Don's greatest role IMO
Posted on 05/08/2023 9:04:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
After a decade of striving in the comedy clubs, Donald Jay Rickles got his big break in 1957, when Frank Sinatra saw him perform at a club.
Noticing Sinatra in the audience, Rickles improvised his act to hilariously deride the legendary singer. "I just saw your movie The Pride and the Passion and I want to tell you, the cannon's acting was great," were among his lively zingers.
Sinatra was in stitches, causing him to become Rickles’s foremost advocate and leading to him becoming a popular headline performer in Las Vegas.
Clearly, Sinatra was among the rare variety of superstars who could laugh at himself, or perhaps it was Rickles’s likable personality that made his 'insults' seem funny rather than derisive.
Rickles went on to become one of the leading comic talents in the U.S.
He made numerous appearances on television on “The Tonight Show,” with Johnny Carson and Dean Martin’s televised roasts.
Rickles starred in comedy shows such as "The Don Rickles Show" (1972), in which he played an embattled advertising executive. Rickles played the title role in "C.P.O. Sharkey" (1976–78), about a fork-tongued petty officer at a naval training center with personnel of various racial and cultural backgrounds. He played the irascible father of Richard Lewis in "Daddy Dearest" (1993).
Rickles also had a formidable career in films.
He was in the 1958 thriller Run Silent, Run Deep, alongside Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster.
He also starred in comedies where his talents were put to ample use: Bikini Beach, Muscle Beach Party, and Pajama Party, all in 1964, and Beach Blanket Bingo in 1965.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
So what is it that made Rickles work?
Human beings, no matter how educated, refined, cultured, and civil they claim to be, will always notice differences of a superficial nature in fellow human beings such as race, facial features, skin color, accents, height, weight, body shape, manner of dressing, body language, disabilities, visible birthmarks, hair or the lack of it or toupees or hair plugs, tattoos, and so much more.
Politeness and common courtesy cause us not to refer to these surface disparities, but it always resides in some gray cells of the brain. This is especially true about those with whom we are closely associated in our personal or professional lives.
Left with no option, people engage in gossip in hushed tones behind closed doors.
The individuals themselves are aware of their superficial disparities; perhaps it bothers them greatly, but it usually goes unmentioned. It could be the most seemingly perfect looking and sounding individual has some personal attribute that bothers them.
This is the elephant in the room that nobody is willing to address.
Over a period of time, the tension builds up, which could be compared to an inflating balloon, but this balloon isn’t inflated with air but with formality, pretension, repression, and hesitation.
This is also true for elected officials or movie stars, or business leaders who are usually surrounded by sycophants who lavish blandishments even while they are failing miserably. But once the backs are turned, the deriding and backstabbing starts.
It takes a comic such as Rickles to deflate this bubble of formality with a pin of humor by not just stating but overstating. After the initial discomfort, the tension is released, and soon everyone is laughing.
Rickles was actually offering a collective catharsis for his audiences by saying what everyone hesitated or feared to say. Once the unthinkable or unmentionable is said in public, there can be nothing more that can cause affront or humiliation which, in time, makes people look beyond them and the bonds grow stronger.
I also miss Gilbert Gottfried, John Candy and Robin Williams! Those guys were hysterical if also crude and rude!
I met him a few times in the late 70s charming man and warm, funny and generous
Tim Conway was light years better that Rickles.
Amen!
Him and Rodney were my favorites. Don however couldn’t function in today’s cancel culture. Least he lives on at youtube
It was kinda heartbreaking to watch him do his schtick in his later years. Not through any fault of his own, he was still as funny as ever, but the crowd had changed - clearly it was uncomfortable.
Don's greatest role IMO
Yep. Kelly’s Heroes.
It’s just a good thing that Rickles didn’t call Pesci‘s character a hockey puck. Nicky Santoro probably wouldn’t have been amused.
RIP, Don.
Make a deal, deal”!
After the show...he was just like a dear grandfather. Love the guy!!
Rickles was hilarious!
John Candy was "crude?!"
Wasn't aware that he ever indulged in "blue" humor, or attacked people.
Regards,
Don’t forget CPO Sharkey.
It was on Pluto TV recently.
I really miss Norm MacDonald.
Rickles, Carlin, Kinison, Rivers…
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