Their Favorite Joke
Comedy CD from Buddy Lester
Review
by: Russ
Ray
For those
of you who don't know, famous mobster Al Capone got Buddy
Lester started in show business. From the age of nine, he
performed at theaters all over Chicago. After meeting Capone,
his career took off and he worked his way up through the Chicago
circuit, on to USO tours during World War II, and a career
in movies and television.
Nowadays,
a guy like Lester would probably be considered a lounge act,
which is kind of the premise of Their Favorite Joke.
Lester sits down with a famous person and asks them to tell
their favorite joke. It's as simple as that. Now, the definition
of famous may be stretching it, as to most people under 30,
the only place you've probably seen these people is on a Jerry
Lewis telethon. Names you may recognize: Joey Bishop, Bob
Newhart, Redd Foxx, Phyllis Diller, Don Rickles, George Burns,
Joan Rivers, Telly Savalas, Rodney Dangerfield, Buddy Hackett,
Debbie Reynolds, Anson Williams, Mel Torme, Peter Marshall,
Rose Marie, Billy Barty, Sammy Davis Jr., Vincent Price, McLean
Stevenson, and Morey Amsterdam.
Most of
the bits fall flat. I'm not sure if that's because the jokes
aren't all that funny or if it's because they start the next
one so quickly after the last one ends that you don't get
time for it to sink in. Some of them, on the other hand, are
flat-out hysterical, such as a story Peter Lind Hayes told
about Don Rickles trying to get Frank Sinatra to help him
impress a girl, and Joan Rivers making a quick boob joke.
A lot of the jokes are golf jokes, as they were recorded on
the golf course. Each segment sounds as if it were individually
produced, which made me wonder if it was originally a series
of syndicated radio bits that were assembled for this CD.
This CD
is good for a few belly laughs here and there, and your parents
might recognize some of the people on here, so you might want
to pass it along to them. You can hear album excerpts and
purchase the CD on laugh.com
for $17.98.
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