Posted on 08/19/2004 6:34:15 PM PDT by Veritas_est
Hiya, Mr. Dunnaghy Has everyone in America ever agreed about anything? Yes, and his name was Frank Fontaine. by Larry Miller 08/17/2004 12:00:00 AM
IN THE WEEKS, months, indeed years of exhausting campaigning, speechifying, and punditizing leading up to a presidential election--exhausting, that is, from the voters' point of view--and in a particular contest in our nation's history when the rhetoric has been especially, er, tart--I was wondering the other day whether we Americans have ever agreed on anything, large or small, and my answer was: No; I don't think so.
And things were no less divided in the past; probably worse.
During the American Revolution, a very high percentage of us were British loyalists (or Tories), and long after Yorktown, victory, and the adoption of our Constitution, many of them were still antagonists, even agitators.
During the War of 1812, many, if not most, New Englanders sniffed about it being "Mr. Madison's war," and shrugged off the impediments to our trade and commerce imposed by an imperious, or at least oblivious, English parliament.
In the Civil War, still the nonpareil for loss, suffering, and carnage, the North was so divided in opinion that in the election of 1864, the Democrats (or Copperheads) nominated ex-General George McClellan to run against the incumbent, Mr. Lincoln, on a platform that included a promise to the South that, if they just returned to the fold, the Emancipation Proclamation would be voided, and they could resume the institution of slavery.
And on and on. Not just in wars, but in culture, religion, family, sexuality, entertainment, I don't think there's anything we all agree on. I'm sure there are folks out there who've seen Casablanca and said, "Didn't care for it." I can't imagine any guy in the world, even Siegfried or Roy, who could meet Marilyn Monroe in 1960 and not say, "Yes. Just yes. Whatever the question is, the answer is yes." The same goes for women and Sean Connery. Still, you and I both know people who just shrug and say, "Nah. Doesn't do anything for me."
Perhaps the closest we came to unanimity was after John Kennedy's assassination, or September 11, but I'm sure even at those moments (so searing we all remember where we were), a shocking chunk of our people still thought some very dark and bad things.
Ah, well, that's the way it goes.
But I think I found one the other day. Not for all of us, strictly, but out of a subset of all of us, I think I have something every single one of them felt and said. If you grew up in the '60s, and had a television and a dad, I think you'll recognize it.
When The Jackie Gleason Show was on--not The Honeymooners, the next one, the variety show based in Miami, the one that always ended with him screaming, "Miami Beach has the greatest audiences in the world! Goodnight, everybody!"--one of their regular and most beloved sketches was a thing called "Joe, The Bartender."
It was on the show every week and, most importantly, the vital structural elements of it were always exactly the same. The camera would dolly in through swinging barroom doors, like the Old West, and Gleason would be found, alone, wiping down the bar, hair slicked and parted in the middle, garter on the arm, singing the end of "My Gal, Sal" in his wonderful Bassett Hound howl.
When the applause stopped, he would look right in the camera, which he played as the customer, who was a regular named Mr. Dunnaghy. "Oh, hiya, Mr. Dunnaghy," Joe would say. "The usual?" (No response since the camera, remember, was the silent partner.) Then Gleason took a glass and poured a beer from the tap, filled it too high, watched the head start to go over the top, and calmly stuck--no, rammed--his index finger right in it to stop the flow. Then he took the finger out, wiped it off ostentatiously, admired his successful technique, and smilingly placed the glass in front of Mr. Dunnaghy, saying, "There you go, pal."
Every week. Every moment in the sketch so far was the same. And that was good. It was the sameness we wanted; it was the sameness we needed; it was the sameness we loved. But that's not the part I'm talking about.
Then came the body of the sketch, whatever it was that week, a one-sided chat from Gleason to his customer, and it was always great, even when it was just okay, because Gleason was great. Then the best part. Gleason would pause and say, "What's that, Mr. Dunnaghy? Oh, he's in the back, I'll call him out. Hey, Craz'!" And the applause would start again, even bigger.
"Craz'" was a hugely popular character named "Crazy Guggenheim," played by Frank Fontaine, and he was, well, crazy. In fact, he might have been a drunk, too. Remember, I'm talking about the character, not the man. The joke of "Crazy Guggenheim" was that for one reason or another he was impaired, maybe even mentally disabled, or as the blunter times used to say, retarded. Would that be funny today? I don't know. Dudley Moore was fabulous in Arthur, but "Crazy" wasn't rich, in fact just the opposite, he was a mass of rags.
He was funny. Oh, he was funny. "Crazy" would shamble out and stumble over, and in the sweetest, happiest way, say, "Oh, hiya, Joe. Hiya, Mr. Dunnaghy-hee-hee-hee-hee." The same every week, like everything else, and the same reactions: howls; applause.
But that's still not the part I'm talking about. Joe and Crazy would go into a few jokes in the timeless, vaudevillian structure (used so well by Burns and Allen, among others) where one partner tries to get a logical response from the other, who is sweet and willing, but not that bright. (Another running gag with Crazy was when Joe asked him about his friend, "Flootchey Tooley." "Flootchey Tooley?!" Crazy would repeat exuberantly, and spit in Joe's eye doing it. Gleason would wipe the eye theatrically--never angrily, by the way--and the bit would continue.)
That was the point in the sketch where Joe would say, "Hey, Craz', how about a song? Put a dime in number fifteen, huh?" "Okay, Joe," Crazy would agree, but the applause that was already rising blocked it out. Crazy would waddle over to the juke box, still demented, push a button, and return to the bar.
But as the music swelled, the most extraordinary transformation took place. He'd take his worn hat off, the brim turned up in front (like Carney's, come to think of it), place it gently on the bar, and his face would change completely. A new soul would fill him, and he became a different person; himself, as it turns out. For every week on The Jackie Gleason Show, at the same moment, in the same sketch, when Frank Fontaine came out of character and opened his mouth, you knew he was about to sing the most beautiful song you'd ever heard.
He wasn't slender, and he didn't have a handsome face, and in fact his mouth twisted oddly to the side with every lyric, but so much the better; for when he sung of lost love, or sadness, or failure, or a son, or a mother, or a dog, or hope, you believed him, and that's what a great singer can do: make you believe something, anything, everything.
The song would end, his rich, sweet voice trailing off, and as the applause thundered (no whooping in those days, just warm applause, and how I miss it; I hate whooping) Fontaine would smile shyly, pick up the hat from the bar, dust it off once and, if I remember, shake hands with Gleason before going back into character. "Thanks, pal," Gleason would say on the shake. Then the hat would go back on, Frank would become Crazy, and that was when you saw that the core of the character was a heart-breaking affection. "'Bye, Joe," he'd say. "'Bye, Mr. Dunnaghy."
He waddled offstage with a quick wave to the audience, the sketch was over, and the camera "left" with him, dollying backwards, out through the swinging doors as Gleason shouted, "Goodnight, Mr. Dunnaghy," and went back to wiping the bar, singing "My Gal, Sal." Great stuff, yes, as moving as any drama, invariable, funny, wonderful American entertainment that will never be seen again, but . . .
It's still not the part I'm talking about. Not exactly, anyway. It's still not the experience, the moment that I think was shared by so many. As I said before, if you grew up in the '60s, and had a TV and a dad . . .
When Crazy put the money in the jukebox and walked thoughtfully back to the bar, as the intro swelled; as he leaned an elbow next to the hat and folded his hands, and looked with smiling eyes into the distance and took his first breath, every single week, my father would turn to me with a big smile and say, "Watch how beautifully he sings, now." And I think every other father in America said the same thing.
Now, our whole family watched the show together every week. We knew every running gag backwards and forwards. We knew the chorus girls were the June Taylor dancers, and the orchestra was Sammy Spear, that we'd see Reginald Van Gleason and The Poor Soul, all as constant as the Northern Star, and we knew Crazy Guggenheim was going to sing. It was not coming to anyone as a big surprise. But I guess it filled us all with something that needed to be affirmed every week, and that this affirmation took form in my father saying, "Watch how beautifully he sings, now."
And I'll bet you a dollar your dad did it, too. Everyone I've asked has the same memory. My friend, Joey Vega, is a great comic, and he's Puerto Rican, and his dad said the same thing to him in Spanish. I think back then whether you were black, white, purple, or green, Spanish, Polish, Jewish, Italian, Irish . . . whether you lived in a mansion or a tenement, every cabby and teacher and doctor and steam-fitter and cop turned to his son and said, "Wait'll you see what a voice this guy has."
THEY SAY GOD is in the details. Sometimes, even when the big things are so important--especially then, maybe--the greatest joys are in the little things. America was losing its innocence, its confidence, and a lot more in the '60s by the time Frank Fontaine started taking off his hat. Three great leaders were assassinated, movements began questioning the morality of Americanness that had always been taken for granted, and we were in a war that, regardless of who was to blame, was not going to be won.
Maybe there was still innocence left in Gleason's style of entertainment. Maybe that's it. Maybe Frank Fontaine was just that great in grabbing his moment onstage and running with it. Maybe it bridged the parts of America that had always been good with the parts that were changing. Ah, maybe it was just a good sketch, or reminds me of my father.
Maybe all of it. And maybe your father said it, too.
Larry Miller is a contributing humorist to The Daily Standard and a writer, actor, and comedian living in Los Angeles.
The problem is that most people think these articles were written by someone else.
In January 2002 Miller wrote an article entitled You Say You Want a Resolution that made about 5 points about how America is wrong in their assessment of terrorism and Islam etc. It blew across the Internet like a gale. The only problem was that his words were attributed to a speech by General Richard E. Hawley.
Then in April 2002 LARRY Miller wrote Whosoever Blesses Them about the fact that there never was a Palestinian country to give back to the Palestinians, and straightening out some other erroneous information about Israel and the Arab nations. It has also been back and forth across the Internet as a forwarded e mail entitled "A Brief Overview of the Situation". Unfortunately for Larry, this one has been attributed to Dennis Miller.
This guy (regardless of who gets the credit) writes some great stuff.
Thanks for posting this, it was a great article. I have to admit I didn't even remember the singing part, I just remembered Crazy Guggenheim. Let me show my youth!
Now I want to see some re-runs!
Ditto to your whole post. Not until I was reminded, did I remember the transformation which "Crazy" underwent and the transforming power of his singing. No one would speak a word when he sang.
Larry Miller Rocks! Great article, thanks for the post!
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