaking on SNL.
There r I P right, Well, yes, I guess we could rest anyway. Yeah, just rest so long.
Hul Cogan bye. But but yeah, so it was he was. If he wasn't already a household names, he was knocking on the door of being a house namey. When Harry met Sally, which was probably the movie of you know, one of the big milestones of his career that was only three years away, so it's pretty you know, it's hard not to. I mean, he's such a household name now, but that was really his star was on the rise,
so it's cool. And like you said, he'd already been a veteran of these HBO specials, so this was not a huge deal for him necessarily. But let's talk a
¶ Billy Crystal's Stand-Up Routine
little bit about And when I say a little, I mean a very little, because there's not much to talk about in the back half of this special, where he's doing a stand up routine, that's all it really is. Right he comes out, it's a solo spot at Hofstra. He talks often about how this is his homecoming. He's from Long Island originally, so.
Wait he Bhilly Crystal is from New York.
Hard to believe. I believe he's a Yankees fan. Don't quote what, but I think he is. And first I've heard not only that he might be Jewish and he might have a big family.
The same that. I'm so glad we're doing this because I didn't know any of this about him.
So his I feel like I know more about his stand up routine than I actually do because that's the record that we keep talking about was mostly his recording of his stand up bit, and this a lot of the elements here come from that tried and true set that he had developed or what have you. But of all that, there's really there's really three things to call out. Correct me if I'm wrong on this spot alone. So one,
the one routine that he does a lot. He did a lot was his impression of his uncle doing a home movie in his backyard during a cookout, which is truth to be told for a few minutes anyway, it's actually a pretty effective silent it's all silent because it's supposed to have been done with like a little handheld eight millimeter camera, so it's.
They didn't all the lights. It's a spotlight on him, and he's moving in a sort of herky jerky sixteen millimeter film manner, and it is.
As if it's as if it's been under cranked. So he's moving a little too fast for the actual like real you know how he would move in real life and try to go ahead.
Oh, and it's him doing a barbecue, so's he's flipping burgers. He does everything that everyone does in a home movie. Wave pretend that they're singing look at the burgers, pretend like, oh yum yum here, you know that rubbing the belly like well, calling friends over that kind of a thing. And you're right. It's very funny for one minute, but it.
Goes on for like six or seven minutes because the uncle gets hit in the head with a ball. Then he starts yelling at whoever threw the ball, and then he's picking fights and this all goes on.
He's like playing food at people.
This could have been two minutes that would have killed like it would have just been in and out, and it would have been a really good bit. As it is, it goes on far too long, probably twice as long as it should. So that's one second. The next section is Fernando, who has been you know, who knows where
he's been. He never made it to the estate, shows up at the show, and the weird thing is Billy waves from the stage and says, hey, look who's here, and then Fernando comes from the back of the auditorium and proceeds to do crowd work. But it's this odd conceit that they're two separate people, and I'm wondering it just seems odd to me, Like, I wonder how they sold that to the audience that are there.
It was Billy Crystal went to the front, went to the front of the stage, and there's in an adorable way when now we're going to do some movie magic here where they're gonna film me here and then they're gonna I'm gonna come in at Fernando's gonna be here soon. Everybody yes, and then we're gonna film that. So play along that I'm talking to Fernando.
Sure, And like I said, all he all that amounts to is about five minutes worth of crowd work. He pulls people up from the audience, how are you dolling? What's your name? And then it has to be said, like I know, it's not laugh out loud funny, and it's severely indebted to borsch Belt comedy, but he Billy Crystal is very comfortable doing improvised comedy, was in a crowd situation because he doesn't know who these people are,
and he actually is very comfortable and he's funny. So I was actually somewhat impressed by that, even if it wasn't the best set in the.
World to watch as an audience member of this particular special I will agree that he is best when he's doing that, and I wish he would just have done.
That he just a Fernando thing, or him going out and talking.
To people, Fernando thing and talking to people just to improve. If this had been a half hour of Fernando Lamas or Fernando's Hideaway, I would have been okay with that. He could have brought on some guests, he could have worked the audience, he could have had like some sort of like made it like a talk show, like a Letterman show for half an hour. It would have been great because.
It would have been good. It would have been.
Good everything else. Anyway, we're gonna say.
What I was going to say, was it occurred to me as I was watching this. We talked a lot about the blackface element of him doing Sammy and doing Whoopee. But let me ask you a question. I struggled with this a little bit. Is Fernando just blackface, but you know, essentially Spanish blackface? Is it a similar thing because he's not Spanish, He's not a Latin gentleman. Could you levy the same criticism for him doing Fernando that we did him doing.
Sammy Well, you know that you can give a lot to somebody if they don't do the brown face aspect of it. You know, Darryl Hammond ended up getting away doing Jesse Jackson with no makeup on, you know, like he's because the impression was solid enough. And I think
that's the same thing here. But at the same time, yeah, now I was thinking the same thing as he was doing the crowd work while because we were inundated with blackface for the first half hour of this fucking thing that I had to like question all of his impressions. It's interesting, is he in the last portion of this like being offensive to dim witted Brooklyn Knights?
Yeah, I just it's for just a silly nothing special from nineteen eighty six. These questions occurred to me that I hadn't really thought of in the past. Like I said, I hadn't thought of this special in decades. But I don't know, I just had to confront the fact, like I think Fernando is funny, but does that what does that say about me? Does that mean that he's essentially doing blackface? And I'm amused by that. It set me down some odd sort of you know areas in my
mind that I haven't. To be honest, I haven't totally worked that out. It's at least worthy of discussion in my opinion. I don't know that I have an answer for that, or why maybe Fernando is good but Sammy and Whoopee are bad in this case.
I don't know.
Maybe that says more about us than it says about him. I'm not sure, Father Malone, I know this is a lot. This is heavy when we're just talking about this stand up special, but it's I think it's worth discussing well.
And the thing is is the joke with Fernando that he speaks in this sort of stereotypical manner, this sort of are we making fun of his vocal patterns here? Or are the vocal pattern I don't know. It's hard to subscribe. The thing is, as I said about the Sammy Davis impression, you never get a feel that he's punching down at all, that he's punching at all. He's just trying to do the best impression he can. So is this just a really great Fernando Lamas impression?
I don't know much of I mean, I know a little bit about Fernando Lamas. I think he put out one of those co star records that was a big deal in the fifties. Have you ever come across these fatherle a side note? They were Vincent Price did one.
I think a few actors did. It was essentially the actor in question in this case, Fernando Lamas would do a bit of dialogue on a record album, but it was between two people, and the person he was delivering the lines to would be left blank, meaning that if you're listening to this album, you could act with Fernando Lamas, or you could act with Vincent Price, or you could act with whoever. It was essentially like, you know, you'd fill in the empty parts of the dialogue. You know,
it was actually funny thing. I would say, my memory serves it. It wasn't so much an exacting impression of Fernando Lamas as it is a caricature of his smooth Latin sort of banter. You know, I don't know.
I'm so overwhelmed with the stereotypes and the sort of lack of grace when it comes to the impressions here that once again, like the Christopher dest One, offensive my comparison is offensive in general. I don't know. I can't tell anymore.
It's like, it's a weird conversation to be having with yourself about a forty year old HBO comedy special, which at.
The time Billy Crystals Don't Get Me Started, has gotten me start. Now my brain can't shut off.
So let's well, we're not going to solve the issue here, you know, we'll leave it to the listener to make your own judgments. I think we are as confused about the situation as anybody. So if you have any comments, or if you have any insight, drop fathom along the line, let them, you know, let him know. We'll revisit this maybe, So that would be that's the second point. Good segue.
The third portion of the stand up routine that he does in Hofstra is and I've seen him do variations of this, not necessarily always this character, but it's it's a monologue that he does where he sets a scene and it's a character that there's some poignant aspects to it. It's funny, it's supposed to be a slice of life,
but exaggerated a little bit. In this case, he talks about his twentieth high school reunion, and this is supposed to be this sort of dim witted brooklynite who is you know, been through some things, carrying on a conversation with himself as he attends this high school reunion, and he it was so weird. You know, he's talks a little bit like like John Travolta, I guess of the time. But yeah, so it's essentially in this case, it's an Italian caricature. If my god, Billy, he can't get away
from it. And but the through this monologue you learn that this this sort of hapless but you know, kind hearted New York kid went off to Vietnam and he saw some things and he came back. But he's actually really happy to be at the at this reunion, and he meets up with the girl that he dated in high school and they share a lovely dance together. And see that's it. But it's you know, it's a stock character that he's done a lot. Oh it's such a so weirdol. He does a lot of laughing as he's
doing it. He's I've seen him do a similar thing where again this is shading into not shading. It actually is pretty offensive. Nowadays. He does a thing where he's he plays an old jazz musician from the forties and fifties who is taking like I guess he's supposed to be talking to young Billy Crystal as a child, and you know, hey, the catchphrase was can you dig that? I knew that you could. And there's no getting around the fact that he's doing an aged African American type
of accent. I'm sorry, Father Ballone. I thought we're gonna get away from this, but this for some reason. But anyway, that's he's done these sort of slice of life monologues in other sets.
He certainly has. He is an anomaly of a performer, isn't He's half one man show, half stand up, half Schmaltz machine.
Let me ask you this, Let's get away from this just for a minute. And I'm just I'm curious. We talked a lot about his his catalog of work. Let
¶ Billy Crystal's Memorable Performances
me ask you, what's your favorite Billy Crystal performance. Let's say movie, what's your favorite Billy Crystal movie?
What's the one with Alan King? Uh? Oh?
Is that Memories of Me?
Is that what it's called?
Yeah?
It was. It was directed by Henry Winkler. Did you know that I did know that Joebeth Williams was in it. Yeah, that's the one. Does he have Alzheimer's or something?
I'm kidding, by the way, it is all the Schmalts. That is Billy Crystal. Now, do not see that movie. Don't not, even as a joke. Do not go watch Memories of Me. That's like watching what was it called like, not nothing but Trouble? That's the right, fucking.
The one with Jackie Gleeson.
Yes, yes, what is that called?
Nothing in Common?
Nothing in Common with Tom Hanks? Oh my god, same exact movie, Just awful schmaltzethon just baby boomers trying to figure out their parents.
Do you remember what band did the song the theme song to Nothing in Common?
Ooh no, I didn't. Let me guess.
I'm not looking anything up. I know this off top of my head.
Let me I want to say someone like like like like the Dream Syndicate or something.
You're sniffing around the right places, father alone, believe.
It or not? Is it the Thompson Twins.
That was the actual name of the song. Was it was? We Got Nothing in Common inso Much to Lose?
Yes, I am so excited that you said that Dream Syndicate was in the neighborhood, and the only band that came to mind in the neighborhoods Tops and Twins.
You were definitely, like I said, you were sniffing around the right area there. I thought you were gonna get you. I thought you were gonna go with Howard Jones after that, because he's adjacent to the Dream Syndicate. But you went, you got there, That's the important thing.
My my other guests would have been Stephen Bishop because this is right in his wheelhouse.
Oh do you remember that?
Yes, exactly, And that's probably what I'm thinking of. Yeah, that's someone like here or whatever it is.
Someone's telling something's telling me it might be you.
Something's telling me it might be you, creaky right strike.
So look anyway, you're not gonna get away from this. What's your favorite Billy Crystal movie?
All right? Now? You're gonna force me to look at Billy Crystal movies?
Gross, you don't have the top of your head.
I don't have one off the top of my head. I like Billy Crystal overall. But like, something's telling me it might be you. Oh, I know, easily my life easily Okay, two things, hb Yeah. Number one these aren't movies. Can I do TV things?
Yeah?
Sure?
Okay. First of all, from nineteen eighty one, Midnight Viewing is mainly a horror anthology podcast. There's a television series called dark Room, which is a one series television show hosted by James Coburn, and it was a horror anthology and Billy Crystal starred in. So his character was named Patty, which means what he was in Irish face. Come on, Billy, leave some for the rest of us, where he finds a makeup hit that belonged to like a Lon Cheney type that when he puts the makeup on for the
particular character, he becomes that character. So like, there's this bruiser character, so he becomes this giant guy who like you know, beats up the bullies that have been harassing him and stuff, and it goes on and on. It's that's one of my favorites. The second one, weirdly has a connection to James Coburn in My favorite Billy Crystal movie is Monsters Incorporated.
And I was actually gonna go there as well. There's a yeah, those are good choices. That's solid I would say for me, I would say if we're talking television.
Maybe his what that thing back where it came from?
More?
So help me, so help me.
It's hard. I mean, Musters Inc. Is great, and I think it's somewhat overshadowed by the sequel, which wasn't nearly as good.
Disagree, disagree with you.
I think I thought the first one was I love the first one.
The first one is magic. The second one is a really good movie that that is not as interested in tugging your heart strings.
It was fine, it was fine. I'm not going to say it was the worst thing or the best thing.
But I have to ask you again, HB, for the second time, why do you hit me?
I would say, for in terms of movies, I would actually I think he's actually quite good and Running Scared. I think it's a good movie. I think it's a fun movie. I agree with it that isn't often thought of at that time. Throw Mama from the Train. I think he's fantastic. And then that's Danny DeVito's directorial debut. If I'm not mistaken, that is a very good movie.
I agree with that too.
So those two are probably the ones that I would gravitate. In addition to monstsinc of course, because it's great for as far as TV, though, I think I don't know. Maybe his appearance on the Love Boat is the Kissing Bandit. Do you remember that?
He too? Remember that? You're right about this sort of amnesia, you know, like, yeah, it just comes back how much Billy Crystal was in our consciousness. He was always around. That's the thing, like you know that you can see it isn't like he left. It wasn't like he had a big thing and then fell off. It just seems like his career only got bigger and bigger. It is
actually a remarkable career. I know, I'm making fun of him for his schmaltziness and his sort of he like the leans and look, the man has been mythologizing his childhood every day, Like he spent as much time in his in adulthood examining his childhood as he was a child, you know what I mean, Like it's the same span of time, probably more thinks about anyway. Yeah, having he said all that, the fact is fucking started out with nothing.
It was a stand up and then he like got his heart broken when he was cut off of Saturday Night Live, which I now understand by the way, because he was given seven minutes and if it was going to be seven minutes of fucking home movies of fucking and it wasn't. It was that horrible like Fari routine, the potato chips oof.
Anyway, they portrayed it in the Saturday Night movie, the one that came out last year, remember, and actually the actor who played him was very good.
I thought, yeah, oh fantastic, and that routine could have been done in two minutes, like he didn't need all the setup, just get out there and fucking do it, man like he should have done it. Anyway, from going from that to fucking like when Harry met Sally like he was he ruled the nineties with Robin Williams. They
¶ Final Thoughts on Billy Crystal
seemed to be everywhere all the time. Yeah, that's true, not to mention all of the Oscar like. His greatest achievement might be hosting the Oscars. Honestly, he was.
I think we can all agree he was. I hate. I don't want to use hyperbole and say he was the best Oscar host.
He was the bestcer host. He's the best Oscar host, There's no question about it. His shows were wildly entertaining.
They were entertaining, and it didn't feel like the next day after the Oscars, all people want to do is tear down the Oscar host for every little misstep, everything they did that they didn't like. I don't remember that ever really happening with Billy Crystal. I think everybody accepted that he had it down to a science, and he was. He ran that thing like a well oiled machine. So I'm surprised you didn't mention Animal Olympics. He did voices for Animallympics.
Oh my god, I know, and I named a voice thing. You're right, I take it back. Animallympics is clearly my favorite of HISI oh my god. And you know what he does Muhammad Ali in that, but he does it as a kangaroo, so who cares. He also did maybe had he done all of his characters here and as furries, then this could have been an acceptable television special.
He did do a lot of Ali, didn't he. I remember him even like he would make appearances with Ali on Awards shows and do them and hold up his fist to Ali. I think Ali probably thought it was funny that this, you know, this little Jewish guy from New York was you know, doing an impression of him, and that was always sweet.
Good impression too, Like make no mistake, Billy Crystal's impressions are fucking spot on. Yeah, when in some cases not in Whoopi Goldberg's case, I don't know what.
That it's the worst. But he did a very good Howard Grosell, which probably most of the listeners to this podcast probab don't even know who Howard Cosell is at this point.
Most likely not, but he was. He also, speaking of people, nobody remembers he did his impression here. He did it in his previous special too. His el Brenner is out of hand.
His eul Brenner is actually very cool. He did that in the Novels album too, but here you can see him because part of the magic of that is watching him walk around. Is Euel Brenner. Anybody who has watched Brenner in the Ten Commandments, which is his the point of the joke is he has him down to it.
He's flawless. His impression. Also, he does Edward G. Robinson in Oh Yeah, where as You're Moses now Shay, which is I cannot watch the Ten Commandments and see him up there and not think of Billy Crystal because he pointed out the ridiculousness. It's like John Wayne, you know, doing Genghis Khan. Right, it's one of the all time worst you know, matchup of an actor to a role basically. But but look, we've bagged on My point is we
bagged on this special a lot. There's certain charming bits, but you know, I don't want to I don't want that to sell you the man's legacy. I mean, the guy has a body of work which is pretty pretty well peerless, you know, in terms of what he did, what he brought to the table.
You know what my favorite impression is of his?
Is it one we've already discussed or is it a new one?
It's we haven't talked about it yet. Oh did to tell I'd love to hear this blue crayon? Have you ever seen him do a blue crayon?
Maybe enlighten me, Maybe it'll come back like amnesia.
He takes a winter cap, a blue winter cap, and he peeks it on top of his head, so he turns into a blue crayon and then he says, same blue crayon after a lot of sky, and then he smushes it down. On his head. Fucking genius.
That is conceptual in a way that I didn't think he was cape. I don't think I've ever seen that.
That's in the previous special, which by the way, is wall to wall these sort of character pieces. But somehow, all everything that Billy Crystal that I tend to feel is Maudlin in his work works in that special, like it's the perfect encapsulation of Billy Crystal and his memories of childhood and his impressions and everything, without any of
the blackface. It's not present in that special, although he does dress as Adamant, and I think that might be that might be offensive to Adamant, but he's a kind of a dead ringer for Adamant so well.
So the name of the special that you're talking about is called Billy Crystal a comics line which is supposed to be a takeoff of a chorus line, and I tried and I could not find any trace of it online. There is a brief chopped up clip where you can see him do a little bit of the Adamant stuff, and I agree with you. There's something about the shape of his face and the way his hairline is receding in a certain way that he is a dead ringer for Adam An. It was spooky because they made him
up with the makeup on his cheekbones and stuff. He looks just like him. But my point is I really wanted to find this based on your recommendation. I thought this could be a good prisoner exchange of Billy Crystal specials. But I still I haven't given up, but I haven't found it yet.
I also searched for it and yielded nothing. I think we can buy videotapes of it off of eBay, but I don't know that I'm going to do that just yet. So hopefully HBO, which owns all of these, would just fucking make it available. But it wasn't available there either.
I'm not sure, especially if it's a package deal with Don't get he started. I'm not sure HBO would want him doing Sammy Davis Junior and Whoopee Goldberg to be brought back up in the public consciousness. So maybe that it may be a long time before we see that.
You know, this special has adenda. There is the lost minutes. There is a full other half hour of wandering around that mansion.
No kidding, you know, I came across that listing of the Lost Minutes, but I assumed because the copy on YouTube is a video cassette copy, it's a rip of a video cassette, so I assumed that it was just incorporated in the video cassette. But you're telling me there's some bonus footage that I've not been privy to yet.
Have you seen it? I have not because I'm terrified to go further into this fucking nightmare. Is he going to show up and be to share him afoon all of a sudden.
Wow, I that's pretty wild. I'll have to I will brave.
The let me brother, I did this one. I'm not going. I'm not going again.
I will try to check that out. But I'm intrigued because, let's be honest, like, the first half is so much more interesting than the second half. So if we can hopefully not get anything more offensive in this lost minutes piece, maybe it's worth it. I don't know. We'll check it out, though, good luck. I will look for it. But see, now, knowing that this is part of our series, within the series of you know, HP hates Me, I'm now wondering it. And now is there something in the offering on your
end that you're going to make me watch. No, no, there has to be something.
Nope, no, no, this is not a reciprocal thing. This is called HP hates me. You go to town, my friend, because I've opened this door stupidly. But after rich little I thought what other fiendish things could he have? And then out of the blue you said, let's do this, and so well you I've.
Got, As mister T said, I got a lot of more. I got a lot of more. Fottom alone, I'll get there.
Good luck to all of us.
May God have percy on your soul, Father Malone.
¶ Upcoming Events and Farewell
So thank you once again, midnight viewers for tuning into this crazy ass fucking show that we're doing. HP. Where can people find you?
Ah?
So?
I co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast with Father Malone, of course, and I'm an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with Chris Dashu. I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I have a band campsite with my music. Anyone who hears any of the Actually I do some of the music around the weirding Way Network, some of the themes and things. That's me hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. Go there if you want to hear any more of my musical noodlings.
And as for me, you listening to the show. Midnight Viewing mentioned this on another episode, but I'm gonna mention it here too. It's well in advance. In the beginning of October fourth and fifth, you happen to be in the Las Vegas area, please stop my the Silverton Casino at the Nightmare in Vegas Convention, where HP and I will both be manning the Midnight Viewing booth. Baby, we're gonna be there for both days. We're gonna be broadcasting live,
we're gonna have guests, we're gonna have fun. Stop in say hello until next time. Oh my god. Here, I'm gonna play some Billy Crystal for you.
So this is your ten commandments. Please, I only do it once.
Molds us on the you Doze thing they us my