As much as I loved Rodney, the thing about him was that he kind of put up a fence around himself. There were a couple of times after I got to know him when he would come over and say, “Hey, Fred, listen to this joke. Do you think this is funny?” He’d start telling me jokes and then suddenly he’d stop. He’d go, “What the hell am I trying it out on you for?” So one night, I came up and I told him I had an idea for a joke for him. The premise was that he was in a Las Vegas casino disturbing the peace. He looked up at me and said, “Fred, you can do a joke like that, but when I get onstage I gotta do heavy damage.”
That really stuck with me. Every time I see somebody who did a great job, I think, “You did heavy damage.”
DANNY AIELLO:
Rodney used to quote me all the time and he made my career. He’d go on all the talk shows like Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, and Dick Cavett and talk about me. He’d say stuff like, “Danny took me to Randall Avenue in the East Bronx. Looking over the water where his family lived, the most attractive thing about it was a toothless tire floating.” Then he’d say, “Danny said make a straight right and a straight left.” Of course, at the time I was a nobody, but he’d go on national television and mention my name as if everyone knew who I was. He’d do that on every show.
JIMMIE WALKER, comedian and actor:
Rodney was on another level. He was the guy who was like twenty or thirty years older, coming back for his second comeback. He was just a party cat. You wouldn’t think a guy who was twenty years older than everybody and had been through what he’d been through would be that kind of guy. He was just one of the cats, man.
BOB SAGET:
Once he told me I had a “Jew head”—that I was never going to be able to rest at night because I couldn’t stop thinking—but he’d seen me on The Merv Griffin Show and thought I was really funny. It was a pretty special thing and my friendship with Rodney was a big influence.
JUDD APATOW:
In LA, Rodney used to come in late at night, but I don’t think I ever saw him do his act. He’d just go onstage and talk to the audience. A lot of the time he would just seem depressed and he would be insanely funny, but it wasn’t the same Rodney Dangerfield. He would look at a woman in the crowd and say, “Oh, you’d love me for who I am. You’d be different.” It was really funny—and really, really dark.
I think he did this because he enjoyed going on when he didn’t have the pressure to be the Rodney Dangerfield character. It’s like he enjoyed the tension of not doing those jokes for the crowd.
EDDIE BERKE, actor and longtime Hollywood Improv bartender:
My personal history with Rodney Dangerfield goes all the way back to when I was a kid. My dad, Irving, was the social director at this place called the Hotel Gibber in Kiamesha Lake, New York, in the Catskills. Part of his job was to hire the entertainment, and he was one of the first people that gave Rodney work as a stand-up comic way back when.
So we had that link and Rodney had known my father very well. Unfortunately, by the time I was at the Hollywood Improv in the late seventies and Rodney started coming in, he was heavily into drugs, booze, and all this other stuff. He actually came into the club one night dressed in his pajamas wanting to go on. Needless to say, whoever was emceeing at the time wouldn’t let him because on top of how he was dressed, Rodney was also shitfaced or doped up—I don’t know which.
That aside, though, Rodney was basically a very nice man who had issues. The other thing about Rodney—and this isn’t unlike most entertainers—was that he had this big thing about age. My father was also one of these people with good genes who always looked a good ten or twenty years younger than he actually was. Even though they’d known each other forever, Rodney never believed my dad was really his real age.
Sure enough, every time I would see him at the Improv, the first words out of his mouth after I’d told them that my father had said to say hello to him was, “How old is Irving?” Whenever I’d tell him what my father’s age was, he’d say, “I don’t believe that!”
JOE PISCOPO:
I remember one night when I was emceeing in New York, Rodney came into the Improv unannounced, and I said, “Come on up here.” He did, but then afterwards he came up to me in the bar and said, “You gotta introduce me. You can’t just say come on up here.” I listened intently to that, and to this day I’ve followed his advice. It’s like if I’m doing a charity gig, I’ll say, “Ladies and gentlemen. We’re very privileged to have this person with us. Please give a nice round of applause for so and so.”
Rodney taught me that. He was a scientist when it came to comedy and he was probably the purest comic I know. We would watch him formulate his Tonight Show set six weeks ahead of when he was supposed to go on. He would come in and just start to formulate the jokes. What he’d do is pull up in front of the club in this old Buick Electra. It was like a Cheech and Chong movie with all of the weed smoke coming out, and then he’d come in and come on.
I also remember once when I was just starting out, I was about to go on. When you’re at that stage of your career, your heart’s in your throat and you’re dying because you’ve got to go on up in front of all these people. Then I remember Chris Albrecht, who was managing the club at the time, putting his hand on my chest and saying, “Rodney’s here.”
You knew that meant you were bumped for Rodney, and that he’d destroy a room like nobody else could. I mean, when I tell you that you never heard a laugh that big, it’s true.
RITCH SHYDNER, comedian, writer, and actor:
There were some comics who’d try and stick it out to the end of their set, but I usually cut things off as soon as I saw Rodney even if I was in the middle of a joke. I’d say something like, “So this guy . . .” Then I’d say, “Hey, folks, I’ve got a big treat for you.” Rodney always appreciated that and he’d say to me afterwards, “Hey, kid, you know how to move. I like that.”
One night—and I’m not sure if Rodney had been at the Improv or not—I walked over to Times Square after my set and I lit up a cigarette as I stood there soaking up the scene. About a minute or two later, I felt somebody brushing up against me, and before I could get scared that I was about to be mugged, I looked up and it was Rodney. He goes, “Hey, kid, it’s all happening out here.” Then he spotted a hooker and said, “There’s my girlfriend.” Basically, he blew me off after that so he could go over and talk to her.
JACK KNIGHT:
I was seated in the audience in New York once with David Frye the impressionist, and Rodney—who couldn’t stand David—was up onstage. Back then, the light fixtures were in this kind of art-deco leaded-glass motif, and while Rodney was in the middle of his set, he spotted these two women who had just walked in. He stopped whatever joke he was doing and said, “Hey, look who just walked in!”
When he said it, I stood up in my chair so I could see the women and I hit my head on one of the lights and it disintegrated to smithereens. Broken glass fell onto the table and onto the floor—all of which got a big laugh and Rodney went on with his act. Meanwhile, one of the busboys came out with a broom and a dustpan and began quietly sweeping up all of the glass.
Then he carried it to the back of the club and dumped it into an empty metal garbage can. You can only imagine the noise it made when he did, but Rodney’s timing was perfect because he came up with the fastest, funniest ad-lib I had ever heard in my life. He said, “Hey, it sounds like a robot throwing up!”
The interesting thing about Rodney is that he would come offstage after trying out a new bit and ask some stranger what they thought. Obviously, you couldn’t get an honest opinion out of that, but I don’t think he was very secure about a lot of stuff. I was actually the entertainment at Rodney’s son Brian’s ninth birthday party at the Improv. I forget what I did, but there were some songs and some carry-ons and we all had a great time. Come to think of it, I probably had a second piece of cake.
DREW CAREY, actor, comedian, sports executive, and host of The Pr
ice Is Right:
This is a really good Rodney/Improv story, and I’m extremely proud of this night. I hadn’t become famous yet, but I had recently passed my Tonight Show audition and having just come off doing eighteen consecutive months on the road, my chops were really strong. I was also getting great spots at the Improv.
Normally, this was during prime time, which was generally any time between 9 PM and midnight. But no matter how good you were, one of the unwritten rules they had—and this is pretty much standard at any comedy club—is that if somebody else more famous than you shows up, you automatically get bumped. It has nothing to do with how funny you are. It’s just the natural pecking order of things. Any comedian will tell you this and you just accept it, hoping there’ll still be an audience left by the time you finally go on.
One night in 1991, I was at the Hollywood Improv hanging out in the bar with a buddy of mine. I was waiting to go on and going over my material in my head when either the emcee or the manager came up to me and said, “We’re going to have to push you back from your normal time because we have someone coming in to do a guest spot.”
Of course I was disappointed, but the only choice I had was to wait, and so I said, “All right.” Well, the next thing I knew, the guy going on wasn’t just any guest—it was Jerry Seinfeld, who had the hottest sitcom in America at the time. He absolutely murdered the place.
After that, in comes Jerry’s best friend, George Wallace. George is still great and he works mostly in Las Vegas these days, but at the time, euphemistically speaking, he was a murderer onstage. Back then he could destroy any club, which he did that night as another guest who wasn’t scheduled. By the time he finished his set, people were just pounding the tables.
I was like, “Fuck! I can’t believe this is happening to me.” What happened next was even more unbelievable, because just then the emcee tapped me on the shoulder and said, “We’ve got one more guy coming up—Rodney Dangerfield.” So it was Jerry Seinfeld, George Wallace, and Rodney Dangerfield, all on the same bill, right in a row. But the emcee was great. I can’t remember who it was, but he did me a really nice favor because after Rodney was done, he got up onstage and said, “Hey, folks. Not many people can follow Rodney Dangerfield, but this guy can. Please welcome Drew Carey.” While the crowd was still laughing at Rodney, I went on and hit them with a joke just to get the ball rolling. After that, I did a good solid fifteen-minute set and killed.
ROBERT WUHL, actor, writer, and comedian:
Of all the places I performed, the Improv was the best of the bunch. First off, I was still living at home with my parents in New Jersey and I was coming from the Holland Tunnel, so it was closer. Also, I liked the intimacy of the room because there wasn’t a high stage, which I preferred, because I never liked talking down to people.
And I was treated well because I was writing for Rodney Dangerfield. At the time, I idolized Rodney and I knew his club on First Avenue, so I wrote a couple of jokes for him and walked in one night off the street. I’d never performed there and they didn’t know me from Adam, but when I went in I went right up to the maître d’ and told him I had some jokes for Rodney. He never questioned me or tried to turn me away. He just said, “Rodney’s downstairs. Go down there.”
So I did. I walked down this flight of stairs next to the show room and knocked on the door. The next thing I heard was Rodney’s unmistakable voice. He said, “Come on in,” and I turned the knob. Now picture this: It’s less than a second later and I’m in Rodney Dangerfield’s dressing room. He’s standing there in front of the sink and he’s wearing a bathrobe that’s wide open and he’s taking a leak. His dick is on full display and he’s doing his business because there’s no toilet.
But somehow I still managed to say to him, “Hi, Rodney, I’ve got some jokes for you.” I’m not sure if I even introduced myself, but without looking up he said, “Okay, kid. Let me hear them.” So I told him my jokes and he said to me, “The jokes are good, kid, but don’t imitate me.” Then he said, “I pay fifty dollars a joke.” Before I knew it, I gave him a few more and started writing regularly for him.
Being the huge partier that Rodney was, we used to smoke pot together. He also spent a lot of time running jokes by me, which I considered the supreme compliment. He’d say, “You’re a good comic editor.” One of my favorite rituals with Rodney was when he would leave jokes on my answering machine and then pause for the laugh. He’d call me up and say stuff like, “Boy, I worked some rough places. I worked at Vinney’s Boom Boom Room and on the menu they had broken leg of lamb. Okay, so what do you think?”
Rodney also used my jokes on The Tonight Show, so that gave me gravitas at the same time I was developing my act. At the Improv, what he’d do is drop in to work out bits and take his cuts in the batting cage. Especially for the younger comics, he was a great role model, because he was fast and he’d be there just banging jokes out one after the other.
Rodney would also hang out there afterwards and sit in the back getting high. The thing about him was, he was the greatest supporter of comics who had something to say. If you didn’t, though, he had absolutely no patience. You’d hear it especially when there was some greenhorn up there trying to do observational humor. Like for instance, there’d be a guy going, “You know, it’s interesting when you’re waiting for a bus and the sign says this.”
Rodney would go ballistic. All of a sudden in the middle of their act you’d hear: “Come on, man, tell me a joke. I don’t want to hear about your bus. Next you’re going to tell me about where I buy shoes. Tell me a fucking joke. Make me laugh.” So yeah, Rodney could be tough, but if he liked you and you took chances, you could do no wrong.
BOBBY KELTON:
By the time I met him, he was already a huge star, but he still came to the Improv a lot to work out. I can’t remember how I first got to know him, but like a lot of the other comics, I was one of the ones he bought jokes from. One of his favorites, which he did on The Tonight Show, was about the Surgeon General offering him a cigarette. Another one was where he said, “I offered to donate my body to science and they gave me a doggy bag.”
To this day, I have a stack of his handwritten letters on stationery from various Las Vegas hotels thanking me for my jokes. I was also out in Vegas once when he was performing at the MGM Grand, and Rodney got me and my brother tickets. During the middle of the show, he even said, “That joke was written by a very funny young man named Bobby Kelton who’s here tonight.” Then he invited me to get up and they shined the spotlight on me. I was blown away, but Rodney was like that. For all his shortcomings, he always had a good heart.
ROBERT KLEIN:
Rodney was by the book—even though there was no book—and he was of that old style. The rhythms of his jokes were so superior that he took you to another level. For example, some of his early material was every bit as good as Art Buchwald or William Safire. The point is that first and foremost, Rodney was a stand-up comedian. And street smart with only a high school education, talking about stuff like, “I’ll tell you, our streets aren’t safe, our schools aren’t safe, our parks aren’t safe, but under our arms we have complete protection.”
This was social commentary and it was absolutely brilliant. My whole thing with him personally was a whole other story, and it became very intense after years of hanging out with him. But I always knew he loved me, and more than that, he respected my education and my intelligence even though we were exactly twenty years apart. On his very first comedy album, No Respect, when he autographed it for me he wrote: “To the next dimension.” He called me the next dimension. He loved my sort of intellectual, slightly arrogant intelligence. It’s not what he was used to where he came from, but he knew funny from funny.
Rodney was the indisputable king of the Improv, just starting to have his first commercial success on the night I began performing there. Though I’d never seen or heard of him before, he made quite an impression on me because all during my set I kept noticing this odd-look
ing guy dressed in a black suit and red necktie, nervously tugging at his collar. He looked miserable and I didn’t quite know what to make of him, but just as I finished, he came up to me and said: “I’ll tell you, you were fucking brilliant, man. I’m a tough cocksucker, but you have to come in here every night for three years to get it right.”
I followed his advice, and from then on I went there every night for like the next three or four years. It was wonderful because I was single at the time and I met so many girls there, plus I learned so much from Rodney both from seeing him at the Improv and spending time with him at many of his gigs outside the club. Beyond the fundamental basics of understanding the construction and nuances of a joke, I also learned many of the crucial technical aspects, like how to hold a microphone and when to remove it from the stand.
Most important of all, though, he taught me how to size up an audience, how to take command of a room, and how to deal with hecklers. In short, he was my Yale School of Drama for comedy, whom I came to consider both my mentor, as well as a surrogate father figure rolled into one. In fact, I even used to kiddingly call him “pop” until he told me to knock it off. But while we had our fair share of disagreements over the years, I always loved Rodney. There will never be another one like him.
SIXTEEN
Robert Klein Elevates Stand-Up—and the Improv—to a New Level
The next major shot fired in the direction of the Improv’s comedy arm was Robert Klein, the brilliantly acerbic Bronx-born comedian who arrived not long after Rodney in 1966 and immediately became his protégé, even though their styles couldn’t have been more different.
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