Here's the script for Albert Brooks' 'Comedy Minus One,' if you were looking for that (UPDATED!)

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!"

NOTE: The title track of comedian Albert Brooks' 1973 album Comedy Minus One is a unique interactive routine that actually requires that the listener read along with a script. Try as I might, I could not find that particular script anywhere else on the Internet. So what did I do? I typed the whole goddamned thing up myself and posted it to this blog, just on the off chance that someone, somewhere would want or need it. I'm also including the sound file, so you can play along at home. You're welcome. J.B.

Albert: Thank you... thank you... and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Albert.

You: And I'm You.

Albert: Wait a minute, how could you be me?

You: I didn't say I was you. I said I was me. (L)*

Albert: No, you didn't. I said I was Albert and you said you were me.

You: You've got it all wrong. You said, "I'm Albert," and I said, "I'm You." But I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about me. (L)

Albert: Now I'm confused.

You: Then stop calling yourself Albert. (L)

Albert: I think we should get on with this.

You: I agree. What are we going to do?

Albert: Well, if it's all right with you, I thought we would visit The Auto Mechanic. (A) Thank you very much. Bernie, a little visiting music please...

(MUSIC)

Albert:  Excuse me. I need some work done on my car.

You: Eight-fifty. (L)

Albert:  Eight-fifty? What's that?

You: You said "excuse me." I stopped work and looked up. Time is money. So whatever's wrong with your car, including the time you're using up right now, it's gonna cost you at least eight-fifty.

Albert: That's ridiculous!

You: That's nine dollars. (L)

Albert: Okay, okay. I get the point. You don't come cheap. Now can you repair this car or not?

You: Sure I can repair it. What seems to be the trouble?

Albert: There's a knocking in my engine.

You: It's probably a piston. Let him in. (L)

Albert: I'm not getting anywhere with you.

You: And I'm not getting anywhere with you either. Maybe it's our toothpaste! (L)

Albert: Oh brother.

You: Brother? I almost didn't recognize you! How's Mom? (L)

Albert: How's Mom... stop this! Can you please fix my engine?

You: Oh alright. Open the hood. I'll take a look.

Albert: Wonderful. (He opens hood.) There... it's open.

You: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! (L)

Albert: What does that mean?

You: That means I'm glad I'm fixing this thing instead of paying for it! (L)

Albert: Are you trying to say this is going to cost a lot of money?

You: Let's put it this way. Remember the nine dollars we talked about earlier?

Albert: Yes. So?

You: Well, we still have the nine and the two zeros, but I'm afraid the decimal point just passed away! (L)

Albert: This car has only seventeen thousand miles on it. Nothing could be that serious.

You: If you're so smart, why don't you fix it yourself?

Albert: Because I don't know anything about cars.

You: Nothing at all, huh?

Albert: No.

You: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. (L)(A)

Albert: Okay, that's it. I'll go elsewhere.

You: Look, mister, you don't have to go elsewhere. I was just pulling your leg.

Albert: If I wanted someone to pull my leg I would have gone to a chiropractor! (L)

(Hint to You: Let Albert have his laugh here.)

You: Now look who's doin' the jokes.

Albert: I have to get one laugh, don't I? (L)(A)

You: Okay... okay. Now, I"m gonna put this car up on the hoist and check it out thoroughly. If it's something minor, I'll fix it for free.

Albert: Well that sounds honest.

You: Maybe to you. To me, it's one the big lies of the century. (L) Now stand back as I raise it up. There she goes... going up... going up... there!  By the way, there is a slight "using of the hoist" fee. (L)

Albert: Using of the hoist? (L)

You: That's right. Each time I raise and lower a car it wears out my hoist just a little bit. I have to charge the customer accordingly.

Albert:  I don't believe it. You mean it actually costs money just to raise this car up?

You: No, it's raised for free. It only cost money if you lower it. (L) It's just ten dollars. (L)

Albert: This is highway robbery!

You: Wrong. This is garage robbery. (L)

Albert: Look, I don't have to stand for this.

You: I agree. You can sit on that hubcap in the corner. (L) Be careful, it's greasy! (L)

Albert: Here is ten dollars. Bring my car down. I'm through with you.

You: (Dramatic) Wait! Don't leave! I need this business, my life is in ruins!

Albert: Ruins? What are you talking about?

You: (Continued dramatic) I'll tell you what I'm talking about: I'm divorced, my son is in jail, my daughter was just kidnapped, I can't pay my bills, and my doctor says I may be dying!

Albert: My God! That's unbelievable.

You: You're right. Let me start over. (L) (Continue over this laugh) I may get divorced, my son should be in jail, my daughter wants to be kidnapped, my doctor...

Albert: Alright! Alright! Now stop with these jokes!

You: If I stop with these jokes this bit falls flat on its ass. (L)

("Face" can be used instead of "ass" if so desired.)

Albert: Please. Just fix my car. Please!

You: Okay. Let me look under here real quickly. (Looking  sounds) Hmmmm... Mmmmmmm... Hmmmm... Well I think I found the trouble.

Albert: What is it?

You: It seems that one of your pistons has pounded its way through the muffler. (L) You're gonna need some new pistons and a new muffler for starters. (L)

Albert: Just a minute! That's impossible!

You: I thought you said you didn't know anything about cars?

Albert: I know enough to know that the pistons and the muffler don't even come near each other.

You: That's fair enough. Let's take another look. (L) Well you were right. The muffler does seem okay. Do you know anything about the camshaft?

Albert: No.

You: We just found the trouble! (L)

Albert: You must think I'm a fool.

You: You're getting warmer! (L)

Albert: Well let me tell you a thing or two. It so happens that I don't have to stand here and...

Jessel: Excuse me... excuse me... are you the auto mechanic?

Albert: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Georgie Jessel! (A)

Jessel: Say, where's that applause coming from? I thought we were in a garage. (L) Listen, I need some work done on my car.

You: Eight-fifty. (L)

Jessel: Eight-fifty? Oh my God, I didn't realize it was so late! I gotta be somewhere at nine-thirty. Well, I'll see you later. (L)

Albert: No, no, Georgie, the mechanic wasn't giving you the time. That's a price.

Jessel: A price? For what?

You: You said "excuse me." I stopped work and looked up. Time is money. So whatever's wrong with your car, including the time you're using up right now, it's gonna cost you at least eight-fifty.

Jessel: That's ridiculous!

Albert & You: That's nine dollars. (L)(A)

Jessel: Now, look, I don't need this car restored. I just need some repair work. This car belonged to the great Al Jolson!

You: What seems to be the trouble with it?

Jessel: Well every time I stop at a light it gets down on one tire. (L) Of course I'm just kidding. But actually I don't know what's wrong wtih it. That's why I came here.

You: Does it make any funny noises?

Jessel: Who are you talking to?

You: I'm talking to you.

Jessel: Oh. I don't know if it makes funny noises. I mean these days, who can tell what's funny anyway! (L) Enough of this talk. Now I'll make you a deal. You fix my car, charge me almost nothing, and the next time that you're very, very sick you call me, and we'll talk about a eulogy for you. (L)

Albert:  I don't think you'd want this person to work on your car, Georgie. The prices are outrageous and the service stinks.

You: You'll pay for that!

Albert:  I have no doubt. (L)

Jessel: Well I don't need this then. I'm very big in many parts of the world, and anyway I can go to Earl Scheib and for twenty-nine dollars he'll paint over the whole problem! (L) Thanks very much, and I'll see you later. (A)

Albert:  Mr. George Jessel, ladies and gentlemen! Mr George Jessel! He was right in getting out of here, and I'm following his example. Now here's your nine dollars for your valuable time. Here's your ten dollar lowering fee. Put my car down, I'm finished with all this!

You: Put your car down, huh?

Albert: Yes, put it down!

You: Okay. Why I've seen better looking cars in a rodeo! (L) Why this car is so slow you could write "Hello from Hollywood" on the roof and mail it to a friend. (This gets very little reaction so you explain further.) They do that with turtles! (L)

Albert: You never stop, do you?

You: Only when the bit's over.

Albert:  Well in that case... good night ladies and gentlemen! (L)(A)

(MUSIC)

You: (To audience) Hey, you're beautiful!

Albert: You're a beautiful audience, thank you!

You: Thank you. (Very sincere) I'd like to take you all home with me.

*(L) & (A) denote Laughter & Applause

One song at a time: '26 Miles (Santa Catalina)'

A vintage postcard for California's "island of romance."

I'm bad at winter. I'll admit it.

Today is the winter solstice, and that fact depresses the ever-loving hell out of me. I've lived in the Midwest all my life: the first two-thirds in Michigan, the last third here in Illinois. The total time I've spent outside the Midwest adds up to maybe a month, a month and a half at the most.

And yet I've never gotten used to the climate here. I feel like the misfit polar bear in that joke Reese Witherspoon told on Saturday Night Live once. Winter and I are simply incompatible.

Driving in snow and/or ice is highly stressful for me. I swear, each car trip in such weather takes a year off my life. As a pedestrian, I've slipped and fallen -- badly -- at least once each winter for as far back as I can remember.

My body absolutely turns traitor during the cold weather months. I get windburned so easily, and my body is always covered with various painful rashes and blisters during the winter, oftentimes in embarrassing and hard-to-reach areas. Before I even leave home in the morning, I have to slather sticky, oily Vaseline on my legs and torso. Yuck. Sinuses? Forget about it. You've heard of Can't Stop the Music? Well, this is Can't Stop the Mucous.

Furthermore, that old reliable seasonal affective disorder kicks in hard sometime during January, and I spend several consecutive months cooped up indoors, gorging on snack food and getting next to zero exercise. No doubt about it, winter takes a serious toll on your humble blogger. Each year, I fantasize about living somewhere more habitable, but I cannot imagine the circumstances under which that might happen.

The Four Preps in their element.

As you might expect, I take refuge from winter in fantasy. Music helps me do that sometimes. I'm always a sucker for songs about warm-sounding, far-away places.

One of my favorite examples of such a song is the delightful but somewhat forgotten 1957 smash, "26 Miles (Santa Catalina)" by the Four Preps. I found this song in a really roundabout way. Albert Brooks briefly parodied "26 Miles" as part of his "Rewriting the National Anthem" bit from the 1970s. That routine is included on Albert's 1973 LP, Comedy Minus One, and I found the title of the original song credited in the liner notes.

The Four Preps were one of those well-scrubbed pop vocal groups that flourished in the mid-to-late 1950s, alongside the Ames Brothers, the Lettermen, the Four Aces, the Four Freshmen, the Four Lads, and the Crew Cuts. Acts like these were a gentler, more polite alternative to the raucous rock, R&B, and doo wop sounds of the era. The British Invasion finally made these non-rock acts obsolete in the 1960s, and now it's a chapter of music history we mostly try to pretend never happened.

I actually like this stuff, even though it's possibly the squarest, corniest, whitest, and least cool music to hit the charts in the last sixty years. (The Crew Cuts in particular were infamous for taking R&B songs originally by black artists and doing sanitized white cover versions.) Perhaps the definitive spoof of this type of music was found on SCTV with its 5 Neat Guys commercials, which showed a quintet of sad, middle-aged men squeezing into their old sweaters from the 1950s and crooning about egg salad sandwiches and other hopelessly Caucasian topics.

The Four Preps were one of the more innovative of these groups, and "26 Miles (Santa Catalina)" is actually a little gem of a pop tune whose influence on Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys is immediately apparent at first listen. The Los Angeles Times not long ago ran a great, informative article about how the song came to be. Among other tidbits, you'll learn that one of the Four Preps was TV producer Glen A. Larson (of Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider fame), who just passed away in November 2014.

What's key about the song is that it was written by someone who had never actually been to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of California. The song, then, is the guy's dream of what the island must be like. He imagines it as a lush tropical paradise just crawling with beautiful, available women.

And he never actually gets to the island during the song either. It's so close -- just twenty-six miles away -- and yet he can't get there. "So near, yet far," as the lyrics go. That's exactly how I feel during the winter sometimes. I think "26 Miles" will be in heavy rotation for me until next May or so.

Mill Creek comedy classics #61: "Li'l Abner" (1940)

Movies based on comics are nothing new, as proven by this 1940 adaptation of Al Capp's Li'l Abner.

The flick: Li'l Abner (RKO release of a Vogue Productions film, 1940; re-released by Astor Pictures, 1947) [buy the set]

Current IMDb rating: 5.0

Director: Albert S. Rogell (The Admiral Was a Lady)

Actors of note:

• Jeff York (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Old Yeller, The Asphalt Jungle, much more)

• Martha O'Driscoll (The Lady Eve, House of Dracula; married a wealthy heir to an industrial empire and retired young)

• Mona Ray (not much, honestly, but did appear in 1927 version of Uncle Tom's Cabin)

• Johnnie Morris (Barbary Coast, Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day)

• Buster Keaton (Steamboat Bill, Jr.)

• Bud Jamison (Stan Laurel Festival)

• Edgar Kennedy (Money Means Nothing)

• Doodles Weaver (Our Gang Festival)

• Chester Conklin (The Perils of Pauline, Keystone Cops Festival)

• Mickey Daniels (It Happened One Night; The Great Ziegfeld)

• Billie Seward (Jane Eyre)

• Kay Sutton (Sargeant York, The Bank Dick)

• Walter Catlett (The Inspector General)

• Charles A. Post (silent comedy actor of the 1910s-1920s and production manager for a string of mostly-forgotten "B"-westerns from the 1930s)

Jeff York as hillbilly extraordinaire Li'l Abner Yokum.

The gist of it: The most eligible bachelor in the impoverished hillbilly community of Dogpatch is strong, handsome, and extremely dim-witted farmboy Li'l Abner (York), the only son of the tough-as-nails Mammy Yokum (Ray) and the overly-sensitive, henpecked Pappy Yokum (Morris). Chief among Abner's romantic pursuers is pretty blonde Daisy Mae Scraggs (O'Driscoll), who has been trying to rope our hero into marriage for years without success. Abner thinks getting married is the first step towards getting old and dying, so he wants to avoid it.

Daisy's Cousin Delightful (Seward) visits Dogpatch and says she'll teach Daisy some of her romantic "techniques," but ends up trying to seduce Abner herself. Luckily, Abner's utter stupidity drives her away. Abner then gets a case of indigestion from eating a truly disgusting sandwich and goes in search of a medical professional named Dr. Barber. What he finds, though, is an actual hair-cutting barber (Catlett) who jokingly diagnoses him with "scrombosis" and tells him he has only 24 hours to live.

Abner takes this very literally. He agrees to marry Daisy Mae at noon the next day, knowing he'll be dead before the ceremony. Thinking of his family's future, Abner also goes to the rival community of Skunk Holler to capture an ornery outlaw called Earthquake McGoon (Post) and collect the $25 reward. But the folks of Skunk Holler almost lynch him in the process, and he needs the help of a sexy brunette named Wendy Wilecat (Sutton) to escape. He agrees to marry Wendy the next day, too, still figuring he's got mere hours to live. Abner wakes up the next day and realizes that he isn't dead and is still engaged to two women! Wendy and Daisy both claim the young bachelor, so the town's mayor (Conklin) declares that the dispute will be settled on Sadie Hawkins Day, an annual event in Dogpatch during which the women of the town can marry any bachelors they can catch. It all culminates in a chaotic cross-town race that plays out a lot like the running of the bulls in Pamplona.

Daisy Mae, the Shmoo, and Abner
do their bit for Uncle Sam

My take: Al Capp's satirical, rural-based comic strip Li'l Abner is, quite simply, one of the major pop cultural touchstones of the 20th century. For decades, its influence was felt across the board, with imitators in all forms of entertainment, including film, television, and live theater. Capp introduced words like "druthers" and "irregardless" to the English language, and high schools across the country still have Sadie Hawkins dances, even though the teenagers attending such events no longer know who Sadie Hawkins is. Even their parents may have forgotten by now. Debuting in 1934, Li'l Abner won the country's heart with its wild tales of Dogpatch, Lower Slobbovia, Fearless Fosdick, Lena the Hyena, the Shmoo, and more.

Sadly, apart from occasional revivals of the 1956 Li'l Abner stage musical, the landmark comic strip is mostly forgotten today, perhaps because of the way it ended. Capp's politics grew increasingly conservative over the decades, and Li'l Abner became a vehicle for his controversial, divisive viewpoints during the turbulent years of the 1960s and '70s. The cartoonist became a hero to those on the right and a scourge to those on the left. Meanwhile, his strip faded in popularity, became irrelevant and outdated, and finally sputtered out in 1977 after an astonishing 43-year run. Capp himself died two years later.

The first time I ever heard the man's name was on Albert Brooks' stand-up album, Comedy Minus One (1973). In a routine called "Memoirs of an Opening Act," Brooks tells some harrowing anecdotes about his life as a touring comedian. He knew he was in serious trouble at one college gig in the South, because the institution had recently played host to Al Capp. At the time, Capp was about as far away ideologically from Albert Brooks as one could get.

Al Capp

Al Capp's ultimate legacy is the considerable influence he had over a generation of writers and artists who were weaned on Li'l Abner. During the strip's heyday, the famed cartoonist managed to squeeze every last penny out of his creation, both through merchandise (oh, how many products there were featuring the Shmoo!) and adaptations to other media. The first of several attempts to transfer the Li'l Abner comic strip to the big screen was this rather cheap-looking and clumsy film from 1940.

If you have seen or heard of a movie called Li'l Abner, it is probably the well-regarded 1959 Technicolor musical, which still pops up from time to time on cable. The public domain film I'm reviewing today is not a musical, although it does have a newly-composed (and insidiously catchy) theme song. Unfortunately, the 1940 film is a bit of a misfire. If you are looking for an entrance point to the world of Li'l Abner, please look elsewhere. There are some excellent reprint volumes of the comic strips, several of which are probably available at your local library right now. Try there instead.

If you squint—hard—you can sort of see what the makers of this movie were attempting to do. Laden with goofy wigs, ugly facial prostheses, and weirdly-proportioned costumes, the actors in the Li'l Abner movie are trying to look and act as much like their ink-and-paper counterparts as possible. The script, too, tries to replicate Capp's exaggerated, faux-hillbilly dialogue, and the plot is choppy and episodic, with the jerky, start-and-stop rhythm of a daily newspaper comic. Even the opening credit sequence features literal comic panels to remind viewers of the source material. (Shades of Ang Lee's ill-fated Hulk, which attempted something similar.) Director Albert S. Rogell wants this movie to be like the funny pages brought to life on the big screen.

Unfortunately, the effect of all this is that the characters look grotesque and sound unnatural. Honestly, I didn't want to spend an entire movie in Dogpatch with these misshapen yokels spouting inane pseudo-rural gibberish.

The movie isn't bad from a technical standpoint, and the actors are giving it all they've got. At first, Jeff York seems a little too bland and understated as Abner, but eventually he gets into the swing of things. He's never terribly charismatic or engrossing, but he's acceptable. The real problem is that virtually all the humor in the movie falls flat, and none of the movie's several potential storylines go anywhere of great interest. Li'l Abner's depiction of rural life now comes off as patronizing rather than playful and condescending rather than cute. In all, this film serves as a grim reminder that what works in the comics does not necessarily work on the movie screen.

Mammy and Pappy Yokum brought hideously to life.

Is it funny: Unfortunately, no. Most of the cornpone comedy of Li'l Abner is painful to endure. It's like some cruel bastard has taken a particularly weak episode of Hee Haw and padded it to feature length by having the performers cycle through the same tired routines several times, and there are no musical numbers to relieve the tedium or even provide variety.

Abner's stubborn stupidity quickly becomes tiresome, and he's such a jerk that it's difficult to believe the women of Dogpatch are throwing themselves at his feet (sometimes literally). Mona Ray and Johnnie Morris come as close to looking and acting like Mammy and Pappy Yokum as two human beings could, but their antics (including a very lengthy scene in which Mammy bathes Pappy in the front yard) did not raise so much as a chuckle out of me. Even reliable performers like Buster Keaton and Doodles Weaver are utterly stranded here.

If there is one sequence that sort of works, it occurs between Jeff York as Abner and the invaluable Edgar Kennedy as a local yokel named Cornelius Cornpone. (All the characters in the movie have names like that, imported directly from the comic strip.) Waking from a nap in the forest, Abner mistakenly believes that he has died of "scrombosis" and gone to his reward. Surveying the landscape, he is amazed that Heaven looks so much his hometown of Dogpatch. He then encounters Cornelius, who has been hunting and has a dead bird slung over his shoulder, and mistakes the man for a winged angel. Cornelius is utterly bewildered by all of this and thinks Abner has gone crazy. The highlight of this scene (and the movie's single best gag) arrives when Abner tries to test out his own flying powers by jumping off a cliff. Jeff York really commits to this bit, and the look of idiotic bliss on Abner's face is something to see. This scene hints at the sharper, funnier movie Li'l Abner could have been.

My grade: C-

Buster Keaton (right) as Lonesome Polecat.

P.S. - As you've probably guessed, the movie is chockablock with unflattering hillbilly stereotypes (the men of Dogpatch detest bathing, for instance), and the script has a rather nasty misogynist streak, too, with women depicted as scheming, evil creatures who want to enslave men. But the character who will make you cringe more than any other is an Indian named Lonesome Polecat, played by a humiliated Buster Keaton in what I hope was a career low. Yes, Buster did an Indian-themed short film (1922's The Paleface), but that script was affectionate and sympathetic towards its Native American characters.... for the most part, anyway. Lonesome Polecat, though, is just a lazy, cowardly, incompetent buffoon who speaks in that phony "me like-um heap firewater" dialect, as did so many Hollywood "Injuns" of yesteryear. In this movie, Polecat is depicted as being such a loser that he can't even get the desperate women of Dogpatch to marry him. Ouch.

(today's zomby) AND FIVE CLIPS OF ALBERT BROOKS BEING AWESOME!

Have you seen Drive yet, citizens? Well, go out and see Drive. Among the movie's many pleasures (including a wicked good soundtrack) is a brilliant supporting performance by legendary comedian Albert Brooks. Maybe you know Mr. Brooks (whose real name -- no kidding -- is Albert Einstein) best from his voiceover work in Finding Nemo and many episodes of The Simpsons. Maybe you know him from his appearances in movies like Broadcast News and Taxi Driver. Or maybe you know him from his standup work or his many talk show appearances.

I've decided to use today's Zomby!!! post as a makeshift tribute to Albert Brooks. Here are five You Tube clips of the man in action. Watch them and enjoy.

1. The Ventriloquist



2. Impersonation Kit



3. A Daddy's Christmas



NOTE: In addition to his TV and film work, Albert did two marvelous albums, A Star is Bought and Comedy Minus One. Please promise me you'll seek them out. "A Daddy's Christmas" is a one-off single, not from either of those LPs.

4. Albert Brooks Comedy School



5. I Have No More Material



BONUS: Kevin Pollak's Albert Brooks Impression