The Kingfish sets up a blind date for "Mama". Hoping the poor guy would like her and take her off of his hands he arranges for Mama to go to the beauty parlor. He's talking to the hair stylist, describing Mama. He says (and I'm paraphrasing), "Picture a grapefruit that's been out at sea. And it washes ashore, all covered with seaweed and crabs. Now it sits in the sun for a couple of weeks and gets all wrinkly and rotted and bugs are now flying around it. Can you picture that?" The hairstylist says "Uh huh." And the Kingfish says, "Good. If you can make her look that good I'd be satisfied!"
...one that slays me still comes from lips of Fred Sanford when he denigrates Lamont's choice in women by saying to him:
ReplyDelete"She's so ugly, you could push her face into a pile of dough and make gorilla cookies!"
I remember that gag!!!
ReplyDeleteI grew up in L.A. I'd come home from grammar school, flip on the television. Channel 2 showed "Amos N' Andy" at 3:30, and William Bendix in "Life of Riley" at 4. (Then "The Early Show" at 4:30, where I saw W.C. Fields and Abbott and Costello movies, till dinner at 6)
All hail Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher! (Amos N' Andy, Leave It To Beaver and The Munsters! What a trifecta!)
It's a crime that they don't show reruns of Amos 'n' Andy anymore.
ReplyDeleteAmong my collection of old radio shows, were a couple episodes of "Amos N' Andy." One day when I came home early from work, I found my kids, ten 8 and 11, with some of their friends listening to one of the shows. The kids had never heard anything like that before and were enjoying the show hugely. I hadn't listened to it in maybe 20 years myself. Dad and the kids sitting listening to the radio, laughing together reminded me why I loved to listen to the old family GE Console in the living room. Amos N Andy was human. It was funny and so popular it brought the nation to a standstill on Sunday evenings.
ReplyDeleteEven by the mid-1950s, the pressure against the portrayals in Amos & Andy ended up having the show modified at first, and then removed from some of the more politically sensitive markets, such as New York, but riding on their success with LITB for ABC, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher were able to convince the network to do basically a prime-time animated series using Freeman Gosden and Charles Correl's characters for the 1961-62 season.
ReplyDeleteSame voices, but "Calvin and the Colonel" turned the title characters into a bear and a fox to avoid the racism problems that got A&A yanked off the air. It only lasted one season, but if you haven't seen it, here's what an episode looked like (with typical cheap early 1960s TV animation).
Whoops, wrong link -- Here's what an episode of the animated version of Amos & Andy looked like.
ReplyDeleteRich...you and I are obviously the very same age. I also grew up in L.A. and had the same ritual every afternoon after school. A day wasn't complete without my dose of "Amos and Andy" and "The Life of Riley". Those were great times that I will always cherish.
ReplyDeleteClassic gold and still funny after all these years.
ReplyDeleteAnother one from "Taxi":
ReplyDelete(Elaine criticizes Louie for complaining that Tony's decision to quit boxing is costing him the money he makes betting against him)
Louie (sounding hurt): It so happens I need the money to get an operation for my mother.
Elaine (now feeling guilty): Oh Louie, I'm sorry, what's the problem?
Louie: Female problems... (beat) She's starting to not look like one.
Later on, when Tony changes his mind, you hear Louie on the phone cheerfully exhorting "Ma, you've been called 'sir' for the last time!"