What I thought: An episode of Colgate Comedy Hour, a sketch comedy show with rotating hosts. This week’s episode was hosted by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The show was written by Ed Simmons, and Norman Lear and directed by Ernest Gluckman. This episode aired on Sunday, October 15, 1950 at 8:00 PM on NBC, and is available to view on YouTube. This episode seems to have been cut down from its original sixty-minute length, although there are still commercials in it.
What happened: We open with a bunch of old guys welcoming Dean and Jerry back to their home town in a big ceremony. Our two guys come in on a luggage train smoking cigars. The old guys trade stores of Dean and Jerry making mischief in their youth, which extends to things like burning houses down and polluting the reservoir. The crowd quickly turns on Dean and Jerry and starts throwing fruit. My sentiments exactly.
Jerry shouts out the writers, including Norman Lear, who want the show to be more intimate. He does this by getting really close to the camera, but we miss the rest of this bit in favour of a Palmolive Soap commercial with a bunch of naked cartoon girls. When we get back, Dean is working as a boxing trainer when Jerry comes in with a beanie on his head, playing a dorky kid. There’s a bit I don’t understand where Dean yells “Hey!” a lot.
Jerry wants to get training, but doesn’t quite fit in with all the musclebound guys at the gym. He takes off his shirt, and honestly doesn’t look too bad, but Dean assumes he’s sickly. This leads to some physical comedy with Jerry trying to use a pull-up bar, refusing to take his clothes off for a rub-down, and dancing instead of doing jumping jacks. He’s eventually tasked with taking over the class, which goes okay until he’s unable to blow the whistle. Dean volunteers Jerry for a boxing exhibition, in which Jerry does surprisingly well, with off-stage drum beats punctuating the punches. Jerry eventually gets “punchy” and won’t stop fighting. It’s funny because he has CTE!
After an ad for Ajax Cleanser, we’re taken to the HQ of “the toughest criminal gang in the country, Mayhem Incorporated.” Dean is a hideously scarred mob boss, with Dean as his fancily-dressed underlining. They get in some “target practice” on a cardboard stand of a cop, but all miss. Jerry seems to be getting pretty sick of the mob life, and especially being known as “Myron” instead of a cool nickname. They interact with a third mob guy named “Strangler”, who gets some jokes in. Dean gives Jerry the name “Ratface”, and together they try interrogating a quivering guy named Schmid. Jerry also tries flirting with the boss’s girl, who’s about a head taller than him. When “the big guy” actually shows up, he’s a little guy who arm-wrestles Jerry to the ground. They both shoot at Jerry in their shooting gallery, but aren’t any more accurate than before.
In another bit in front of an orchestra, Jerry brings Dean a sandwich he ordered, and they argue over the six cents of the change. Dean is apparently a conductor, and gives Jerry the chance to conduct a number for once. Well, at least he’s nicer than Tar. Jerry gets the sticks and immediately goes into a poppy song, with Dean on vocals. Dean is trying to get in some hearty crooning, but Jerry keeps messing with the orchestra and interrupting him. A lot of it feels pretty improvised. Eventually Jerry sings a jauntier version of the romantic tune. They have two minutes left to fill, and start doing funny accents, thanking the crew, and noting that they went over time in rehearsals. It’s one of those nice unplanned moments you only get in live TV.
What I thought: I have to admit to not being nearly as annoyed by this episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour as the first one. Maybe I’ve just gotten more used to Jerry Lewis’s nasally voice and manic style of comedy, but it also helps that this week’s episode has better premises for the sketches. The gym sketch and the mafia business are both premises where Jerry’s obvious out-of-placeness, and Dean’s evident comfort, create a lot of opportunity for gags, and they don’t have the same discomfort of the two dressing up in SS uniforms.
It’s good that there’s a lot of material in these skits, because they go on for a while. The forty minutes available for this episode are mostly made up of just four segments, with the gym sketch alone running ten minutes. This isn’t that uncommon for variety shows (SNL sketches have certainly been known to get long in the tooth), but it still feels notable. The lack of other acts to break things up, and the desire to avoid too many costume and set changes, probably contributed to these lengths. There is, admittedly, a sense of pleasure that comes from Dean and Jerry really digging into a set-up for all it’s worth.
The gym sketch, for as long as it is, is probably the best I’ve seen from the show so far. Jerry’s physical comedy shines when he’s asked to do basically-right but very silly versions of common exercises, and the bit where the automaton-like tough guys behind them won’t stop moving until the whistle was blown was a fun bit of surrealism. (As someone who can’t whistle or work out without looking dumb, it’s very relatable.) It’s also a very homoerotic sketch, with Jerry spending the whole time shirtless and starting things off from soliciting a massage from Dean. I think they knew what they were doing.
I’m still taken aback by the production that went into The Colgate Comedy Hour, in comparison to so many of the variety shows we’ve seen. Every sketch has a whole crew of different extras that couldn’t have been easy to recruit: musclebound boxers in one, elderly town council members in another. The commercials in particular are little marvels, all with imaginative animated sections and jingles selling different Colgate products. We’ve already come a long way from Ed Wynn free associating on Spiedel watches for five minutes.
But in the end, all of the advertiser money in the world can’t entirely control the chaos of live TV. The episode ends in a prolonged riffing session, with Dean and Jerry admitting that they’ve run out of material and counting down until the end of the show. This is not the first time we’ve seen live TV have to fill time, and it certainly won’t be the last. Fortunately, Martin and Lewis are more than adept at improvising, and are arguably more charming when they’re talking off the cuff than in scripted segments. This base-level showmanship was key to the success of the first generation of TV comedians, who emerged from live comedy and vaudeville, an for the moment it still served them well.
Coming up next: We round off the week with another game of What’s My Line.
The Eternal Couch Potato 