For Sale: Milton Berle's Complete Joke Files

Slate ^ | Monday, April 22, 2013 | Rebecca Onion

[nickcarraway]

On May 5, Milton Berle’s joke files—four cabinets holding thousands of 3x5 cards, indexed by subject—will be sold in Los Angeles.

The comedian, who died in 2002, had a decades-long career in show biz, working in vaudeville, night clubs, films, radio, and finally and most famously on television.

Berle’s live variety show “Texaco Star Theater” was the highest-rated program on TV in the late 1940s. The show was the first “appointment television”: Local businesses reported empty shops and restaurants during its airing, and cities experienced drops in water pressure in the five minutes after it was over, as everyone who had been putting off visiting the facilities until the show was done finally found relief.

While this peak of success, which earned Berle the moniker “Mr. Television,” didn’t last, Berle remained a familiar figure on postwar TV, anchoring variety shows off and on through the late 1960s.

[nickcarraway]

You can kill with this material!

[Army Air Corps]

“Gold, Jerry! Gold!”

[Responsibility2nd]

3 x 5 cards?

PLEASE tell me someone has copied these to a safe back-up media.

Uncle Miltie. One of the greatest. From a time when comedians were funny and they didn’t have to resort to raunch and filth.

[Vendome]

Ain’t nuttin without the man.

[nickcarraway]

Irving Berlin Kahn (nephew of the Irving Berlin) invented the teleprompter. Kahn offered Berle 25% of the company if he's use it on his then #1 rated show. Berle said no. The teleprompter later went on to become president. That's the rest of the story.

[pax_et_bonum]

Four Cabinets of Sheer Fun Ping

[mkmensinger]

Take my files. Please!

[NotYourAverageDhimmi]

Rumor is that Uncle Miltie had the biggest dong in Hollywood.

[Norm Lenhart]

Until I drove through....

Waht?????

[Leaning Right]

Berle had a reputation for stealing jokes from other comedians. It would really be interesting if these files were cross-referenced to other comedians.

After all, Berle would not want to tell a joke he stole from Jack Benny on the Jack Benny show!

[NotYourAverageDhimmi]

Here’s some reading on the subject...

http://flaglerlive.com/146/091128qt-milton-berle-big-dick/

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-259640.html

[Parley Baer]

Well, it’s May 18. What did they sell for.

[llevrok]

Rumor is that Uncle Miltie had the biggest dong in Hollywood.

I'd like to be just half the man Milton was (cough, cough)

[Norm Lenhart]

You don’t think the chicks in the Ratt “Round and Round” video came to see the band did ya? ;)

[Mike Darancette]

At Last Cid Ceasar has a chance to get Berles joke collection.

[GeorgeWashingtonsGhost]

I heard that too. LOL!.. And Joe DiMaggio.

[GeorgeWashingtonsGhost]

Rumor was that DiMaggio “was a penis with a man hanging from it”. LOL

[Loud Mime]

The joke was that he stole some jokes from other comedians. But Miltie said the worst was Steve Martin. NOTHING from Martin was original.

[MarkL]

Don’t buy em... Steal em!

Mark

(for those too young to remember, there was an ongoing joke in comedy that Milton was constantly stealing material - Milton was behind the joke)

[The Antiyuppie]

Bob Hope had an entire joke vault with many jokes untold, written for him by paid writers. What happened to those? Maybe he willed it to someone, and they aren’t talking...maybe Crystal?