Fake Fluffs

[bboswell]

I've sometimes had an inkling that some comedians have scripted fake fluffs in their shows. I particularly accuse Red Skelton of this, since Red's retorts seem to flow a little too smoothly. (I don't doubt that he was a great comedian, but his comebacks seem somewhat wordier than what would be natural.) I don't have any proof of this for Red, BUT...

I was listening to Jack's New Year's Show of 1944/45 and heard Phil throw something in about his drinking, and then Jack muttered something about "that isn't even in the script!" As I have mentioned elsewhere on this forum, I love to look at old scripts to see what makes things tick. Also knowing that a lot of what is available has been corrected to show what actually went out over the air, I was anxious to see what was penciled in. I went out to tobbaccodocuments.org, (having now changed my mind about the negative impact of our litigious society,) and got a shock. The whole thing was scripted!!

Check out the episode of 12/31/44 around 9 minutes in, and check out this amazingly executed "ad lib." It sounds completely off-the-cuff.

here is the script:
http://tobaccodocuments.org/atc/1432894 ... .html#p303

[LLeff]

I was listening to Jack's New Year's Show of 1944/45 and heard Phil throw something in about his drinking, and then Jack muttered something about "that isn't even in the script!" As I have mentioned elsewhere on this forum, I love to look at old scripts to see what makes things tick. Also knowing that a lot of what is available has been corrected to show what actually went out over the air, I was anxious to see what was penciled in. I went out to tobbaccodocuments.org, (having now changed my mind about the negative impact of our litigious society,) and got a shock. The whole thing was scripted!!

Whoa, hang on there...the scripts at tobaccodocuments are "As broadcast". So whatever fluffs and ad libs went over the air were transcribed into the SPONSOR'S copy of the script. You'd have to pull the script of a cast member to see what was originally intended.

But you're right, some of the fluffs are actually scripted. I've heard stuff that I was going to trap as a blooper in "39 Forever", only to discover the blooper documented right in Jack's script. Phone pick-up cues get missed, etc. Not every blooper was scripted and I wasn't assiduous in auditing every one, but I'd guess that 40% of the things I thought were fluffs were intentional.

[bboswell]

Whoa, hang on there...the scripts at tobaccodocuments are "As broadcast". So whatever fluffs and ad libs went over the air were transcribed into the SPONSOR'S copy of the script. You'd have to pull the script of a cast member to see what was originally intended.

As I look again at the script that I linked to, there aren't any pencil marks, so I guess they did completely transcribe it. Weren't most of the changes penciled in for the "as broadcast" version of the script?

[LLeff]

As I look again at the script that I linked to, there aren't any pencil marks, so I guess they did completely transcribe it. Weren't most of the changes penciled in for the "as broadcast" version of the script?

They would have been on the cast script. However, I have a theory that the ones (or most of the ones I've seen) on tobaccodocuments were typed up from the air transcription, or a combination of the actual broadcast and the script. I imagine they would have needed them possibly for reference in case someone made a claim or suit about something that was "said on the air".

[Brad from Georgia]

Re Red Skelton: I read an interview with one of his writers in which the interviewee said that Skelton often would break up in order to get a quick look at a cue card. He had trouble remembering lines, and that was his little "cheat." Evidently Skelton wasn't the easiest boss to work for, either, if the interview is true to life!

[Maxwell]

Re Red Skelton: I read an interview with one of his writers in which the interviewee said that Skelton often would break up in order to get a quick look at a cue card. He had trouble remembering lines, and that was his little "cheat." Evidently Skelton wasn't the easiest boss to work for, either, if the interview is true to life!

My recollection of Skelton's TV shows is less of him breaking up than his trying to get his guest stars to break up, e.g. guest star gets a big laugh, to which Red responds, "You're proud of that one, aren't you?"

[LLeff]

My recollection of Skelton's TV shows is less of him breaking up than his trying to get his guest stars to break up, e.g. guest star gets a big laugh, to which Red responds, "You're proud of that one, aren't you?"

Which brings up an additional question. About a year ago I read "Nobody's Fool", a biography of Danny Kaye. Very enlightening and somewhat disturbing. For a while he worked onstage with...I think it was Georgia Gibbs. And there were points where she was supposed to break up laughing. Performance after performance she'd do it, and somehow Kaye always thought it was spontaneous on her part. It wasn't. So I wonder how many breakups were actually planned.

[Maxwell]

My recollection of Skelton's TV shows is less of him breaking up than his trying to get his guest stars to break up, e.g. guest star gets a big laugh, to which Red responds, "You're proud of that one, aren't you?"

Which brings up an additional question. About a year ago I read "Nobody's Fool", a biography of Danny Kaye. Very enlightening and somewhat disturbing. For a while he worked onstage with...I think it was Georgia Gibbs. And there were points where she was supposed to break up laughing. Performance after performance she'd do it, and somehow Kaye always thought it was spontaneous on her part. It wasn't. So I wonder how many breakups were actually planned.

That's a good question. For some reason I'm reminded of a short subject from WWII, that I saw again just recently on TCM, that was either a staging or an actual filming of the AFRN show "Command Performance" hosted by Bob Hope. There's a scene in which a female star (and for the moment who she was eludes me), gets a big laugh from the GI audience. Hope walks over, checks her script, checks his, looks puzzled and shakes his head.

I wonder how much stuff like that occurred during broadcasts.

[LLeff]

I wonder how much stuff like that occurred during broadcasts.

Not as much on Jack's shows because Jack was such an incredible stickler for precise comedic timing, of both himself and his entire cast. Remember when Frank Nelson was called in to the booth by the writers and told to say "Drear Pooson", and he balked because "you don't ad lib with Jack."

BTW...bboswell has graciously corrected me offline (and specifically regarding the Drear Pooson script) on the fact that there are some scripts on tobaccodocuments that show some editing. So there may be a combination of sources for the scripts, both as brodacast and earlier versions.

[shimp scrampi]

there are some scripts on tobaccodocuments that show some editing. So there may be a combination of sources for the scripts, both as brodacast and earlier versions.

"as broadcast" might have a little wiggle room in the definition as well, if there were east and west coast broadcasts. It's possible that some "accidental" fluffs might have gotten a laugh and become formalized as "fake fluffs" into the second performance of the show, in the pre-transcription days.

[David47Jens]

It's possible that some "accidental" fluffs might have gotten a laugh and become formalized as "fake fluffs" into the second performance of the show, in the pre-transcription days.

Sure. If it gets a laugh, or otherwise "works," keep it in! The same would apply to a more deliberate ad-lib. In fact, I've heard that the famous policeman/Durante exchange in "Jumbo" ("Where are you going with that elephant?" "What elephant?") was originally ad-libbed by Jimmy Durante onstage, and thereafter kept in the show permanently due to the audience's enthusiastic response.

Of course, that story could be purely apocryphal, as are many stories concerning Groucho's ad-libs, but as was said in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

[LLeff]

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

That's pretty much what's happened to the "Jack met Mary at the hosiery counter of the May Company" myth. The first AP article on me was written because I sent a letter of complaint to the Los Angeles AP bureau (with extensive quotes and footnoting thankyouverymuch) because they had rattled off that myth in Mary's own obituary in 1983.