Post by Charlie O. on May 6, 2021 0:37:08 GMT
A video kept popping up in my YouTube feed, every day for weeks on end; it was a long clip from the Merv Griffin show, sometime in the 1960's, featuring Jerry Lewis (I knew who he was) and someone named Brother Theodore (I didn't know who he was). I finally broke down and watched it.
Jerry was in full Buddy Love mode, and was bullying BT from the moment he came out, for no readily apparent reason, and the audience seemed to be on Jerry's side. The consensus amongst the YouTube commentators was that it was a set-up - a bit of performance art a la Andy Kaufman (though obviously a decade before Kaufman). I wasn't wholly convinced of that, although the possibility had occurred to me; if that was what it was, they really should have worked it out a bit more beforehand, because neither one of them came out looking too good. It was just an uncomfortable and unfunny watch.
Jerry was in full Buddy Love mode, and was bullying BT from the moment he came out, for no readily apparent reason, and the audience seemed to be on Jerry's side. The consensus amongst the YouTube commentators was that it was a set-up - a bit of performance art a la Andy Kaufman (though obviously a decade before Kaufman). I wasn't wholly convinced of that, although the possibility had occurred to me; if that was what it was, they really should have worked it out a bit more beforehand, because neither one of them came out looking too good. It was just an uncomfortable and unfunny watch.
Nonetheless, it started me looking into Brother Theodore. I discovered that he'd been doing "his thing" since at least the early '50s, and more surprisingly that he was on Letterman's show a lot in the '80s - I don't know how I always missed him.
I can understand how he never became a huge star, but I think I've become a fan.
