Sweet story
What a legacy of laughs he has left behind.
I don’t often weep at the passing of celebrities, but this one got me. Carl Reiner was one of those human personifications of comedy to me, and to me comedy is the most essential part of being human. To be able to raise ourselves up during the worst of times to offer a laugh to another person. To help alleviate the suffering of existence they might be feeling with a chuckle is a calling as high as any doctor who seeks to alleviate suffering in more literal ways. If there isn’t a Talmudic responsibility to make at least one person laugh every day, or maybe at least give a eye roll, there should be one.
Well said!
We watched The Jerk tonight to honor the occasion. I love it so much.
The Jerk is a masterpiece. Carl, Mel, and Steve are saints to me. As I’m just pushing 50 now The Jerk was actually the first time I became aware of Carl Reiner.
Fun fact, the mansion in The Jerk was not a set. It was an actual mansion owned by a Sheikh who really had taste that was that bad. I’m sure the producers could not believe their luck when they found it.
I was thinking that while we watched! Clearly the jokes were tailored to the mansion, not the other way around…
…and remember how I used to chitchat with dad about always wanting a bathtub shaped like a clam and an office with orange and white stripes… and remember how much I wanted an all red billiard room with a giant stuffed camel…
When I was 12 or 13, I set up The Jerk on VHS alongside my cassette boombox and recorded all my favorite scenes. Watching tonight, I found I could still recite a lot of it. Plus my daughters recognized a bunch of things my wife and I quote all the time like, “I can use money!” or, of course, the Thermos song.
This might belong in the drunk posting thread, but this really has me emotional. My father, who even more than me loved a bad joke and could not resist picking the low hanging fruit lest it rot on the ground, introduced me to the comedic works of Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks long before I actually understood why it was funny that a Roman god for premature ejaculation was coming quickly. His comedy heroes became my comedy heroes. I feel like I need to light a Shiva candle.
Thread
Two great nuggets from Twitter:
That exchange got an actual LOL out of me. I bet Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks must have been a hoot to watch movies with.
Wow, “Walt Whittaker” from The Russians are Coming, the creator of the Dick Van Dyke Show, and a million other things is gone. RIP. What a legend.
Great read! Thanks.
I sure do like Steve Martin.
That paragraph about Reiner going through the script and marking as many nighttime scenes as possible to make them daytime ones was really striking, right?
Yeah, it’s great. Such a simple, clear-headed example of a really pervasive but invisible problem I ran into throughout my years on student or indie film shoots… Too much slavish adherence to whatever was on the page and not enough experienced people around to simply ask the obvious question, “Does it have to be like this?” Those long, irregular hours were just brutal. Friendships torn asunder!
Wow, that was sweet.
That was adorable.
Aw man, the feels.