The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: DjohnsonCB on March 11, 2011, 08:50:04 PM
-
Comedian Gallagher, famous for his "Sledge-O-Matic" routine, collapsed on stage while performing in Rochester, Minnesota. Video is here:
http://www.tmz.com/2011/03/11/gallagher-collapse-comedian-mallet-whiskey-bones-sledgehammer-saint-marys-video/
He was one of the regular comics on the Bobby Van-hosted version of "Make Me Laugh". At least he could be taken to the Mayo Clinic where he'd be in great care. Let's all wish him a speedy recovery.
-
If you watch the video you can see Gallagher bend over moments before swinging his sledge o matic and collapsing. Let's hope for a fast recovery so that he can joke about it later.
-
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that it was a "minor heart attack". I've always been a fan of his. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery.
The Chicago Tribune (http://"http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ap-us-people-gallagher,0,6107858.story")
-
Let's hope for a fast recovery so that he can joke about it later.
Let's hope for a fast recovery so that we can all mock him again.
-
Let's hope for a fast recovery so that he can joke about it later.
That would involve writing new material, something he hasn't done since 1986.
/Too soon?
//Hey, these things don't just -a-Matic themselves!
-
Could we send the watermelons he isn't smashing to the relief effort in Japan?
-
That would involve writing new material, something he hasn't done since 1986.
Oh, I assure you, he has. He played Bremerton (the location of our local Naval base) last year, and one of our alt-weeklys wrote a review. (http://"http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/gallagher-is-a-paranoid-right-wing-watermelon-smashing-maniac/Content?oid=4357855")
-
Hopefully he recovers quickly. My first memories of him go back to 1981, when I first got cable. He was doing a show on Showtime, I think it aired back to back with Bizarre every week.
-
Gallagher seems much more hateful and edgier than he was. I know one thing you DON'T do at his show is heckle him, because then he could spend the rest of the show railing on the hecklers and it isn't long until his fans start revolting. Sadly he was far funnier in the 80s.
-
He was doing a show on Showtime, I think it aired back to back with Bizarre every week.
The Showtime specials were roughly one per year. They just replayed them so much that it *felt* like a weekly. :)
-
The Showtime specials were roughly one per year. They just replayed them so much that it *felt* like a weekly. :)
Good point. Had I not been 5 years old at the time, I would've probably noticed it was the same thing year round. :-)
-
Good point. Had I not been 5 years old at the time, I would've probably noticed it was the same thing year round. :-)
They reran the old ones a lot, too, to create the illusion of variety. I think I have Melon Crazy and Over Your Head memorized.
-
Choose your legacy:
Gallagher ... is best known for smashing watermelons with a sledgehammer.
or
Gallagher is — how best to put this? — a paranoid, delusional, right-wing religious maniac.
There's your obit, already written.
"People like Cher's daughter — figure that out. She wants a penis, but she has a big belly. If you can't see your dick, you don't get one."
Funny in a naughty sort of way, but then there's:
Gallagher gets a tin pie plate. He opens a giant can of fruit cocktail and pours it in. He opens a can of some Asian vegetable — water chestnuts, maybe — and pours that in, too. "This is the China people and queers!!!" he screams and takes his sledgehammer to the thing with a fury that is no fun at all. Wet chunks of China people and queers fly everywhere. The hateful, bitter old man laughs.
Fruit cocktail -- get it?
Why pay money to see a nutjob work out his demons in the guise of a comedy act? Sounds like this would make better TMZ fodder: "Formerly funny Gallagher has gone loony-tunes, giving himself a heart attack on stage".
From me to Gallagher: Don't expect a booking on the revival of Make Me Laugh. No more cable specials for you.
You can't be an "edgy" comedian if you've gone over the edge.
-
I remember seeing a repeat of a Showtime special on Comedy Central as a kid. I don't remember him being so bitter, but then again all I really remember of him was, of course, smashing watermelons.
Wasn't there a period where his brother was using his act as well?
-
I remember seeing a repeat of a Showtime special on Comedy Central as a kid. I don't remember him being so bitter, but then again all I really remember of him was, of course, smashing watermelons.
Wasn't there a period where his brother was using his act as well?
IIRC, he gave his brother permission to do a Gallagher-style show for smaller venues that couldn't afford the real thing, provided that advertising emphasizes that it was not the original Gallagher. Brother allegedly chose not to do that (He would book himself as "Gallagher Two" or "Gallagher Too," for instance, with "Two/Too" in very small print), Gallagher sued him and got an injunction to essentially shut down the brother's act.
JD
-
If you ever read his AV Club article, its obvious he has lost his touch on what is funny and what will make for an entertaining show. You can think your being funny and edgy, but it doesn't mean other people have to compensate you for that belief. His comedy was perfect for the 80s, flashy with no substance, sort of what Dane Cook is now. However, I think Mr. Cook will know how to guide his career to other things.
-
If we're talking about the same interview, he makes some interesting comments about America's affinity for the mediocre. Then you realize it's coming from a guy who smashes watermelons with a sledgehammer on stage for a living.
I make allowance for the notion that his act may simply be Gallagher doing what he thinks will get a rise out of the audience, but at the same time I wonder why his act has to stoop so low.
-
I enjoy listening to Marc Maron's WTF Podcast where he interviews comics. His short interview with Gallagher in January was an interesting glimpse into a troubled man's brain.
"Oh, come on, Gallagher!" (http://"http://wtfpod.libsyn.com/episode-145-gallagher")
-
Good point. Had I not been 5 years old at the time, I would've probably noticed it was the same thing year round. :-)
They reran the old ones a lot, too, to create the illusion of variety. I think I have Melon Crazy and Over Your Head memorized.
Could be worse...I have Foxworthy's Totally Committed memorized.
-
Back in the early 80s, Michigan State University built a magnificent new performing arts building, the Wharton Center, as its main venue for touring Broadway shows and other big acts. One of the very first acts to come into this beautiful, new, spotless, immaculate, mint-condition facility was Gallagher. You can just imagine the uproar after the fact from the big-ticket donors and other muckety-mucks who had no idea what his act consisted of. Thirty years later, I think they're still pulling seeds out of the second row.
-
I enjoy listening to Marc Maron's WTF Podcast where he interviews comics. His short interview with Gallagher in January was an interesting glimpse into a troubled man's brain.
"Oh, come on, Gallagher!" (http://"http://wtfpod.libsyn.com/episode-145-gallagher")
Best to fast forward through Motormouth Maron flapping his gums interminably. He likes to hear himself talk.
-
I enjoy listening to Marc Maron's WTF Podcast where he interviews comics. His short interview with Gallagher in January was an interesting glimpse into a troubled man's brain.
I see exactly what Gallagher is saying, and I don't feel Marc was necessarily trying to probe him or "be controversial". He was merely trying to have a nice debate. I don't necessarily AGREE with Gallagher's approach, and I do believe some of his newer material DOES walk on a tightrope of being racist and homophobic. Also, Gallagher admitting to resorting to "street jokes" is interesting for a guy that once THRIVED on creativity. I saw a video of a fairly recent concert he did. The sledge-o-matic routine was a total mess... gone was the careful buildup, the dialogue inbetween smashings, it was just a succession of smashing food, produce, and anything else that would soil the first 5 or 6 rows of audience members. Also, in his later shows he allowed random audience members to come up and smash stuff. Fun for live shows, not necessarily good for DVD.
-
and I do believe some of his newer material DOES walk on a tightrope of being racist and homophobic.
"Walk on a tightrope?" Read the article I linked and tell me if you really think he's toeing ANY line aside from Glenn Beck's.
-
Here's some Gallagher trivia: appearing on the ballot as Leo Gallagher (and his listed occupation as "comedian"), he got 5466 votes for Governor of California in the 2003 special recall election (the one that Schwarzenegger won). Something tells me he won't be doing any shows in Sierra county any time soon, as that was the only county in California where nobody voted for him.
-- Don
-
Gallagher has now retired from show bidness.
Oh dear.
-
But what about Gallagher II?
-
Don't tell me there are two of him.
-
Don't tell me there are two of him.
There were once, sorta. (http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallagher_Too#Conflict_with_brother.27s_act")
-
Gallagher was in our neck of the woods last Fall, and we went to his show (because my 70-year-old in-laws wanted to go!!!).
It was nice to be able to meet & greet with him before the show even began (I didn't know he spent a lot of his childhood near Cleveland). He even sliced up some watermelon for audience members before the show as well. He also had a film crew tagging along as well (documentary in the works???). Outside of the actual show, he seemed to be a really good guy.
That being said, once the performance started, the show itself wandered all over the place -- from downright funny to WTF is he saying/doing?? -- he seemed lost and confused at times.
It's probably a wise decision for him to step down from the stage now before he has to be carried off by someone else.
-
That being said, once the performance started, the show itself wandered all over the place -- from downright funny to WTF is he saying/doing?? -- he seemed lost and confused at times.
From what I read, his show in Bremerton a couple of years ago was closer to the WTF end of the spectrum and borderline hate speech.
-
One thing you NEVER want to do at a Gallagher show is to heckle him. There's a YouTube clip of him going MAD over a couple of hecklers. He spends at least 10 minutes railing on them, and at one point the whole audience, wanting sledge-o-matic, inventive props, and witty one liners, started to turn on Gallagher, causing him to drop his whole act and rail even more!
I will say this about Gallagher, he did have one of the funniest HS zingers on MG/HS. This is saying a LOT, considering the stars were not briefed with zingers.
The question was something like "Gallagher... you're a handsome stallion... if you tried really hard, and mated with a donkey, could you have a baby?... or is that impossible?"
Gallagher: "It's PHYSICALLY possible... you'd just have a horse that's VERY slow at the races!"
-
I will say this about Gallagher, he did have one of the funniest HS zingers on MG/HS. This is saying a LOT, considering the stars were not briefed with zingers.
They weren't? Curt Alliaume's (http://"http://www.curtalliaume.com/squares.html") page seems to indicate otherwise and he used some sourced material when creating it. Unless you have a way to back that up, I'm inclined to write it off.
-
Um...unless I'm reading it wrong, Curt's page corroborates exactly what whewfan said: "...Goodson refused to supply the stars with bluff answers, and stars could prattle on endlessly – exactly what Merrill Heatter (who wasn’t involved with this new version) had tried so desperately to avoid." They did on every other version of HS, but not that one.
-
Um...unless I'm reading it wrong, Curt's page corroborates exactly what whewfan said: "...Goodson refused to supply the stars with bluff answers, and stars could prattle on endlessly – exactly what Merrill Heatter (who wasn’t involved with this new version) had tried so desperately to avoid." They did on every other version of HS, but not that one.
Mea Culpa. I didn't see the MG in his post when I originally responded.
-
One thing you NEVER want to do at a Gallagher show is to heckle him. There's a YouTube clip of him going MAD over a couple of hecklers. He spends at least 10 minutes railing on them, and at one point the whole audience, wanting sledge-o-matic, inventive props, and witty one liners, started to turn on Gallagher, causing him to drop his whole act and rail even more!
I think it's generally a rule of thumb not to heckle a comedian, even if they suck. I mean, even the worst ones work hard at what they do, and don't deserve the comments.
Although, usually the audience loves when a comedian gets the best of a heckler. There's a clip somewhere of (I believe) the late Bill Hicks going in on one woman with quite colorful language, and the audience is just loving it.
-
One thing you NEVER want to do at a Gallagher show is to heckle him. There's a YouTube clip of him going MAD over a couple of hecklers. He spends at least 10 minutes railing on them, and at one point the whole audience, wanting sledge-o-matic, inventive props, and witty one liners, started to turn on Gallagher, causing him to drop his whole act and rail even more!
I think it's generally a rule of thumb not to heckle a comedian, even if they suck. I mean, even the worst ones work hard at what they do, and don't deserve the comments.
Although, usually the audience loves when a comedian gets the best of a heckler. There's a clip somewhere of (I believe) the late Bill Hicks going in on one woman with quite colorful language, and the audience is just loving it.
Yeah, it sounds to me like if you're the type of douchebag who is inclined to heckle as a comedy show in the first place, and Gallagher totally lost control and the entire audience turned on him, then heckling Gallagher was EXACTLY what you wanted to do, because for once, it worked.
-
I think it's generally a rule of thumb not to heckle a comedian, even if they suck. I mean, even the worst ones work hard at what they do, and don't deserve the comments.
On the other hand, most decent comedians know what to do when they're being heckled, and that can lead to some of the more entertaining stuff of the night. As a matter of fact, I've been to more than one stand-up concert where it appeared to me that a "heckler" was actually a plant the comic used for precisely that purpose.
-
I think it's generally a rule of thumb not to heckle a comedian, even if they suck. I mean, even the worst ones work hard at what they do, and don't deserve the comments.
On the other hand, most decent comedians know what to do when they're being heckled, and that can lead to some of the more entertaining stuff of the night. As a matter of fact, I've been to more than one stand-up concert where it appeared to me that a "heckler" was actually a plant the comic used for precisely that purpose.
Well, when you go to see Gallagher, you expect one liners, oversized props, and of course, smashing of items. (or if you come to his more recent shows, the material is significantly more over the edge) When he totally throws that away and rails at a heckler for a lengthy period of time, that for me would be money down the drain.
Only once did Gallagher do an entire act without props... on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Johnny was not a fan of prop comics, so Gallagher had to pull his clean jokes (some which were George Carlin's old jokes) and rely on them.
I am a stand up comic myself, and I've never known anyone to plant a heckler in the audience. The only professional I know that did this was Andy Kaufman. His agent/writer Bob Zmuda would heckle either Andy or his (at one time) alter ego Tony Clifton. In Zmuda's book, he says he heckled Andy while he was doing his foreign man/Elvis act. This was only a year before Andy's death, and Andy was losing his hair, and started using an Elvis wig. Without telling Andy, he went ahead and pointed out that Andy couldn't use his own hair to do Elvis anymore.
To point this back to game shows, Andy Kaufman did appear on HS. According to Peter Marshall in his book, Andy was giving the producers a hard time by being in character and being impossible. He eventually snapped out of it and talked to them as himself.
-
I am a stand up comic myself
Curious, how often do you perform?
-
I am a stand up comic myself
Curious, how often do you perform?
I've performed locally, certainly not nationally. I can't exactly say I do it as a profession, but I've gotten paid gigs here and there over the last couple years. I could've had a chance to meet Gallagher actually. He was in Maryland performing at the Susky Grill 3 weeks ago and only a week or so after that he had the heart attack.
I've found audiences more at conventions and autism related events (I have aspergers syndrome, and a while back I posted my routine about it, where I talk about The Price is Right) than at comedy clubs, but an audience is an audience. Presently I am trying to get a gig at Magooby's Joke House, a comedy club in Timonium MD. Also, another kinda-sorta game show connection, I will have a chance to be on a radio show where comic Craig Shoemaker (appeared on Whoopi HS) will be a call-in guest.
Lately I've "shifted gears" and have been doing physical comedy. I developed my own show and I am trying to shop around for venues for that.
Well, that's too much about me. Back to game shows!
-
I think it's generally a rule of thumb not to heckle a comedian, even if they suck. I mean, even the worst ones work hard at what they do, and don't deserve the comments.
On the other hand, most decent comedians know what to do when they're being heckled, and that can lead to some of the more entertaining stuff of the night. As a matter of fact, I've been to more than one stand-up concert where it appeared to me that a "heckler" was actually a plant the comic used for precisely that purpose.
I am a stand up comic myself, and I've never known anyone to plant a heckler in the audience. The only professional I know that did this was Andy Kaufman. His agent/writer Bob Zmuda would heckle either Andy or his (at one time) alter ego Tony Clifton. In Zmuda's book, he says he heckled Andy while he was doing his foreign man/Elvis act. This was only a year before Andy's death, and Andy was losing his hair, and started using an Elvis wig. Without telling Andy, he went ahead and pointed out that Andy couldn't use his own hair to do Elvis anymore.
I may be wrong on this, but I thought Rodney Dangerfield had one of his assistants serve as a "planted heckler" during his stand-up performances. A friend of mine mentioned seeing Rodney perform stand-up in Vegas on three occassions. Each time, the same man, dressed in the same outfit, would stand up and heckle him at the same point in Rodney's performance (about halfway through his act). Rodney would respond with the same putdown and moved on.
JD