Old School Comic Stars Featured in DVD Release

Groucho, Van Dyke, Foxx, Diller, Conway Are Set's Comic Legends

Jul 20, 2009

Five distinctly different comic styles are showcased in a four-disc set of variety show clips and other TV snippets aimed at an undemanding older audience.

The forgotten shows, vintage commercials and miscellaneous clips included in the box set Comic Legends from MPI Home Video are interesting only as curios.

That's because none of the stars' best-known TV work is included. The set appears to be the result of MPI either owning, or cheaply acquiring rights to the material and cynically marketing it solely to capitalize on the performers' name recognition.

Eternal milquetoast Pat Boone "hosts" the Van Dyke material, in newly-shot interstitial introductions. This is because much of the Van Dyke footage is culled from an episode of Boone's 1959 Chevy Showroom variety series.

The black-and-white Chevy clips pre-date by two years the arrival of Van Dyke's landmark situation comedy. The clips show off Van Dyke's exceptional pantomime skills. They also offer a window into what the comedian's early club act must have been like. (In the decade following World War II, Van Dyke and a partner played every two-bit burlesque house and low-end nightclub that would book them.)

The set-pieces, many performed solo and with minimal props, showcase his gift for physical comedy -- something which helped make Van Dyke's later sitcom so memorable.

Among the bonus features: an episode of Van Dyke's 1959 half-hour game show Laugh Line. This is a treat, since the celebrity panel includes Mike Nichols and Elaine May when they were still a comedy team.

Pioneering comedienne Phyllis Diller delighted in skewering the 60s image of the happy homemaker. Her standup consisted of an endless series of self-mocking one-liners about her hangdog face, stand-on-end hair and frightening wardrobe -- a self-celebration of her own over-the-top tackiness.

Her deliberately forced, almost maniacal laugh existed on the precipice of aural evil. It's everywhere here.

This material consists mostly of clips from the old Hollywood Palace variety show of the 1960s. It opens with Phyllis leading a line of gaucho-clad chorus boys in a rousing rendition of I Feel Pretty. She traipses around the stage in a yellow flapper dress with knee-high, lime green boots and her trademark cigarette and holder.

Then comes an endless string of her standup routines, followed by sketches featuring Phyllis with Dean Martin, Don Rickles, Phil Harris, English comic actor Terry-Thomas and others.

Among bonus features: Diller's appearance as the mystery guest on a 1963 episode of the game show What's My Line?, and a black-and-white commercial with Phyllis pitching Showy Bleach.

Sadly, none of Conway's best work -- with Carol Burnett's TV ensemble -- is present here. Instead, Disc Three cobbles together some occasionally amusing sketches of the gently silly Conway performing mostly solo on the Hollywood Palace.

Joining him periodically are Bing Crosby, former TV cowboy Dale Robertson and then-TV superstar David Janssen, taking a break from his great series The Fugitive. Janssen has the most fun when he cracks up in mid-sketch, unable to keep it together before Conway's relentless silliness.

Also on hand is one of Conway's best friends, the late TV announcer Ernie Anderson. The two had worked together in local television, in Cleveland. It's a joy to see them banter; they clearly know well each other's rhythms and reactions.

Both the aging Groucho and the pre-Sanford & Son Foxx appear in respective episodes of an obscure, badly-lit, poorly-directed half-hour series produced circa 1970 called One Man Show. (The series is so forgotten that www.imdb.com has no information on it.)

Groucho delivers a wan, disinterested monologue before a modest audience in a ramshackle studio before taking questions from the audience. To wit:

Later, a clearly bored Groucho is interviewed onstage by the show announcer, colorless Ed Jordan. At the end, Marx vacantly wanders toward the wings even before the credits roll -- still tethered to the microphone wire and not caring one bit.

Groucho's bonus features include lackluster clips from -- what else? -- Hollywood Palace.

Redd Foxx -- a giant figure among African-American entertainers -- fares no better than Groucho.

On his own One Man Show, Foxx is denied the chance to use the trademark "blue" (translation: dirty) material from his notorious nightclub act and party records of the 50s. (For example, one classic routine was You Got to Wash Your Ass.)

Instead, we're treated to a sanitized, unthreatening Foxx riffing on race and other things, plus then-topical subjects including the Vietnam War.

"I can't stand a midget. You get mad with a midget, you can't even cut him -- you gotta stab him on top of the head."

Comic Legends is a dubious record of what American TV sometimes offered audiences from the late 50s thorugh the early 70s. While there are a few amusing moments, too much of the material is the video equivalent of a train wreck.

If you're digging a hole in the backyard for a time capsule, this collection would be perfect contribution. Even if you're not, burying this box set would still be an option.

The compilation runs about four hours long -- the key word being long. It's available July 28, 2009 at a list price of $19.98.

The copyright of the article Old School Comic Stars Featured in DVD Release in TV Stars is owned by Barry M. Grey. Permission to republish Old School Comic Stars Featured in DVD Release in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.