![]() ![]() It took a very long time before he was free and easy as the rest of us were at insulting each other mercilessly if we didn't think something wasn't funny enough. I think it was because of his own insecurity based on his lack of education that made him retreat when his contribution was ignored. If the three of us didn't agree that his remark wasn't hilarious, he would, in effect, sit in the corner and be lost for the rest of the writing session. If I said something that I thought was very funny, either Jesse or Marty could say, "For Christ sakes, what's so funny about that?" The same thing would happen if Jesse or Marty said something that wasn't well received. ![]() (Note: If you have ever seen the oft repeated taping of the behind the scenes writers room in the preparation of a Sid Caesar episode, it's much the same in every group of men whose serious business is finding the best punch line for any joke.) The only problem I found with Dave was he didn't take rejection kindly. It's customary, in a gaggle of gag writers for a lot of give and take in a room where jokes are bouncing around the walls at 50 or 60 miles an hour. If they wrote or thought funny, they eventually became comedy writers.) So I insisted Dave join Jesse, Marty and myself to form the writing staff of the Red Skelton Show.įinally, I prevailed and rather timidly, Dave joined Jesse, Marty and myself. (In fact, I know very few comedy writers who started out by taking courses in literature or writing. I myself had gone through pre-med and had a masters degree in biological sciences and that didn't prevent me from writing the kind of broad comedy that was Red Skelton's trademark. I pointed out that the other writers on the show were Jesse Goldstein and Marty Ragaway and that Jesse had been an English professor but that didn't prevent him from writing prat falls and broad comedy just because he knew a lot of three syllable words. Meanwhile, he had performed on the Skelton show in two or three other parts and each time, as I expected, he managed to inject additional pieces of comedy. Secretaries had to know how to spell, but writers didn't. I assured him that he didn't need to spell to be a writer. Jess Goldstein had been an English teacher, Marty Ragaway was a college graduate. He was very embarrassed because he was illiterate, and knew the rest of the writing staff all had college degrees. We discussed this at some length and Dave finally confessed he couldn't be a writer because he'd had very little schooling, never even having finished high school. Dave resisted this invitation to join our writing staff, because he claimed he was an actor but he wasn't a writer. I knew instinctively that if Dave could do it, Red could do it. And he was also able to play the part of Red in the scenes as we were writing. ![]() In the first place, he would be able to add humorous bits to scenes while we were actually writing in the room together. I made it a point to meet with Dave and ask if he would like to join the writing staff: for two reasons. Obviously, the director and producer and I all allowed these changes because they were wonderful additions to the scenes. ![]() I was the head writer on the Skelton show and I observed his remarkable ability to add little funny bits during several scenes in the show. He was simply an actor who was cast in a small part in one of the Skelton episodes. However, it was not this physical resemblance to Red which cast him as an actor. He was a wonderful physical comedian and in physical proportions similar to Red Skelton, the weekly series I was writing at that time (1956 or '57). He was a large man, perhaps 6'3" and 220 lbs. When I first met Dave O'Brien, I knew Dave had been a stunt man, but mostly he was famous as the director and hapless star of the Pete Smith shorts when he was great at falling down stairs, bumping into things, and not Noel Coward comedy. ![]()
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