George Burns, One of the World's Great Wordsmiths

The great George Burns, 1896-1996.  Where was I in 1996?  Teaching.  But I used to think of so many of his jokes, particularly when I was selling real estate for some reason.  

"My doctor is dead."

"I don't drink.  I don't smoke.  I do the other thing." 

"I'm the only one left.  you're the only one I know that's alive."

Though it wasn't said in this interview, it is a good line nonetheless, "Happiness is having a loving, close-knit family in another city." Quoted from the book The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners, Geo Tibballs, 2004.  George Burns mentions in the above interview that he thought that Georgie Jessel was the funniest man he'd ever known, even funnier than Groucho Marx.  I beg to differ.  Though I didn't really know George Jessel's comedy, I thought that Groucho Marx was the funniest.  Judge for yourself from this interview.

Jessel appears to be a decent storyteller with ironic twists.  Prankster, yes, joker, not so much.  See him here in an episode of the Jack Benny Show.  

Just as way leads onto way, I found this episode of the Burns and Allen Show, co-starring the resonate voice of Harry von Zell.  IMDB has an interesting write-up on him.  The episode is titled, The Cigarette Girl, which aired on February 5, 1953. 

Fred Clark also appears in this episode.  What's funny to me is that when I first saw these performers it was the 1960s, actors already at the middle or the end of their career.  I just had no idea what kind of career they had before I first saw them.  I remember seeing Clark on The Beverly Hillbillies, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and as Moose Moran in the 1951 movie, The Lemon Drop Kid, starring Bob Hope.  Well, this little fact on The Lemon Drop Kid was quite interesting.  Damon Runyon wrote the story.  

The Lemon Drop Kid (1934), starring Lee Tracy, was remade in 1951 with Bob Hope (and I Love Lucy co-star William Frawley appearing in both adaptations). The latter version introduced the Christmas song "Silver Bells." 

On Runyon, we have this,

He spun humorous and sentimental tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit", "Benny Southstreet", "Big Jule", "Harry the Horse", "Good Time Charley", "Dave the Dude", or "The Seldom Seen Kid". His distinctive vernacular style is known as "Runyonese": a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions. He is credited with coining the phrase "Hooray Henry", a term now used in British English to describe an upper-class, loud-mouthed, arrogant twit. 

If you haven't seen it, you should.  And it doesn't hurt that it is available, at least for now, for free on YouTube.  I don't know for how long though, so don't miss it while it's up.