Posted on 04/08/2017 4:29:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
Don Rickles has died. I pray that his tribe increases.
Mr. Comedy was so refreshingly anti-politically correct (PC). We need that, desperately.
If he were a budding comedian in this day and age, his career would have died after one day on the stage. Imagine the SJWs crawling all over the stage and pushing this doddering grandpa off for good!
Rickles knew how to rib everyone and touch the hot-button issues. But he wasnt vulgar or mean-spirited. He wasnt a jerk.
Here were some of his best lines:
On the Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Youre Chinese? Thats what they all say now that the wars over!
I get nothing, and he gets a cookie. That was a favorite (From Kellys Heroes).
As a guest on the Howard Stern Show, when Stern asked What would you say was the lowest point in your career? Rickles response? Being on this show now!
By the way, throughout the whole taping, Howard Stern stood. There is no greater honor than for an interviewer to stand while you sit. And Rickles deserved it.
But this line is also legendary:
Who broke my cigarette case?
Ok, the last one wasnt from Don Rickles, but Johnny Carson, and it was the day after Rickles took over the Tonight Show while Carson was out. The next day, when the Tonight Show Host found out, Carson refused to take the destruction of his cigarette case sitting down, but marched over to the next TV studio down on the NBC lot and broke up the show. Funny stuff! Can you imagine that kind of impromptu clowning around today?
Don Rickles caused trouble, and he had no problem getting in trouble, either. He laughed and mocked other people, but he was the clown getting clowned on, too.
And now he has passed on. A lot of celebrates are dying off. The loss of so many stars worried so many last year, that Betty White fans started a GoFundMe to make sure that she stayed alive through 2016!
But for Rickles, why would anyone need to make sure he stayed alive? Theres something about comedians who can make anyone laugh, young or old, and keep doing so well into their later years. Rodney Dangerfield couldnt do that. The No Respect routine cant carry a comic forever. In his later years, Rodney got bitter, high on pot, and then flamed out.
But Rickles, this guy remained a live wire. I wonder how he will feel when he finds out that hes dead!
What was it about Don Rickles that I really liked?
He was not offensive.
Thats right. For a comedian who ran on a persona of constantly insulting people, he never really hurt peoples feelings. We all knew what a great guy he was. He was not mean, hateful, or bitter. Bitter, blue humor dominates the shtick of hacks like Bill Maher and David Letterman. Bill Maher is a cable show also-ran at this point, and Letterman has retirednobody misses him.
But he wasnt an annoying wannabe like Red Skelton, who was just too nice.
Rickles was the warmest grouch you could ever meet. His whole routine revolved around an old, bald Jewish schmuck out to grouch at anyone who didnt look like him.
Another one of Rickles great lines: You know, every night when I go out on stage, there's always one nagging fear in the back of my mind. I'm always afraid that somewhere out there, there is one person in the audience that I'm not going to offend!
But thats the thing. His humor never really offended anyone.
Why was that? Because even though he was attacking others, we were really laughing at him.
There was a real charm to this kind of stand-up comedy.
He was making fun of usbut he was ultimately making fun of himself.
I mean, would anyone really take the outrageous things he had said seriously? The one-liners were so outrageous, but also inherently backward, like the crack about the Asian guy. He told that joke in the early 2000s. People got the context, but also could hear it and see a guy who is so out of touch with the common times, that its funny
He jibed at us, we laughed at himbut we all ended up laughing together.
Now thats really good comedy.
Jay Leno followed that kind of tradition, I think, and thats why I was sad to see him go, toofrom television, that is.
What a sad day for this country. Rickles ticklish brand of Anti-PC insult comedy has passed away, too, and what do we have left? Angry comedians who just stab at everyone and dont care whether you laugh or not. Bill Maher is particularly unfunny, not just because hes a liberal, but a brazen liar who thinks that he is telling the truth. A bitter fraud, to say the least. Any Schumer is ugly, both inside and outside, and continues playing her slattern routine to no effect.
They are vulgar, not edgy, and they give off a hateful veneer that you the audience are a bunch of patsies. And who can forget Wanda Sykes going after Trump one evening in a Boston theater? She got booed big time. Why? Because she was attacking a man who spoke for many in America. Remember, Rickles would mock you and me, but really he gave us a reason to laugh at him.
I wish he had lasted a few more years. The PC cult has overwhelmed us, and we are only beginning to fight back. As far as I know, Jerry Seinfeld, another great comedian with a different worldview and comedic bent, admitted that he would never do colleges again.
A Don Rickles college tour would have been just the thing to cap off a long and successful career for a comedian who knew how to make us laughboth at himself and with himself.
RIP Don Ricklesyou win a cookie!
Actually my favorite comedian was Red Skelton and my favorite comedienne was and still is Carol Burnett
One of my favorite actors. Saw him on stage many times.
Wouldn’t it have been great to hear Rickles take on Obama?
I was waiting for that.
100% agree.
Ethnic humor was too easy. Women as objects? Think Bennie Hill.
I would not go so far as to say he was offensive, but his comedy always made me mildly uncomfortable. He was always fun to watch on shows like Carson’s, though. I was more impressed with the man’s acting chops, and I seem to recall reading that he was a classically trained actor prior to doing comedy. In any event, he was a fixture for so many years it almost seemed like he’d last forever. RIP, “you hockey puck!”
My favorite Rickles line was from the old ABC half hour Fr. night show that featured Pat McCormick. He was sitting in a chair "talking" to someone on a telephone and spouting lines really fast. But among them was this particular non-sequitur: "Somebody's movin' your neck!" Perhaps because it made absolutely no sense, I have never forgotten it.
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