For Laughing Out Loud

by Ed McMahon

  So I became a sad clown. That's a character description, not a comment on my disappointment. Was I really disappointed? Absolutely. I think everyone wants to be the ringmaster, the person who cracks the whip, rather than one of the clowns. I'd been a leader my entire life. In college I had been freshman class president; I ran my own bingo operation before I was eighteen; I was the youngest salesman on the boardwalk; during military training I was the platoon leader; and I'd become a marine officer and a hotshot fighter pilot. I wasn't used to being second. But it was a good job and it gave me an opportunity to be on network television. So I became a clown, and I probably vowed to myself that I would never take the number-two spot again.

  Little did I know.

  Clowns are made up, not born. My character consisted of a bald wig with a fringe of red hair, big round white eyes and a white mouth, a painted-on brown beard, thick black eyebrows, heavy glasses, and, most important, a big bright-red nose that blinked on and off and read HELLO! HELLO! I wore an emerald green opera cape with scarlet lapels, the traditional oversize trousers held up by huge suspenders, and different colored shoes on each foot.

  A lot of people mistook me for Clarabell, the clown on The Howdy Doody Show, who "spoke" by honking a horn. Now, I had a nose that lit up and blinked HELLO! HELLO! and I was wearing a green opera cape. How easy could it have been to mistake me for someone else?

  The show opened with a shot of my bald head, on which was printed THE BIG TOP. As I raised my head, I turned on my nose. Originally the nose was also going to carry the CBS logo, but perhaps a blinking nose did not precisely fit the image William Paley was trying to create for his TV network.

  I believe it was William Shakespeare who noted that there were only thirty different clown bits in the world, but somehow I had to come up with fifty-two three-minute gags a year. I was the leader of the clown troupe Ed McMahon and His Merry Band of Clowns. I wrote and produced all the clown bits. If we had to cut the bit to fit the time slot, I directed it as we did it. Like all the classic clown acts, we did only sight gags, so our bits would not have worked as well on radio. My partner in mime was a wonderfully talented actor named Chris Keegan and, basically, he was the pratfall guy. I was the victor; he was the victim. If a rock fell in the pool right in front of me, the water splashed on him twenty feet away; if he moved over and stood next to me and dropped another rock in the pool, it would still splash all over him.

  If I was holding a ladder and turned around, he got hit in the head with it. If we were both eating a banana, the gorilla ate his banana. If I fell off the high wire, I fell on him. Once we did an elaborate gag about finding the surprise in a box of cereal. It was supposed to end with Chris's finding a pony in the box. The first box supposedly contained cold cereal; when he opened it up, it was filled with steaming dry ice. The second box supposedly contained hot cereal; when he opened it up, it was on fire. The third box contained a ton of cornflakes, as well as another clown sitting on a pony; when he opened it up, the cornflakes fell on him and the pony ran over him. In rehearsal it worked perfectly. But when we did it on the air, the flames in the hot cereal caused the cornflake dust to ignite. While we were running around stamping out the fire, the pony panicked. It ran out of the box and knocked over both me and Chris. I fell and my nose started blinking on and off. But somehow Chris saved the gag—he managed to get buried by the cornflakes.

  I wore my nose proudly for eight years on The Big Top. I rarely had fewer than four shows on the air in Philadelphia. In addition to the shows, I was also doing commercials for local car dealerships and banks and supermarkets, so I got to be pretty well known in the city. I was the big cheese in Philadelphia, although in Philly it is probably more appropriate to call me the big cheesesteak. For the first time in my life I was a little bit of a celebrity. Well, there are no classes in how to be a celebrity. You just do the best you can, try to be nice to everyone, and hope that you don't get run over by the pony in the cereal box.

  I've always been so pleased that people enjoy my work enough to want my photograph or signature that I always find the time to pose for a picture or sign a piece of paper. But one evening in Philadelphia, after I had started doing five minutes of commentary on the eleven o'clock news broadcast, I was having dinner with my close friends Bob and Marti Gillin when a pleasant woman approached our table and explained, "I really enjoy watching you on the air."

  "Thank you very much," I said modestly. "That's very kind."

  "You went to college with my brother," she continued, "and I was just wondering if you could come over and say hello to some people."

  Well, I always try to please people, so I walked with her over to her table. As she introduced me, she added, "He went to school with my brother at St. Joe's . . ."

  I kept smiling. I knew exactly what had happened. The sports reporter on the newscast was a talented kid named Jack Whittaker, who had graduated from St. Joseph's University in Philly. And Whittaker looked a lot like me, except for our height, weight, and hair color. I nodded to the group and began doing what I call tap dancing; I moved lightly around the subject without ever getting into specifics. "St. Joe's was a wonderful place to go to school," I agreed.

  But all of a sudden she looked at me and drilled me with the question, "Who'd you have for philosophy?"

  "Well, you know," I began, fumbling for an answer, "I had a lot of different teachers at that fine school. It was a while ag—"

  Sternly, she said, "You never forget your philosophy teacher."

  Now everyone at the table was staring at me and I knew I had to respond to this woman. I had to stop dancing. As warmly as I could, I said, "I'm afraid you've made a little mistake. People make it all the time. They think I went to St. Joe's but I didn't. My friend Jack Whittaker went to St. Joe's and . . ."

  She said very evenly, "You didn't go to St. Joe's?"

  "Oh, believe me, I would've loved to go there. It's a wonderful place. But see, I wanted to go to drama school . . ."

  "You don't even know my brother, do you?"

  "No, I don't, but if I met him, I'm sure . . ."

  With a sneer in her voice, she continued, "I suppose somebody as important as you went to one of those big fancy Ivy League schools like Harvard or Yale. Catholic schools weren't good enough . . ."

  I wanted to dive into a hole. "No, no, that's not true at all. I went to Catholic University. I didn't go to St. Joe's, but I really would've loved to have gone there . . ."

  As I walked away from that table I heard people muttering words like "liar" and "stinks" and "big shot." This incident upset me; I don't like to see anyone get their feelings hurt, even if I had nothing to do with it. And, in fact, in poor lighting, on a seven-inch screen, I could see how it might be possible to confuse me and Jack Whittaker. But what I still couldn't understand was how people could mix me up with Clarabell.

  I don't think anyone anticipated how rapidly television would become an integral part of our lives, make radio seem obsolete, and just about destroy the movie business. Edward R. Murrow accurately described television as "the five-ton pencil." It had the kind of mammoth power to create stars overnight, to shift public opinion, to educate, to inform, and, mostly, to entertain. The people working in television in those early days didn't have time to worry about doing it right; we were much more concerned with just getting it done. With very small budgets, we had to be creative, find ways of using the unique technical opportunities television offered. On the news programs, for example, we had neither the time nor the money to film stories, so what the producers did was put still photographs on easels and pan, or move the camera, from right to left or up and down to give the illusion of motion, or a stagehand would flip through a series of photos as the newscaster read the story.

  Everything on the East Coast was done live, not just the breakfast shows but even the most prestigious dramatic programs like Playhouse 90. The most popular programs were kinescoped and these grainy films were flown overnight to be shown the next day on th
e West Coast. Doing live television meant there was no going back: if you made a mistake, you lived with it and did your best to make something out of it, developing the technique to deal with whatever happened. Many performers currently on television never had to learn how to do that. Dick Clark was doing a live special a few years ago and one of his guests, a well-known television actor, flubbed a line. Instead of continuing, he turned to the director—now this was on live TV—and said, "Let's stop and do it again."

  Television became sophisticated very fast. The difference in the way things could be done in 1949 and the way they had to be done by 1952 was enormous. In 1949 we were the new kids in town, just looking to put on a show and hoping somebody would watch. Three years later we were a serious business. As soon as it became obvious how profitable television would be, the radio networks just poured money into its development.

  I was one of the biggest stars on television in Philadelphia, one of the nation's top five media markets, by the time I was thirty years old. But just when the network decided to transmit my show beyond Philadelphia—CBS was going to broadcast Strictly for the Girls throughout the Northeast—I was recalled to serve in Korea.

  When I returned I didn't exactly have to start all over again—I still had my blinking nose and mismatched floppy shoes—but every other program of mine was off the air. WCAU ran a big campaign advertising my return: "Guess who's back? Ed McMahon! And look who's got him! WCAU!" But they had almost nothing for me to do. Television had grown substantially during the time I was gone. The normal broadcast schedule now ran the full day, from early morning till late at night. The eleven o'clock news was finally being broadcast at eleven o'clock. The station's programming was built around network sitcoms, westerns, and dramas. Some of the biggest stars of television, like Milton Berle and Howdy Doody, were not as popular as they had been. So WCAU created a late-night show for me titled Five Minutes More, which they broadcast during the last five minutes of the eleven o'clock news.

  Basically, it was my playtime. I had five minutes to do absolutely anything I wanted to do. I could do serious or humorous pieces, I could interview guests, I could start a fund-raising campaign, or I could simply do an essay about whatever was on my mind. It was my show and doing it every night was about as much fun as I've ever had on television.

  As always, I had a very small budget. About the only thing I could afford was creativity. Once, I remember, Ginger Rogers was in Philadelphia to publicize a new movie. In those days the movie studios were terrified of television and most of the big stars were contractually prohibited from appearing on TV. But I had always been a big, big Ginger Rogers fan and I wanted her on my show. Finally I convinced her husband, Jacques Bergerac, to allow her hand to come on the show. Not Ginger Rogers but Ginger Rogers's gloved hand. When we went on the air, viewers saw me sitting on a stool holding a white gloved hand that protruded from behind the curtain. "This is the hand of Ginger Rogers," I said softly. "Look how delicate it is, how graceful. It is the same kind of grace we've become accustomed to seeing when she dances . . ." Viewers never saw Ginger Rogers, she never said a word, but the entire five minutes was all about her.

  Five Minutes More was as much like a daily television column as I could make it. I wrote and produced the entire show myself, but I tried to make it as much as possible like a visual Robert Benchley piece. For example, I opened the show one night with the camera slowly panning a photograph of the famed Philadelphia Mummers' band marching in the annual parade, as the band's music was heard playing in the background. "This is a Mummers' marching band," I said solemnly, "and this year this incredible group of musicians will mark the tenth consecutive year they have marched in the Thanksgiving Day parade . . ."

  As I began explaining that the Mummers were a very special charitable organization, my stage manager, a great man named John Heatherton whom I often used on the show, came out wearing headphones and interrupted me. "Sorry to bother you, Ed," he said, "but what do you want me to do with that band that's waiting out in the hall?"

  I stared at him for a moment, then gently placed my hand on his shoulder and asked, "Now, John, how long've you been in this business?"

  "Almost four years."

  Searching for the proper words, I explained, "See, I know what you saw on the monitor made it look as if there was a band in the studio, but actually it was just a photograph and a recording."

  "Oh, yeah" he replied, nodding, "I get it. That was just a recording. That was great the way you did that. It sure sounded real to me. So, what do you want me to do with that band out in the hall?"

  "John," I sighed, "let me try to explain this to you. There is no band in the hallway. See, in show business you try to create an illusion, you try to create an atmosphere, and if you do it well enough, people will believe. So when I told the viewers that they were looking at the Mummers' band and played a record, the idea was to make people believe the entire Mummers' band was right here in this studio. But they're not here. Look around, do you see them?

  "No, I don't . . . ," he said.

  "Of course you don't . . ."

  ". . . 'cause they're out there in the hall."

  That was it; I'd had it with him. "Okay, John, have it your way. The entire Mummers' band is here. If you want to believe that, it's fine with me. I hope that makes you happy."

  "So then you want me to send them home?"

  "Yes, John, please," I agreed. "Why don't you just go out there and tell the band to go home."

  He turned and yelled offstage. "Okay, go ahead and send them home."

  I faced the camera. "I'm sorry for that interruption, ladies and gentlemen, but sometimes in doing this program . . ." and as I continued, the Mummers' band, in full regalia, marched across the stage playing loudly.

  That didn't stop me. I just raised my voice above their music and continued to explain about how difficult it was to create an illusion successfully.

  Sometimes I didn't know what I was going to do on the show an hour before airtime, but I always managed to come up with something. One night, when I was really desperate, I did a variation of an old vaudeville joke: I interviewed a talking bull. As it turned out, though, this animal was bull-headed. I explained to my audience that just before the show he had had an argument with his owner and had decided to get even with him by not speaking. Naturally, the owner and I were terribly embarrassed, and we finished the show with a sincere apology. Then the owner walked out of the studio.

  But just as we were going off the air, the bull shouted at the owner, "If you don't come back right now, I'll never speak to you again."

  I was always searching for something new. One night I did a remote interview with a singer outside the studio. As we discussed his career, a faked shoot-out took place right behind us. I never noticed it; I just continued with the interview. People were running, ducking behind cars, firing at each other, and I was asking calmly, "So how did you decide to become a singer?"

  Actually, we had a problem with that bit because someone called the police, who arrived in force ready for a fire fight.

  I used a lot of photographs. Once, to illustrate an essay about the beauty of a woman in motion, I mounted a sexy photograph of Marilyn Monroe on a piece of paper and jiggled it at the right time. That's where imagination became important—I was hoping people would imagine she was actually moving. I opened a show about handicapped people overcoming their disabilities with a photograph I'd cut out of a magazine of blind pianist George Shearing's hands. "These are the hands of George Shearing," I explained. "He has never seen them."

  Alyce, our kids, and I were still living in Drexelbrook. I'd become extremely friendly with the builder and owner of the complex, the great Dan Kelly. It was from Dan Kelly that I learned about generosity and grace. Dan Kelly's joy in life came from sharing his success with others. Dan owned racehorses and on occasion would give me a solid tip. Once, he gave me the proverbial sure thing, and I was so excited about it that I went on the air and shared that tip wit
h my listeners. It is possible I asked them not to tell anybody else. But approximately half the entire population of Philadelphia bet on the horse, which drove down the odds. The horse won, and paid about a quarter.

  Once, I organized a campaign to outlaw the lyric to "Muskrat Ramble." I went as far as to propose a law making it illegal to write or perform the words to any Dixieland tune. I also organized a fund-raising campaign to save Admiral Dewey's flagship, which was rotting in the navy yard. My five minutes of whimsy at the conclusion of a serious newscast became very popular. I tried to give people something a little lighter, something that would contrast with the often sad news stories they had just heard, with which to end their day. The whole program, with John Facenda and Jack Whittaker doing the news and my hosting the last five minutes, worked very well and was very successful.

  But as much as I enjoyed doing Five Minutes More, it wasn't enough to keep me busy. At most it took only a couple of hours a day to write the show and gather whatever props I needed. As everyone in the entertainment industry knows, once you pick up the stuffed elephant, there just isn't too much else to do. So I started commuting to New York City, the center of the television industry, to meet talent agents, make the rounds of the big advertising agencies, and audition for commercials. I didn't really know how to advance my career in television, except to keep doing exactly what I had been doing but to try to do more of it.

  Several talent agents encouraged me. They told me they thought I had "it," although they couldn't describe precisely what "it" was. But whatever "it" was—a genial manner, an Irish wit, an amiable personality—apparently I had a lot of "it," and it seemed like only a matter of time before I found the right opportunity to use "it."