A Visit with Tony Belmont of the National Comedy Hall of Fame

This past week Gary Firstenberg sent me photos from his visit to the National Comedy Hall of Fame Museum in Holiday, Florida just outside Tampa. The stories that have been captured there are quite remarkable. Museums provide a great service to the public, preserving history and providing inspiration to future generations. They cover all manner of human experience from archeology and anthropology to crime, politics and nature. The longer you live the more you run into fascinating niche museums, such as the Spy Museum around the corner from Ford Theater in Washington D.C. 

The National Comedy Hall of Fame Museum addresses another fascinating niche of human experience: Comedy. The president of this enterprise, Tony Belmont, seems to be a walking archive of memories, stories and history and because of his occupation as a rock and roll promoter, his life very early on intersected with the world of comedy and its many legendary performers. 

EN: What prompted you to create a Comedy Hall of Fame? 

Tony Belmont: Here's a little background. In the early days of Rock n' Roll when many acts were on the bill to perform a comedian provided an excellent segway.  (See Attached), It worked well to have a comedian out there long enough to make the transition to the next act. This worked because all the comedian needed was a microphone so you could get him on and off quickly. Also, he could work in front of the curtain which allowed the bands to change over easily behind the curtain.  Most drummers wanted their own cymbals and foot pedal, guitar players wanted their own amp, etc. This created too much dead time during the changeover. 

To avoid the dead time and to keep the energy going I found using the comedian would keep the audience amused while the change-over took place out of view. I used this system effectively for many years. This allowed for concerts to move fluently through the evening and made for a great show! This also moved Rock n' Roll concerts to the next level, production rock. 

Tony Belmont. Photo Gary Firstenberg

It was with this background and exposure that in 1969 I was contacted by the Smithsonian Institute the most prestigious museum in the U.S. They were concerned because many of the great comedians especially the vaudevillians in the 19 century, were coming to the twilight of their lives and there was very little documentation about these people. They felt someone needed to document their stories before it was too late. Once they passed on, the wonderful stories about their lives and acts would be lost except for hearsay.  That part of history for accuracy would be lost forever. So ~~ they contacted me! I thought they were making a mistake and told them I was a rock n' roller but they convinced me I was the one for the mission. ( Let me amend that statement! They doubled the money and I was suddenly very interested in preserving history. I spent the next 4 years traveling the country in-between my Rock n' Roll shows interviewing at their homes over 400 of the greatest comedians of the century!

EN: Impressive!

Tony Belmont: Fast Forward to 1989. By that time I had become friends with many of the great comedians, and I was at the LA Friars Club in a conversation with a few of the members: Jan Murray, Morey Amsterdam, Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and a few others when the topic came up about my past comedy interviews. Morey said, except for those interviews you did no one will remember any of us at this table. There needs to be a place that people can go and read about us in the future. A-----a building---like maybe a museum! That's it!  A national museum about comedy.

I said that's great as I burped on my ginger ale. Are you guys going to do it? At that moment they all looked at me together and like a fifty's singing group in Acapella harmony said, "No-n0-NO, you are!" (The official start date was July 25, 1991.)

So the answer to your question is: I didn't create the National Comedy Hall of Fame Museum, I was sucked in and drafted.

EN: There are so many great eras of comedy. What are some of the different kinds of comedy?

Tony Belmont: There are six major areas of comedy: although in the museum we break that down even further. Musical Comedian (e.g. Victor Borge), Dialect Comedian (e.g. Yakov Smirnoff), Impressionist (e.g. Rich Little), Dialogue (eg. Comedian Norm Crosby/Professor Irwin Corey/.Etc. etc.)

EN: How has comedy changed under the influence of changes in media?

Tony Belmont: Vaudeville, Radio, Television, Stand-up, Theater, Film.  

Example: I interviewed Art Carney at his home years ago. I told him I thought he was a great comedian. He politely corrected me and said, "I'm sorry young man but I'm not a comedian. I'm a comedic Actor. I don't stand in front of a mic and tell jokes. I need a script and then I will make it funny."

Different kinds of comedy are related to the act that the individual puts together. 

Examples:

(a) Prop Comedy:  Carrot Top a relatively new comedian in the past 15 years uses a box full of props next to him and pulls them out one by one. Gallager does a similar act but ends by smashing a watermelon all over the audience.

(b) Professor Backwards murdered words; this was later done by Norm Crosby and others.

(c) Ventriloquists: Jeff Dunham who is very popular now,. But I managed the man who started it all the "Great Senor Wences," the father of ventriloquists. 
(d)  Magician Comedians: Elliott Smith. His magic is first class but it's used as a prop for his comedy. Or Penn & Teller

Comedy has evolved along with media. In radio, there were many sound effects to help create the humor: Jack Benny-Fibber McGee & Molly etc. With television, it was now more visual and required film-type acting skills. Sadly today we are too politically correct and that is difficult in comedy, as comedians like to talk about anything and everything. But now they are handicapped. Don Rickles told me a few years back he could not do the humor he started with years ago, he would get into a lot of trouble if he did. He wasn't talking about Blue Comedy, he was talking about the restrictions that prevent comedians from making fun of people or even themselves?

EN: Over the course of your career you’ve personally gotten to know many of the comedians we’ve become familiar with through television and film. Who were some of these and what were they like when not in the spotlight?

Tony Belmont. Photo Gary Firstenberg.

Tony Belmont: I met everyone that was at the top and still alive in 1970 and on. So I had many favorites. With me as opposed to being on the Johnny Carson Show or Larry King where they need to be entertaining they could relax and be themselves. George Carlin was laid back and a nice guy. Not the crazy guy you saw on stage. Red Skelton was exactly what you expected. He was just like the comedian he portrayed on TV. Henny Youngman Told one-liners every couple of minutes. George Burns was a wealth of knowledge. I said to George. "You've been around a long time George! You must know everything there is to know about show business." He smiled --took a puff on his cigar and said, "Yes -I do. The problem is at my age I can't remember any of it anymore." 

I asked Milton Berle a question and expected a different answer. I told him that I had interviewed his good friend Henny Youngman a year back and Henny told me that you (Milt) stole all of his jokes. I thought he would object to that, but instead, to my amazement he said, "Yes--I did!  But I told them better."

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National Comedy Hall of Fame

Address: 2435 US-19 Holiday, FL 34691

Email: comedyhall@aol.com

Related Links

National Comedy Hall of Fame Inductees

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"Pick A Card. Any Card." Misdirection in the Magic Arts

“Magic is the only honest profession. A magician promises to deceive you and he does.”
~Karl Germain

Misdirection is a form of deception in which the attention of an audience is focused on one thing in order to distract its attention from another.*

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What is it we love so much about being fooled? It's fascinating to see a talented magician in action. He makes a coin disappear right before your eyes. "How did he do it?" The coin re-appears under your dinner plate. How did that happen? You write your name on a dollar bill and he makes it disappear. Later you find it in your pocket. Or inside an uncracked hard boiled egg. Or some other impossible place.

I can't tell you how it was done, or I'd have to kill you. What I do know is that misdirection is a central ingredient in all magic performances. The past few years I have enjoyed being in the Duluth Dylan Fest circle not only because of our shared appreciation for the music of Bob Dylan, but also because of our shared fascination with the magic of John Bushey, host of KUMD's Highway 61 Revisited. Whether at a private party, or riding the rails on the annual Blood On The Tracks Express, it is not uncommon to find that John has armed himself with his "bag of tricks" and there will be a little entertainment offered at some point during the evening.

That entertainment break is a form of theater. It's especially thrilling because of the intimacy of the occasion. There's nothing quite like being three feet away when a master magician is at work.

Before going any further, I am going to ask you to select a card. Think of that card. Write it down if you need to. Remember it well.

Misdirection uses psychology and neuroscience to control peoples' perceptions. Here's a short TED Talk showing misdirection in action. You will see the four principles of misdirection outlined: eye contact, confidence, a big action, and good story telling. (The TED Talk is actually here.)

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One good thing about this trick is that I'm not going to pick your pocket. When we're done here today you will still have your wallet, your watch and your jewelry.

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Are you still thinking about that card? Was this your card?

Here's an example of Penn & Teller doing a trick using misdirection. (Do not try this at home.)

A lot of people don't know that Steve Martin began his entertainment career as a teen doing magic at Disneyland. He quickly learned that you have to be entertaining in order to stop people in their tracks long enough to watch the show. You can't do misdirection if you can't first get their attention. Here's Steve Martin in his role as The Great Flydini on the Tonight Show.

In his autobiography Born Standing Up, Steve Martin wrote that he had been on the Tonight Show 17 times before a single stranger said, "Aren't you that guy who was on the Tonight Show?" Fame is not something that happens overnight. 

Watching The Great Flydini brought to mind for me the old Banana Man routine that Captain Kangaroo used to do way back when. Note how both these entertainers rely on the unexpected to keep our attention. For many of you this is way before your time. Amazing how much history has
been preserved for us now on YouTube.

Do you still remember that card? If not, don't worry about. I've forgotten what it was, two. How much do you want to bet that it's right here in front of your face?

There's a reason I went down this path today. I hope to share that secret with you soon. And may all your days be magical.

* Wikipedia