There’s a movie or television show I saw ten or fifteen years ago (but much older than that - probably from the 1950s). Two performers (vaudeville or other stage) are arguing, and the older one (Ed Wynn or someone much like him) tells the younger one “You’re not even second-rate - I’m second-rate” (I think also that the older fellow mentioned the old saw about television being the box that vaudeville is buried in).
The quite Ed-Wynn-esque Howard Da Silva got an Emmy for saying that in Verna, USO Girl.
Thank you. Looks like I overcorrected - I thought “That Howard Da Silva looking guy must have been Ed Wynn, not really Howard D.,” and threw myself off.