Happy 99th Birthday Rodney Dangerfield!

By New York Times Bestselling Author Michael Levin

“What a crowd! You know, I’m okay now, but last week I was in rough shape.”

And so it begins. Machine gun style… set up, punchline, set up, punchline, from the master of the craft, Rodney Dangerfield, making yet another appearance on the Carson Show.

“I never had any luck with girls. One girl said, ‘Come on over. Nobody’s home.’

“I went over. There was nobody home!”

Rodney Dangerfield’s tagline was that he got no respect, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

A comic’s comic, he kept everyone in stitches, from audiences at his own nightclub, Dangerfield’s, to the Tonight Show, to the Oscars, and even to an inauguration gala for President Reagan.

“I went to the psychiatrist. He told me I was crazy. I told him I wanted a second opinion. He said, okay, you’re ugly, too.

“I told him I was suicidal. He told me to pay in advance.”

Dangerfield was a legend for so long that most people don’t know just how rocky and unfulfilling his personal life, and his career were, for decades.

He grew up in an extremely abusive environment, where his mother actually took pleasure in taunting him, deliberately leaving him behind, and laughing about it on family excursions.

You could look that up.

“My mother never breast fed me when I was a baby. She said she just wanted to be friends.”

Dangerfield started writing jokes as a teenager and was appearing in clubs, seldom successfully, for years.

He wasn’t born Rodney Dangerfield; no one could be.

His real name was Jack Cohen, and he quit show business because he saw no future in it, actually selling aluminum siding for a while, and rather successfully, too.

Somehow, he found his way back to the stage and the personal of the guy who got no respect finally clicked.

You can find a bunch of his Carson appearances on YouTube, and one is funnier than the next.

“Last night I was making love with my wife, and suddenly nothing was happening. Nothing at all! I said to her, ‘What, you can’t think of anyone, either?’”

Dangerfield was famous for his wife jokes, but he was unmarried for most of his career, until he found true love later in life.

The only place where he really felt loved, he says, was on stage, where audiences gave him the kind of adulation that he never received as a child, or as a young performer, for that matter.

“I know I’m ugly. I was always ugly. When I was a kid, my father took me to the zoo. The zookeeper thanked him for returning me.”

Johnny Carson, for whatever his other faults might have been, could not have been more generous to comedians providing the ultimate launching pad for careers and also serving as the straight man or fall for those who had the good fortune of making it to the desk area.

Part of the joy of watching Dangerfield on YouTube videos is watching Carson enjoy his rat-a-tat style of joke telling, always making its way to the final topic, health, and Dangerfield’s references to his personal doctor, Dr. Vinnie Boombatz.

This is a family-oriented column, so I can’t reprint any of the Dr. Boombatz jokes.

You’ll have to find them for yourself on YouTube.

Dangerfield would have turned 99 last week, and comics, and some of his most devoted fans took time to celebrate the occasion.

It’s not too late to join the party yourself. In these depressive, anxiety-filled times, Rodney Dangerfield is the man for the moment.

Look him up on YouTube, and get ready to laugh your you-know-what off.

“I know I’m fat. I’m so fat when I bend down to tie my shoes, I try to figure out if there’s anything else I can do while I’m down there.”

Hooray for Hollywood.

Check out Dangerfield. You’ll thank me.

The Michael Levin Writing Company offers highest level ghostwriting and writing coaching to outstanding individuals…like you.

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