Monday, July 12, 2010

Quote of the Day (Robert Klein, Recalling a 1950s Teacher)


“Nooo talking. Take these tags home. They’re to be used in the event you’re burnt beyond recognition in a nuclear holocaust….and nooo talking during a nuclear holocaust…I shall be taking names.”—Robert Klein, impersonating a teacher in 1950s air-raid drills, quoted in Phil Berger, The Last Laugh: The World of Stand-Up Comics, Updated Edition (2000)

Back in the mid-1970s, as a teenager, I had the chance to see Robert Klein in concert, as part of the Schaefer Music Festival at Central Park’s Wollman Skating Rink.

The outdoor, summer-night setting was unlike the enclosed nightclubs he was accustomed to, I’m sure. But it gave me a great sense not only of the world of stand-up comics, but also of this man’s particular style of wry, observational humor. Various deejays on WNEW-FM made me even more aware of his skills by playing routines from his album Child of the Fifties.

Not too many comedians were bigger than Klein in those years—something that HBO recognized when it headlined him on its first stand-up comic special in 1975. But—at least for me—Klein appeared to dip under the radar for much of the Eighties and Nineties, so I was delighted to see him again, this time onscreen, as Sandra Bullock’s dad in the 2002 film Two Weeks Notice. I hope I’ll continue to see him often in the years ahead, not merely as an actor but as a consummate humorist.

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