Comedy Analysis: “Gumby Danny Rose”

https://youtu.be/JBI_37BrcNU?si=4aHXE-jvTqQNWn6B

Today, we analyze the comedy sketch “Gumby Danny Rose,” broadcast on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, all the way back in 1984. Ostensibly the piece is a parody of a Woody Allen movie of similar name, released that year. But I’m sure the sketch was pitched as a vehicle for the show’s three established male comics: Martin Short, Billy Crystal, and guest host Eddie Murphy. The premise—old Jewish show-biz veterans telling stories in a deli—allows our heroes to strut their stuff in the guise of familiar characters, tapping a deep reservoir of good will in the process.

I’ve been watching this sketch over and over again, courtesy of YouTube. Somehow, the sketch is funnier than it has any right to be. It is more than the sum of its parts. I’m trying to figure out why.

Part of the reason is that the sketch balances realism and absurdity in just the right combination, at just the right pitch. No one questions why Irving Cohen (Short’s character) can call for piano music when he feels like singing, or why he hangs out with Lew Goldman (Crystal’s character) who seems utterly removed from show business. Everyone accepts Gumby, who is Eddie Murphy in a giant green suit of rubber. Gumby enters the skit one-quarter way through, bombastically announcing that he is just back from Nashville where he had recorded some radio ads. Now he wants a Morey Amsterdam sandwich.

Sure, why not.

Then we have the glue, taking the form of a character that we had never seen before and I think would never see again. This is Morty Shmegman, played by Christopher Guest. Like the others, Morty is an old immigrant Jew who enjoys the company of others like him. But he is much quieter; he has no anger to vent or comic routine to sell. He sits at the end of the table and asks innocent questions. He pays Gumby’s tab in return for acknowledgement of his existence. I love how Guest produces the tiniest of purses, which has a little clasp on top, to retrieve his money.

Everyone else in this skit is a stand-up comedian. Christopher Guest is an actor.

As repeatedly happened and continues to happen on Saturday Night Live, one of the cast breaks character to laugh at their own joke. Billy Crystal seems to think that “herring melt” is the funniest word-pairing of all time—and he might be right. He recovers, the sketch goes on.

We can find plenty of faults, real or imagined. Apart from Christopher Guest, the cast seem fixed in their separate worlds instead of anything unified. The costumes and make-up are oddly discordant, some of the jokes miss their mark. Rich Hall, as the waiter, is noticeably unconvincing. We also must take note of Larry David, then a writer on the show, appearing here as an extra. He sits by the door from start to finish, and never says or does anything. Larry David was famously unhappy on Saturday Night Live, and only after became a comedy legend for Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Seeing him professionally do nothing in this sketch is to register a little of his pain.

I will argue that the slap-dash nature of “Gumby Danny Rose”—written and rehearsed within a weekly schedule, then performed live on national television—is a big part of its appeal. It would not be as funny as a scene in a multi-million dollar movie, or an elaborate Broadway play, or an ordinary television situation comedy or variety program. Instead, it’s a sketch that could play in a high school auditorium or church basement, where over-the-top deliveries and ridiculous costumes can be best appreciated.

Today, the main participants of this sketch are still alive, but approaching the ages at which they were portraying. There’s a saying that you have to be careful about who you pretend to be, because that’s who you eventually become. No worries, though, I think the saying doesn’t apply to actors and comedians. They can be forever young, as the song goes.