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Randy Hodgins and Steve McLellan’s lifelong love of comedy was kindled when they met more than 40 years ago in graduate school in Seattle. While managing family and professional work responsibilities, they hosted a one hour comedy radio program on Saturday mornings for 10 years on a small radio station in Olympia, WA and also co-authored two books on northwest popular culture – Seattle on Film (1995) and Wet and Wired (2000). Stuck at home during the early days of the pandemic with hundreds of comedy albums, cassettes and CD’s gathering dust on their shelves, they launched Laugh Tracks Legends of Comedy in May 2020, a weekly mini-program featuring a different comedy icon, with biographical bits and a nice slice of the comedy that made them famous. From standup stars, to stellar sketch teams, to novelty music maestros -- they are all part of our Legends.
Episodes
Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
Grab some confetti and settle in to meet Rip Taylor -- The King of Confetti! A flamboyant slinger of "rim shot" jokes, Rip initially punctuated his act with exaggerated crying when his gags bombed. Ed Sullivan was a fan (he booked him over 20 times) and dubbed Rip "The Crying Comedian". Much later when bombing on the Merv Griffin show, instead of crying Rip was moved to tear up his joke cards and toss them in the air like confetti. The audience went nuts and from then on it was confetti instead of crying -- and a career that saw long runs in Las Vegas, many game and talk show appearances, and supporting film roles including Indecent Proposal (a rare dramatic turn) and Wayne's World (a great comedic turn). As always find more clips below and thanks for sharing our shows.
Want more Rip?
The New York Times once described Rip as a cross between Captain Kangaroo and Liberace, wound up to warp factor 7. Pretty good description! https://youtu.be/50pFJU99wUw
Ed Sullivan gave Rip his big TV break and had him back over 20 times. Here's an early Rip performance sans mustache and with crying, not confetti, as the shtick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rm4g_ZGx-c
Rip was over the top, so in 1978 when producing madman Chuck Barris had an idea for another show that would do for beauty pageants what the Gong Show he tapped Rip to be the host. So back from the glory days of shlock tv -- here's a bit of the $1.98 Beauty Show! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF7yrbl_X6E
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