Posted on 05/18/2013 8:06:55 PM PDT by nickcarraway
On May 5, Milton Berles joke filesfour cabinets holding thousands of 3x5 cards, indexed by subjectwill 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.
Berles 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, didnt last, Berle remained a familiar figure on postwar TV, anchoring variety shows off and on through the late 1960s.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
My favorite Milton Berle joke involves Forrest Tucker. The punch line is “I only took out enough to win.” Or something like that.
Joan Rivers, in her autobiographical movie "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" shows her jokes filed on cards in a card catalogue.
This thread is way more gay than I ever intended or hoped it would be.
Hey, it’s ‘part’ of his legacy, ya know.
third legacy?
I thought his legacy was the all-time world champion upstager. Defeated only once, by Joe Flaherty.
“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 arent talking...maybe Crystal?”
Bob Hope’s papers, and 88,000 jokes belong to the American people and are kept at the Library of Congress in WDC. I’m pretty sure you can access all of his jokes at loc.gov. Hope was a true American.
Berle’s papers (not the jokes) were acquired for the American people by the Library of Congress a couple of weeks ago. Collection contains correspondence, films, tapes, vinyl, and business records. I heard that he kept everything.
In other news the Hedgehog has recovered from his heart attack and is back on the job.
Howard Stern could not carry his sandles
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