by Howie Mandel
This unleashed creative passion could result in success, but his point was that passion alone is the success. We all need it in our lives. If your job may happen to be cleaning toilets, but if you are passionate about your stamp collection and can’t wait to get to it, your life is much richer than that of the CEO who drudges through life without a spark of passion for anything.
This philosophy was the reason Denny and I clicked from the moment we met. It was almost as if he were preaching my life. Without a thought of where it might lead me or what the outcome might be, I had stepped on the stage at Yuk Yuk’s. On April 19, 1978, shortly before midnight, I had found my passion.
It was 1979. We were in the middle of a comedy boom. If every major city didn’t have a club, I assure you one was about to open. Comedy clubs were exciting places to be. Live stand-up had become the newest, freshest form of entertainment for the young. It seemed to be replacing the disco.
On any given night at Yuk Yuk’s, Mark Breslin would host and introduce the lineup of regular, unpaid comedians, followed by the one paid featured act. This comic was either one of the club regulars or a headliner from out of town such as Gilbert Gottfried or Jay Leno. Comedic celebrities like Robin Williams might drop in and surprise the audience.
Mark continually invited me back, and within weeks he moved me into the regular lineup. I was now part of the club and, unbeknownst to me, riding that wave to who knew where.
I believe that everyone who made their way to the stage was there because someone else told them they were funny. It might be just a friend or a relative at the dinner table. No one ever made that decision alone, including me. Once you were there, it would be horrifying to find out that only your friends and relatives shared your humor. I always felt incredibly lucky to get laughs from all the strangers making up the audience. It made me feel as if they were sharing in my sense of humor. There’s nothing that can make you feel more naked and vulnerable than revealing your own sense of humor publicly. The sound of laughter coming from strangers is like a warm, fuzzy “ME TOO.”
I loved being there. I was comfortably uncomfortable onstage, and I had found my joy. At the same time, had I done a little self-analysis, I might have asked myself, “Every time I walk onstage, I’m petrified. Why am I doing this?” Yet it was a strange comfort zone. This seemed like an incredible dichotomy. In a quest to be noticed, accepted, and loved by strangers, you set yourself up to be ridiculed or humiliated. Silence alone can be humiliating. But as much as you might think I had chosen comedy, it had chosen me.
At this point, I had been attending this comedy soiree every night for five months. Amazingly, Mark asked me to headline the show. I became the featured act for the week. My name was on the marquee along with the tagline “Borderline Psychotic,” a reference to my hyperkinetic nervous energy onstage. But when you come to think about it, that tagline doesn’t stray too far from the reality.
Being a featured act was a huge responsibility. I was forced to deliver. I had to do nine shows a week, one each day and two on Friday and Saturday nights. I’d like to thank Terry, who seemed to enjoy these times as much as me. I couldn’t believe she would put up with going to a comedy club each and every night. (I still can’t.) I remember the time Terry had gotten tickets for us to see George Harrison live. A Beatle was coming to our town, and we had tickets. But I had to inform her that I couldn’t make it.
This was going to be my first real job in comedy. This was a feature, and Yuk Yuk’s was actually paying me for my services. For the nine shows, I would end up with a check for $150. If you do the math, that comes out to approximately $17 per show. Even though I would miss only one performance to see a Beatle, how could I walk away from $17? The truth is that I couldn’t walk away from the stage, and Terry understood that.
When I told her that I couldn’t go, I was prepared for her to be upset and at least inflict some guilt on me. She had been spending every single night for the past five months in a comedy club. This was to be her special night out. But instead, she encouraged me to fulfill my obligation. To this day, after thirty-one years of touring and being away from home for weeks at a time, along with countless other obligations, she has given me nothing but support and love, not to mention putting up with the borderline psychotic side of me.
It was so hard to concentrate at work during the day. I was consumed with the preparations involved in being the featured act. Unbelievable as this may sound, it wasn’t about the material. It was the fact that I was getting $17 a show. Do you know what kind of pressure that puts on one’s shoulders? For the last five months, I had been showing up for free and just trying to be funny. Now I was earning a gazillion percent more. Just the fact that somebody was paying me meant it was a job carrying heavy responsibility.
My act was mostly me just being me. Some people might call that “filler.” There was a lot of giggling and me asking, “What? What?” But on the road to becoming a featured act, I had expanded my repertoire. I had created this character called Donny. He was half man, half chicken. I stuffed my cheeks and moved around the stage like a spastic fowl, telling the audience: “Daddy was a lonely chicken farmer. Mommy was a chicken.” Then I would reminisce about my childhood when I woke up in the morning and heard Mommy in the kitchen making eggs. I’d then make a grunting sound, as if I were a chicken pushing an egg … out of its ass.
I closed the set with the Bobby character. Terry’s mom had sewed me a bonnet to wear. I would then drop my pants to reveal towels tucked into my underpants, giving the impression I was wearing a diaper. I immediately launched into a series of filthy observations in that cute little falsetto.
Nothing but brilliance. It was worth every penny of that $17 they paid me. It was so exciting. I thought I had arrived. I was a featured act. I was being paid. I was on the marquee, even though you had to walk downstairs to actually see the marquee. I truly loved being the featured act for that week, and by the way, Terry truly loved the George Harrison concert.
By the following week, life had returned to normal. I continued to hang out at the club every night, doing my comedy sets in the regular lineup.
Life was good. Terry was great, so I decided to take it to the next level. I asked her to marry me. Actually, that sounds a lot more romantic than it was. One night after my set, we went across the street to Meyers Delicatessen. She ordered a corned beef sandwich. I had the pastrami. When the sandwiches arrived, I told her I had to go to the men’s room. As I got up from the table, I reached into my pocket, pulled out a diamond my father had helped me purchase, threw it on the table, and said, “If you want to make an engagement ring out of that, let me know. I’ll be right back, I gotta piss.” I don’t know why Hallmark never hired me.
As crass as this may sound, I want you to know that Terry is one of the least romantic people I’ve ever met, so as unromantic as this sounds, it happens to be who we are. Over the past thirty years, I’ve brought home flowers once. Her response was “Who gave you these?” You would think her response to this landmark gesture would’ve been, “Wow, how romantic, these are beautiful.” Truth be told, they were given to me by the set decorator on St. Elsewhere, who was going to throw them out anyway. Terry knows me too well.
In 1979, I decided to take a week off work and visit Los Angeles, for no other reason than it sounded like a great vacation. I had never been anywhere but Toronto and Miami.
Our tour group consisted of me, Terry, Lou Dinos, and two of our noncomedy friends, Jeff Weiman and Cindy Kleinberg. We landed in sunny Southern California, which seemed so culturally different from anything I had ever experienced. This trip was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime sightseeing vacation. As I sit here thirty years later, I feel like Gilligan. In 1979, I was embarking on what was supposed to be my three-hour tour. Yet here I am marooned in the midst of a beautiful life and unbelievable career. You have no idea how far this is from what I ever dreamed I would be doing. I’d always figured that if I were ever lucky enough to be writing a book at
this stage of my life, chapter 5 would likely focus on the wearability of shag carpet.
One of the top tourist destinations in Los Angeles was the world-famous Comedy Store. It seemed that everybody who was anybody in comedy was being discovered there: Freddie Prinze from Chico and the Man, Jimmie Walker from Good Times, and Robin Williams of Mork & Mindy.
As luck would have it, the night we happened on the Comedy Store was amateur night, which featured lesser-known comedians. I saw people outside I recognized. One of these was Mike Binder, a young comedian from Detroit whom I had met at Yuk Yuk’s. He was now living in Los Angeles and told me that he was a regular on a comedy game show called Make Me Laugh.
This was a half-hour syndicated show that did not air in Canada. It was hosted by Bobby Van and featured three comedians who would be on every night for an entire week. Each comedian would take a minute to entertain a contestant. The challenge was to not laugh. For every minute they didn’t laugh, the contestants would win money. As if comedy is not hard enough, why not perform for people who are paid not to laugh? That being said, it was a hugely entertaining show.
Mike told me about the show and introduced me to the executive producer, George Foster, who also happened to be there that night. Mike knew the ropes at the Comedy Store, so he helped me sign up for a set. I just thought of this as another fun moment in my vacation. In no way was I aspiring to move my career along. I don’t think that I was aware there was a career to be had.
After regaling the American audience with my five-minute Yuk Yuk’s routine, Mike told me that George Foster thought I was a good candidate for Make Me Laugh. I was invited to his office the next day. This trip was turning out to be much more than I had envisioned.
The next day I showed up at the gates of KTLA, an independent local TV station that was also the locale for numerous TV productions. I had been on the Universal Studios tour, where I don’t believe I got anywhere near real show business. The closest I had gotten was a plastic-looking shark jumping out of a lagoon and splashing our tram. Here there were no tours, just giant warehouses filled with people making television shows. When I got to George’s office, he told me that I was very funny and ordered me to make his secretary laugh. I can’t remember what I did, but apparently it was worthy of being invited to appear on the show.
I was asked to make myself available for one day. The show taped five episodes in a day, which aired over the course of a week. I flew home and had a great story to tell about my vacation.
At this point, my father and I were in the lighting business together. The company had expanded to the point where we had a very nice downtown office and a sales staff of fifteen, including Lou Dinos.
One day at the office, I got a call at three in the afternoon asking if I was available to do an impromptu show at seven that same night. Without hesitation, I said yes. I had committed. I asked for directions to the club. And then came the details.
It was not going to be at a club. The venue would be slightly bigger. I was to perform at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto’s largest indoor arena, and be the opener for Earth, Wind & Fire’s sold-out concert. As I listened to the details, I was sure somebody had to be playing a joke on me. This was 1979, and I was not that well-known. But as it turned out, I was what the promoters needed.
A few weeks earlier at a concert for the Who, eleven fans had been trampled to death in Cincinnati. The papers attributed the tragedy to crowd mismanagement. The promoter had just realized that Earth, Wind & Fire’s production setup was running behind schedule. Rather than pushing the show back a half hour and holding the huge crowd outside, risking a repeat of what had happened in Cincinnati, they came up with the brilliant idea of putting a comedian on the stage. The comedian would perform as they continued to complete the setup.
They explained the procedure for the show to me. The lights would go down, and I would take the stage. Behind me in the darkness, the crew would continue the final preparations for the show. They would then signal me that the band was ready to play, and I would wrap up.
I thought, Maple Leaf Gardens! That’s where the Toronto Maple Leafs play. This is my hometown. I excitedly called Terry. She and a group of our friends came down. The entire experience was surreal.
I had to finish my work at the office first, so I arrived backstage just minutes before the show. I had hoped to meet Earth, Wind & Fire, but there was no time. As the lights went down, I heard the deafening roar of fifteen thousand people. It seemed as if the voice of God came over the PA system and announced, “Before Earth, Wind and Fire takes the stage, please welcome local comedian Howie Mandel!”
The roar dulled, but it still remained louder than anything I had ever heard for me. As I walked onto the giant stage, I was blinded by a spotlight. I looked out into an endless abyss of darkness and began my act. I don’t remember the specifics, but it was not going over that well. So like most young, inexperienced comics when the going gets tough, I went for the filth. I started using the f-word. The laughs came. These were young concertgoers. The laughter began to build. Not that I was particularly funny—they were responding to the vulgarity alone.
My confidence returned. I veered back into my regular routine. Once again, I could hear the roar of fifteen thousand people. I had them in the palm of my hand. As I finished one particular piece, I noticed I didn’t get a response. I moved on. In the midst of the next piece, I began to feel the audience wasn’t listening to me. They began chanting, “Earth, Wind and Fire! Earth, Wind and Fire!” I had lost them. It was as if I weren’t even there. I figured if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, so I chanted, “Earth, Wind and Fire!”
When I was six months old, the only thing coming between me and the world was plastic. To you it’s just a sheet of plastic; to me it’s my destiny.
This is me at four years old with “the baby” in the cage behind me.
My prizewinning smile on the vacation in Miami during which I was bitten by a sand fly.
I think Mom and Dad wanted my brother Steve and me either to be flight attendants or to work for Century 21. Early 1960s.
At fifteen, I always overdressed for picture day.
The most amazing couple ever, my parents, Al and Evy Mandel.
I don’t know if this is me at my bar mitzvah or just a Canadian Jew wearing a hat and scarf.
This is Terry, the beauty I finally convinced to go out with me. You can see the excitement in her face.
April 19, 1978. Yuk Yuk’s, Toronto, Canada. My very first performance ever on my way to becoming an author.
My first marquee, for my first real job in comedy, September 1979.
Backstage at Yuk Yuk’s minutes before I took the stage for my first paid gig.
Working toward my $150 doing Donny the half man, half chicken at Yuk Yuk’s during my feature.
Left: A rubber glove, a handbag, a career, sometime in 1982.
Below left: My first night at Caesars Palace opening for Diana Ross. I’m standing in a paper bag doing my impression of groceries, and contemplating the silence.
Below right: Doing what I believe is my big closing. About to find out it’s not over.
Mid-1980s at the Bismarck Theatre in Chicago, shooting my North American Watusi Tour for HBO.
My very first billboard on Sunset Boulevard, 1984. A star is born.
Look, Mom, I am a doctor! (Some of the cast, clockwise from top left: William Daniels, Ed Flanders, Denzel Washington, Ed Begley Jr., David Morse, Ellen Bry, Cynthia Sykes and moi.)
I always wanted a mustache, but not under my nose. It’s real, folks. I kept it for three months.
On the set of A Fine Mess, being regaled with stories from the legendary Blake Edwards.
I looked over to my left, and there was a stagehand frantically motioning me over to him. I couldn’t just walk off in front of fifteen thousand people in the middle of a routine. Then it hit me. This must be my signal that they were ready. This had to be the moment I was supposed to introduce Earth, Wind & Fire.
So I quickly segued to my closing, throughout which the audience continued to chant. With a combination of relief and excitement, I screamed into the microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy Earth, Wind and Fire!” No one even flinched. They just continued chanting, “Earth, Wind and Fire!”
I ran offstage, confused. The stagehand ushered me through the backstage hallways to a hockey dressing room. He told me to wait there and then slammed the door behind me.
I waited for a few moments. Finally, I tried to open the door. It was locked. I started to panic. I had no idea what had happened. I was just onstage a minute ago, and now I was locked in a hockey dressing room. I could hear the entire Maple Leaf Gardens arena reverberating with the chant “Earth, Wind and Fire!”
As I was banging on the door, trying to get out, a booming announcement began: “Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention. Earth, Wind and Fire would like to separate themselves from the vulgarity of the opening act, so the concert will be delayed by twenty minutes.”
I was in a state of shock. I was banging and kicking against the door. It was as if I were trapped in an insane asylum. I wanted to run out there and trample eleven people. After the announcement, one of the crew members unlocked the door. I found Terry and ran home in a haze of public humiliation.
I realized that if I’d had a chance to meet Earth, Wind & Fire, none of this would’ve happened. Apparently, at this time they were very spiritual and religious. One of the reasons they were unavailable to meet me was that they were in a room praying. I found out that as soon as my first vulgarity was uttered, production was instructed to pull the plug on the microphone. When I spoke into the mike, I could hear my voice through a small monitor at my feet. I had no sense of how it sounded in the arena. I now realized how I had gone from fifteen thousand people loving me and laughing with me to being so completely turned off. It wasn’t the audience who was turned off; it was the sound. Hence they began to chant. I was disgraced and hung out to dry in my own hometown. As devastating as this may sound, I took solace in the fact that I had played the stage at Maple Leaf Gardens, and I was indeed in show business.