Steve Martin, Stephen Colbert and a Guy with a Guitar Begin the Top Ten List
My wife was looking at Steve Martin’s book, “Shopgirl,” at the Barnes & Noble in Santa Barbara a few years back when a man walked behind her and said, “I hear that’s a really good book.”
When we turned around, there was Steve Martin.
“OH MY GOD!” said Candi, who, I should add, had grown up idolizing Martin.
She had even memorized every line from “The Three Amigos.”
“But you don’t have to buy it,” Martin said.
Needless to say, it was a memorable moment for us.
As the Clark Center gets ready to host the Second City Touring Company in Arroyo Grande this weekend, I’ve been thinking about comedians and their most memorable moments.
Not all of these moments are good ones, of course. But they clearly stand out. So I’ve compiled the Top Ten Most Memorable Comedian Moments. Today we’ll do 10 through six. We’ll do the final five tomorrow.
10.) Roseanne Barr Strikes Out
When the blue collar comic screeched her way through the “Star Spangled Banner” during a Reds-Padres game in 1990, fans booed and grimaced. And when she grabbed her crotch and pretended to spit afterward – imitating baseball players – many were aghast.
President George H.W. Bush said, “It was disgraceful.” The San Diego Union-Tribune headline the next day read, “The Fat Lady Sings (Poorly).”
Nearly 18 years later Barr still says the incident hurt her career. In a mock obituary on her web site, she wrote, “Barr’s legacy as a feminist intellectual was destroyed forever with her pre-Borat rendition of the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’”
9.) Steve Martin Walks Like an Egyptian
When the famous boy king’s tomb and artifacts toured the U.S. in 1978, Americans had Tut fever. Martin tapped into the fervor with a song about the fallen pharaoh.
The tune, which he later claimed took 15 minutes to write, included silly lyrics like: “Buried with a donkey, he’s my favorite honky” and “Dancing by the Nile, the ladies love his style.”
While his trademark physical comedy bolstered the song’s appeal on stage, the single – featuring the Toot Uncommons backup band — fared well, selling over a million copies.
8.) Comedian Bashes Heckler
After a heckler continued to needle comic Kenny Moore in Bossier City, LA, the singing comic responded with a hard comeback – he smashed a guitar over the heckler’s head. (Warning: There’s violence and harsh language in that clip.) This, of course, violated the number one rule in dealing with hecklers: Don’t lose your cool.
It’s no surprise that no one’s heard much from Moore since the braining.
7.) Chappelle Goes the Distance
After walking out on a $50 million TV deal in 2006 and fleeing to South Africa, some began to question Chappelle’s sanity. A year later, the edgy Chappelle came back in a big way, giving a six-hour performance at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles.
He was hospitalized for exhaustion a few months later.
Still, Chappelle would go on to break his own record by five minutes. But Dane Cook would then break that with a seven-hour performance in January, 2008. Not to be outdone, Canada’s Big Daddy Tazz gave an eight-hour show in Winnipeg a couple of months later.
6.) Colbert Accomplished
Normally, the comedians who perform at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner offer friendly jabs at the Commander-in-Chief. But Stephen Colbert’s stinging monologue in April, 2006 shocked everyone in attendance – including President George W. Bush.
“He stands for things,” Colbert said, feigning support, as his TV persona does. “Not only for things, he stands on things – things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently-flooded city squares. And that sends a message that no matter what happens to America, she will respond with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.”
By the time Colbert was finished, Bush aides said, the president was “ready to blow.”
Conservatives said the performance was disrespectful. Liberals, who felt the media had been soft on Bush, called Colbert a hero.
Photo: Comedy Central
Posted on May 14th, 2008 by Pat
Filed under: Comedians
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