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Ladies and Gentlemen this is Alec wire presenting another comic artist close up and leading I make it big I like. It When I write a good deed gone forever. Or next year. Good if and only if I can drive and I do. Know ride by night. You know when I went. To Michigan State University radio presents the comic arts and essay and sound on the humor of our times featuring the comics the humorist the joke writer the clown the Dauntless individuals who work in the world of comedy. Danny Thomas has enjoyed many years of popularity as a cafe theatre and television performer and topped off his career as a star with outstanding
success as a producer he has a brilliant show business man who knows the entertainment field from the ground up all the way to the top. He is also a generous man who gives a lot of his personal time to help others including younger performers seeking advice and counsel. We recorded an informal session of this nature for the comic arts radio series. First Mr. Thomas illustrated a point on the difference between an actor and an entertainer who doted on actors. Me about comedian or good an actor or a big different between a Dunedin actor. Then night. And good game to. The people who were given our people and then their life can be very very short if not properly handled. They also have the greatest chance to be perennial. It's paradoxical. But they certainly do not become Coroneos from the shallow seas from shallow planting.
It takes a lot a year. Of slapping of being bad. Of knowing what is bad and what is good. Before you can finally come to that position in your life as an entertainer. Particularly a solo performer. Can you count them when you do where they were performed in the United States. Sometimes I wish a lot. And Million to one shot. And the idea in greater. Takes a lot a lot a year. I don't get drunk and. You get don't come and go there. You can show me any media that ever lived in the sky. Only distort every night and there it's had a lot of experience and it doesn't go out. It's crowded one allowed to get a comedian makes a bigger light. And when I write again it's gone forever. And that's as good a simile like NWN I've been.
You know fly by night. And overnight overnight. Well you know my daughter you think you've got a new printer and you know how many nights you cry to throw up or sleep in my own. You know House of operant. Where there was no want for anything we don't. Need a child cry disrupt sleep. I don't hold in my arms have been. Going to. Her chance would come and I kept praying that her gender wouldn't come. That you could live a happy normal life. Children's is no better and minutely minutely. You have got to make it quite highly competitive more so than I was going to do. There are some odd thing to do I think for all young people are aspiring to a career in show business and they would diligently and their own little cow and really become a big fish in that small pond. Sure if
she or he are making odd noises. Where their little girl broke their dollar loan you would be gone so I own and Dhoni is gone where the town the city has taken this personality and do with their own added on and proudly then is the time for that personality to feed the proper kind of representation on a national level. But to go from the embryonic stage and when all of a sudden you know you don't go for the leg going to the old you got your them between. Any discussion of television comedy is likely to bring up the subject of technically augmented sound tracks in trade parlance canned laughter commenting on this topic. Danny Thomas first gave a definite personal view then went on to explain the functional need of this technique and the process of producing mass media entertainment. Karen and I had a Cadillac. Did you see me in that money.
When do you get your good games or now would you think that if Sherwood fever and Don Adams and shoutin Leonard. And Richard Deacon from the Van Dyke Show and Abby Dalton and I. Could be on an. Hour teleplay And you heard no laughing. We did it. And. We've got common ground. Many writers commented that it was a blessing. To be left to their own record that. People in the industry thought we were great. And. One fellow wrote it didn't get many laughs. When you're driving at. Any time it's a good story line like. When we go out doors like that and drive a car on Friday and I had a copter and things like dive were in the audience you know hanging ladder
and years ago we we used to tape to film a completed film in that in the rough cut and show it to an audience and run a track. And pick up the audience reaction that we had to do a longer show. We didn't pick up our cues. We'd wait. And then we'd see whether people would laugh. And then type that. Laughter. Needs to be generated. Through people in a room by themselves cannot make a belly laugh. Talking about the general public. Never are. And we proved it. We proved it with shows years ago without a laugh track. And they failed miserably. You do know that people didn't know that it was funny when to laugh. It was that they couldn't get the full extent of the human the full measure of it.
Because the best one man can do in a room at the funniest joke is to go. Until the. Blood you've got 300 people in a studio. And you now would make three hundred one in that audience. Wanted 300 bar. And the loud rude. He rode with it. And you can hear that they are going to want to make anything happen. I've approved private ad and I believe what do you when I need it. You know they didn't get it right. If we thought that it was so wrong. No one can prove us wrong except that the people scream about it that are some of the editors but we can't help that. We're not out to believe them. Or not to believe the majority. Have you ever heard the lapping record. I do by you. I would bet
you a thousand dollar to a dollar. And I think you are right now. You know room hotel. If we had the record and put it on. Him a beautiful black you've got a collar. And if you do I got a dollar. That's how sure I am. It's the most ridiculous thing you know I said oh I cut a lot of feeling I even I after a while and I did it three times. So they put it on and. And the guy laughed. And. That. You know I'd have to think of the most troubling all that happened to me in my life or anybody that I know and I think a horrible accident together gotta give you something like demagoguing pretty sure a new guy he's gone he's come out and I don't know what. But Daughter don't go home when I was there and there never no man then cannot. Get that to go.
Then another student of humor wondered if Years ago some producers and performers had ever used lively lappers spotted around theater audiences. Were these perhaps the laugh tracks of an earlier era. I've heard of it I don't think I could test it. I couldn't adjust to it they were right. There was one act that had a woman that had a screechy laugh but he ripped on her it was part of his routine but I can hear that woman caused mass hysteria in the audience. Absolute hysteria and the joke was that she was so can vouch that she had to get to the ladies room and halfway up the aisle didn't make it that would hit on her for an hour. Yeah right Loni if can be but I really really do you know he would be doing it died and she would live in the wrong place and he looked over on her and he couldn't get to it primetime he really had no punch line that way. But there was just one. But the drive in to get the you know. To make
everybody laugh at his great act that was really part of it. I see only one that I remember I don't know anyone who has used the clack I've seen clack standing ovation clack. On opening night. Would have six or eight people spread around and they get up. To a broad and well you kind of Houdini got up and if they're going to you know get that from his own long run TV hit Make Room for Daddy to have a dramatic debut of his own daughter covers a lot of showbusiness territory and TV star Danny Thomas is strictly himself in the role of proud parent when his daughter wins an award. Yeah thank you I rather I would I cried like a. Run actress my daughter but you didn't come overnight either.
Six year. Period he went at it and studied under Sanford Meisner bribes in television shows we didn't know reserve producer looked at or anything I don't like God guidance he give more money I've got it I've got it made good producer 32 of my idea or thought Fred and then I could go find I'm not going to park one Bengay not getting what I didn't think really I did a good thing to my baby and I did. Brian and. My daughter but the father of me saying you know big break the notion I don't wanna. Go down we join a bank. She played a note she would write good good old thing and I brought right back in the guide I needed somebody people looking at the clock there was a bomb going to go off onto the operating table and the fellow they were operating on their day and you had enemies wanted him. Some government wanted him destroyed you know and still is going to blow up the whole operating room and she know what she's going to
want to know that they've got he's also working for them but they're going to kill her brother. Taleb one of those things and that's what they wanted her to go to look here and look at the clock and everything to look at the clock the camera will do the clock and she came home. Poor baby he cried you don't go to your home I bought my purse job I played a wizard I did a commercial on Radio what do you think I was a tough brutal dude right. I hope to die right now and I could I you know what you gotta do to get that good right what are you going to do it all really.
Laughter out of it. In the words of this man who certainly knows there are no overnight stuff whether the performer is an actor or entertainer he must serve alt those long hard years on the rocky road to fame his own career is a fine example to any who would follow in the footsteps of the great comic artist Danny Thomas. Portions of this program were pretty recorded. This is Alan Grier speaking for the comic arts. The comic art series with Al which wire is produced by Michigan State University Radio in cooperation with the humor societies of America program consultant George Q. Lewis music by Gerry Tillman. Your announcer can be charter for. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.
Series
The comic arts II
Episode
Danny Thomas
Producing Organization
Michigan State University
WKAR (Radio/television station : East Lansing, Mich.)
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-mp4vnq9n
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Description
Series Description
For series info, see Item 3529. This prog.: Danny Thomas: There Are No Overnight Stars
Date
1968-10-22
Topics
Humor
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:14:58
Embed Code
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Credits
Producing Organization: Michigan State University
Producing Organization: WKAR (Radio/television station : East Lansing, Mich.)
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 68-29-7 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:14:45
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Citations
Chicago: “The comic arts II; Danny Thomas,” 1968-10-22, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-mp4vnq9n.
MLA: “The comic arts II; Danny Thomas.” 1968-10-22. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-mp4vnq9n>.
APA: The comic arts II; Danny Thomas. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-mp4vnq9n