Completely agree the physical humor was the weakest part of their act. But much of the time it’s used as the delivery mechanism for the verbal zingers which WERE funny. For example, Curly playing jacks kicks off the following interaction: “But I was going for 'onesies!” Moe responds with a poke in both eyes, “Well here’s twosies.” Larry laughs and Moe slaps Larry; “Here’s fivesies.” The poking and slapping, not funny. Using the Jacks terms twosies and fivesies to describe the number of fingers he was smacking them with IS funny. Comedy gold for its time.
At one point when I was recovering from shoulder surgery, the doc was going over what things I could and couldn’t yet do.
I asked, “Can I play guitar?”. He looked at me wryly. “Were you able to play guitar before?”
Youngman also told a joke praising his doctor: “If you can’t afford the surgery, he’ll touch up the x-ray for you”.
you are a guy.
I read the second version in an Archie comic book about 50 years ago, where Archie goes to a club of comedians, and gets the “You told it wrong” line when he calls out a number.
Perhaps he stole it from Youngman? I know Rodney used it on Johnny during a “Tonight Show” appearance.
Or, and I know this seems almost impossible, the website I found got it wrong.
It really sounds more like a Dangerfield joke to me.
The truth of the matter is, Daingerfield and Youngman are 12th cousins. Their many-greats-grandfather invented the joke, and passed it down the family line.
The variant I have heard is with a woman talking to the doctor after he has operated on her husband.
“All right, the operation on your husband’s shoulder is done, we have done our best, and he should be recovering without too much trouble”.
The wife asks, with a worried tone of voice: “But, doctor… will he be able to play the accordion afterwards?” To which the doctor answers: “I am really sorry, but no. Never again in his life.”
To which the wife heaves a huge sigh and says: “THANK GOD!!!”
I would agree. Rodney’s First Principle was that no one respected him, even his doctors.
He told his psychiatrist that he was having suicidal thoughts. “From now on, you pay in advance “.
He asked his dentist what to do about his yellow teeth: “Wear a brown tie”.
I still think these things are funny. As someone above mentioned, he went on Johnny Carson, did a stand-up routine, then sat down and, basically, did another routine, and was done, but those routines were pretty funny.
James Thurber defined humor as, “emotional chaos, remembered in tranquility”.
Carson always started the second routine by asking Rodney how he was doing: “I’m all right now, but last week… WHOA…”
It happened last week, so we can laugh about it.
My favorite Rodney joke wasn’t even an “I don’t get no respect!” one. We saw him live, so while the act wasn’t terribly blue, he did have options he didn’t have on Carson.
“Oh, I grew up in a tough neighborhood, believe me, very tough…the sign in the library said [delivered in a semi-growl], ‘Shut the fuck up!’”
I’ve often wondered if Dangerfield ad-libbed much of his dialog as Al Czervik in Caddyshack. Plenty of non-“no respect” howlers:
“This steak still has marks from where the jockey was hitting it!”
“The last time I saw a mouth like that, it had a hook in it.”
“Hey, Moose! Rocco! Come help the judge find his checkbook!”
My late brother once wrote a joke for Dangerfield:
“I had an uncle in an insane asylum who couldn’t have sharp objects. So I gave him an electric razor for Christmas. [Pause] He hanged himself with the cord.”
That joke showed up in a seventh season episode of The Simpsons, which is also pretty ancient these days.
It may be that by that point in his career it was so well known that he wasn’t legitimately doing it for a laugh. I heard somewhere that Don McLean would begin his shows with his two best-known songs, Vincent and American Pie, wouldn’t be sitting through the whole show waiting for them. Perhaps Youngman was doing something like that.
Along with the “second opinion” joke.
Possible, but Dangerfield bought most of his jokes from professional joke writers. The writers of the script would have no problems imitating his style.
The first time I saw Jerry Seinfeld on TV after his show ended, he was on Leno’s show. He sits down on the couch and Jay says “So, how are you doing?”
“Just fine.” SIlence.
“But there must be something that’s bothering you?”
“No, not really.”
“Something that sticks in your craw?”
“Nooope…”
Leno’s getting frustrated, and laughing, too. “Well, the flight out here must’ve had some frustrations.”
“Smooth flight… nooo problems.”
But there were some real characters on board, right?"
“Might have been, I slept the whole way.”
I turned to my kids and said "That is lampshading."
The version I heard involved whether granny would be able to dance again.