Sept. 12, 2026

Rodney Dangerfield: The Joke as a Perfect Object

Show Notes
Transcript

Jerry Seinfeld was asked which joke he'd send to aliens to represent all of comedy. He picked Rodney Dangerfield. Johnny Mac looks at why — the no-respect premise as a structural achievement, the rapid-fire construction that makes the jokes work even when you already know them, the 31-year comedy club on the Upper East Side that launched Seinfeld, Roseanne Barr, Sam Kinison and Robert Schimmel, the Caddyshack role that was written for Don Rickles, and the honest question of whether the film fame softened the thing that made the early club material great. Rodney Dangerfield built jokes the way a watchmaker builds watches. It's worth understanding how.

"Why was Rodney Dangerfield so funny?" – "What did Jerry Seinfeld say about Rodney Dangerfield?" – "What is Rodney Dangerfield's best joke?" – "What was Dangerfield's comedy club in New York?" – "Who did Rodney Dangerfield help early in their career?" – "What was Rodney Dangerfield's real name?" – "Did Don Rickles almost play Al Czervik in Caddyshack?" – "Why isn't Rodney Dangerfield talked about more?" – "What made Rodney Dangerfield's comedy style unique?" – "Who performed at Dangerfield's comedy club?"

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Calaroga Shark Media.

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Hi, I'm Johnny Mac, and on Saturdays I've been doing

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these deep dives into one particular comedian. Today, let's take

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a look at Rodney Dangerfield. Jerry Seinfeld was asked a question.

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If you had to put one joke on a recording

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to represent comedy to aliens, what would the joke be?

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Seinfeld did not hesitate. He picked a Rodney Dangerfield joke,

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specifically this one. I was making love with my wife,

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and she had a faraway look in her eyes, and

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I said, darling, is there someone else? And she said,

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there must be. Seinfeld said, that's as perfect a joke

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as I can imagine. Not picking his own material, he

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picked Rodney Dangerfield to represent the entire form to an

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alien civilization. Rodney spent most of his adult life trying

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to solve a specific technical problem. How do you construct

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a joke that works every single time, that has no

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loose parts, and can't be made funnier by changing anything

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about it? Ronnie got closer to solving that problem than

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almost anyone who has ever held a microphone. The self-deprecation,

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the no-respect thing, the loosened tie, the bug-eyed delivery. Those

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are surface features. Underneath them is something that serious comedy

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people have been trying to articulate for years. The jokes

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work at a structural level that most jokes don't reach.

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This is one place they treat you right, you know?

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Although before the show, one guy gave me a hard time.

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He kept looking at me, he looked at me, he said,

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what do I know you from, you know? I said,

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you ever watch The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson? He said, yeah,

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you too? I meet the wrong people. That's my trouble.

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Like last week, I met the Surgeon General. He offered

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me a cigarette. I'm going to lose some weight. That

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weight is a rough one. Every day is a battle

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with weight. Last week, I went nuts. I tried the

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rice diet. Between meals, kept folding my shirts.

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Ronnie Dangerfield was born as Jacob Cohen in 1921 in Babylon,

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Long Island. His father... was a vaudeville comedian who was

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essentially never home. Dad performed, traveled, absent in the way

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that show business fathers of that era were often absent,

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which is to say thoroughly and without apology. According to Rodney,

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mom was unstable and the childhood was hard in a

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specific way that produces either damage or comedy or both.

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He was writing jokes as a teenager, understanding instinctively that

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language arranged in a specific way could produce a specific

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effect in other people. He changed his name to Jack

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Roy and worked at Catskills in the late 30s and 40s.

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The borscht belt taught him that audiences are demanding and

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the competition was real and you figured out quickly what

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worked and what didn't or you went home and did

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something else. He was doing that, grinding, then he stopped.

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He got married in the early 1950s, had two kids,

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sold paint and aluminum siding. He hung out at Hanson's Drugstore,

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a 24-hour diner in Midtown Manhattan. You know who else

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hung out there? Don Rickles, Shecky Green, Buddy Hackett. He

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was part of the world and not quite in it.

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He was selling siding during the day, sitting at the

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counter at Hanson's at 2 in the morning, carrying around

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the jokes he wasn't performing anymore. He eventually went back.

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He couldn't explain. He told a reporter it wasn't about success.

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He was depressed. He was seeing an analyst and suddenly

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had a tremendous urge to go out on the floor

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and perform. He changed his name again, Rodney Dangerfield, suggested

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by a club owner and started building his act around

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the thing that had already been in the material. He

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doesn't get any respect.

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I guess it's the same old story, you know. I

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don't get no respect. I mean, in my whole life,

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I don't get no respect at all. I found out

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when I was born. They bought me a baby carriage

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with no brakes. And today it's the same thing of

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my kids, no respect. I remember one day my kid

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came home from school, my boy was depressed. I said

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to him, why are you depressed? He told me that

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day he learned a new saying, like father, like son.

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Now I tell you, I can't take it no more. Well,

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the other day I said to my little daughter, I says,

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when you grow up, what do you want to be?

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She looked at my wife.

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She said, single.

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The no respect premise solved a specific problem, which was

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the problem of setup. Every joke needs a context that

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makes the punchline land, and the challenge is building the

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context efficiently so that the audience doesn't get bored before

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you get to the punchline. Rodney's solution was to make

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the context permanent, establish it once at the beginning of

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the act that his entire world is a place where

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he receives no respect from anyone, and fire jokes one

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after another in rapid succession, each one landing faster because

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the setup's already there. Here's one. I was an ugly kid.

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I worked in a pet store. People kept asking how

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big I get. Three sentences. The first establishes the condition.

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He's ugly. The second delivers the misdirection. Pet store. The

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third lands the punchline on the implied comparison to an animal.

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Three sentences producing one complete comic observation. No wasted motion.

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No filler. There's nothing you can take out there. In 1980,

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in the Chicago Tribune, Larry Cart... Described Rodney Dangerfield as

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one of the last comedians in America who's serious about jokes.

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Stand-up was moving towards storytelling and performance and personal revelation.

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Rodney didn't tell jokes the way a storyteller tells a story.

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He fired them one after another with barely enough air

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between them for the laugh to complete before the next

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one arrived. The rhythm is a choice. It has a

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specific effect that the audience has kept slightly off balance.

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Slightly ahead of themselves and constantly arriving in a laugh

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just as the next setup is already beginning. It keeps

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the audience working. It keeps them paying attention. By the

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end of a Rodney Dangerfield set, you felt like you'd

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been through something. Even though what you've been through is

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basically a man telling you about his terrible life. The

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national audience first encountered Rodney Dangerfield on Ed Sullivan in 1967.

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There you got not just a large audience, but a

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specific kind of legitimization. Ed Sullivan liked comedians who were

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clean enough for the family audience and good enough to

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stop people from changing the channel. Rodney fit both requirements.

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I was a little late getting over here tonight. I

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took the wife and kids out for a ride and

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I got lost over in Jersey, you know. I'll tell

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you the way some people give you directions, you can't

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help but get lost. They always tell me the same thing.

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Let's go straight ahead. You can't miss it. Just keep

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going straight ahead.

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I mean, as soon as I.

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Pull away, I come to a fork in the road.

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I'll tell you, I had a guy last week. He

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gave me religious directions. Hey, you ever get these guys?

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He says, you go down here to St. Anne's Church,

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make your right. You keep going past St. Mary's, past St. Catherine's.

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You'll pass Holy Trinity. You come to Our Lady of Mercy.

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I'll tell you, after those directions, I don't even thank

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the guy. I looked at him. I said, I bless you. Lately,

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with my car, I got a new problem. My wife

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just got her license to drive. And I'll tell you,

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since my wife is driving, she now has two men

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in her life. Me and a body and fender man.

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I was out driving my wife the other day. She

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told me she was going to make a U-turn. I'll

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tell you the letter she made. You'll never find any alphabet.

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That led to a run of talk shows. Johnny Carson.

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would give Rodney the visible laugh that Carson gave to

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the comedians he actually found funny rather than the polite

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laugh that he gave some other people. Rodney did Dean

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Martin's show, Merv Griffin. There was the comedy club on

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the Upper East Side of New York City. I think

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I went there after my prom, if I recall correctly.

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That one was called Dangerfields. Dangerfields was open from 1969

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to 2000. Rodney opened a comedy club because he understood

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what a comedy club needed to be and wanted to

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build a version that didn't yet exist and kept it

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open for three decades. even as the comedy landscape shifted

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around him. Some of the people who came through Dangerfields

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in those years include Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne Barr, Sam Kinison,

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Bob Saget, Tim Allen. Rodney didn't just give them stage time,

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he went to the mat for them. He produced a

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series of HBO Young Comedians specials that gave young stand-ups

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national TV exposure before they had any other way to

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get it.

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Here's a guy you're going to hear an awful lot about, okay?

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He smokes in bed, face down. But I'll tell you,

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in this thing called showbiz, he's one of the guys

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who's coming up real fast. He's really great. Jerry Seinfeld.

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All right, here we go.

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Thank you.

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Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, this is it, huh?

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This is your night. You're out. You're making it happen.

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New York City, this is where I'm from. And to me,

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the most amazing thing about when you go out in

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this city, you know, you go to a show like

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this and you're with your friends and you talk and

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maybe you have a good time, maybe you don't. The

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most amazing thing that happens to you on a night

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like this is the ride that you have in the cab.

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You know, isn't it incredible the chances that these guys

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take with your life and that you're so calm in

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the backseat, you know, because they got that glass partition

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and you're just watching them. It's like it's happening on television,

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you know. You know, he's flying around the road and

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you're going, boy, that looked dangerous.

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Here's a guy who's rather unusual. And I love people

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who are different, you know? When I say rather unusual,

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you know what I mean when you meet him, okay?

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We all love him here. Let's have a nice, warm

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reception for Sam Kinnison, okay? Here you are, Sammy.

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Hi, baby. Here you are. Baby, I love you.

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I love you.

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Well, I'm sorry I'm late.

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I was supposed to be here a little earlier, but

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I spent the last two hours at a 7-Eleven going, Marburg!

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Cigarettes! Smokey, smokey!

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He's a guy who's very funny, but he's lonely. He

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needs acceptance. Make him happy, won't you? Bob Saget, how

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about it?

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All right, Bobby, here you are now. Guys, you're a

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wonderful audience. You really are. I'm not just kissing up.

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I'm really not. I swear, I'm slobbering all over you

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is what I'm doing because I need you to like

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me real bad because I have no act and I

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have no life and I have no future. I'm serious, man.

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mom is Gumby, my dad is Pokey, and I'm Mr.

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Potato Head, so... I'll talk real fast. If you have

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any drugs, take them now. I'm serious. I'm not funny,

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but I am quick. That's the problem I have with women, too.

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But it's good to be here. It really is. You're

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a great crowd. I'm not just kissing up again. It's

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the second time I've done that. I just want to

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take a jacuzzi with you and throw in a toaster.

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Here's a guy I saw five years ago in Minneapolis.

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He was working with a comedy club there. And I

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said to myself, here's a guy you've got to watch.

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In fact, you can't miss him, okay? Give him a

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big round of applause. Louie Anderson.

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Okay, Louie.

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How you doing? Listen, I can't stay long. I'm in

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between meals, so bear with me a minute. Let me

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move that so you can see me. Yeah, I live

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out in California where there are only three fat people.

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They have us on eight-hour shifts, so it works out.

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Then there are the movies. 1980, Caddyshack. They originally wanted

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Don Rickles for the role of the loudmouth nouveau riche,

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a real estate developer whose arrival at the country club

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sets everything in motion. Don Rickles wasn't available. Rodney Dangerfield

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got the role. What he did with it, the improvised energy,

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the vulgarity of money flaunting, the way Rodney's delivery made

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every line land faster than it should have, turned a

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supporting character into the thing people remember most about the film. Technically,

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Caddyshack has a Bill Murray movie. Rodney Dangerfield is why

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it holds up. Then the stuff people knock Rodney for,

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the rest of the movie career. I don't, but people do.

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Easy money in 1983, back to school in 1986. The

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money that came from the film career after Caddyshack was

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a lot. and was mainstream recognition that talk show appearances

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and comedy clubs didn't really produce in the same way.

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Remember that guy Larry Cart from the Chicago Tribune who

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said nice things about Rodney in 1980? In 1986, Cart

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reviewed a show in Chicago and said, Gone were the

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perfect little perfections of rhythm, sound, and nonsense that burst

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into laughter even when you knew it was coming. The

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craft was still there, but the urgency was different. The

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man who had spent years constructing jokes as perfect objects

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because the joke was the only thing he had was

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now a man who had movies and a club and

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mainstream fame, and the desperation that had sharpened the material

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into something almost crystalline was no longer quite the same desperation.

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The history of comedy is full of performers whose best

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work came from a combination of talent and necessity, and

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their work changed when the necessity changed. We've seen a

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lot of comedians over the years that get a little rich,

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and it's just not the same anymore. With Rodney, it's

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not that the jokes got worse, the construction was still there,

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the no-respect premise was still doing the work, but something

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had shifted.

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The last week I saw my psychiatrist, I told him, Doc,

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my wife comes home so late. Well, last night she

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came home, must have been 3, 4 o'clock in the morning.

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He said it was 2.30. Well, last week was a

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rough week. I sat my kid down, I told him

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all about the birds and the bees. He told me

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about my wife and the butcher. I'll tell you, my

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wife never went for me, you know. That's not how

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I told her, honey, you know what I say, that

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sex makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. She told me,

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consider myself sick, poor, and stupid.

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Rodney passed away in October of 2004, age 82, after

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complications from heart surgery. I feel like over time, his

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legacy has held, and he does get respect. That's your

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comedy news for today. I will see you tomorrow.