One time at the NYC Friars Club I had the pleasure of performing for Shecky at his coming out party. Howard Rapp once again introduced me to Shecky at Jerry's Deli in Studio City LA. Shecky was a real gentleman...
RIP Mr.Greene! We just got back from Vegas where we saw two comics. Almost walked out. Every other word was f*ck! After a while it gets boring! Give me comics like Shecky any day !!😅
I was at Wells Fargo Bank this morning and I heard a powerful voice singing out in the lobby I looked over to see the legendary Shecky Greene holding one of the bank's employees as he sang one of the most beautiful melodies I have ever heard... Thank You Shecky!!!
Just read a very recent article on Shecky, about the fact that he likes betting on horses. He said (paraphrasing), "8-5, I wake up breathing tomorrow." Gotta love Shecky! Last of a dying breed!
Moved out of Vegas 2 years ago I miss having breakfast and betting horses at sunset station with shecky a super nice guy !! Lots of funny memories with him.
I used to eat at Roma in Beverly Hills and more times than not, Shecky and his family would be there as well. You could always smell the cigar smoke from Arnold’s cigar as well.
still alive at 93..shecky was a huge star in vegas...till the times changed and vegas changed...a bit of insanity helped him along the way....but...many historians/critics claim he was the funniest guy ever on a stage..i actually saw him in vegas..about 37-8 years ago...cant say i remember much...except that the waiters kept wanting to give me a better seat...i never found out why...lol
When Don Rickles broke into show biz on the strip in Vegas, Shecky was the local comedy star. Rickles had no real jokes, just improv insults for the audience. But his act grew by word of mouth. Stars would flock to it just to get insulted and brag of it as a badge of honor. Don's ambition was to get as big as Shecky.
+Dexter Haven ...The mid-late 50's was the heyday of the original lounge acts in Vegas..acts which would go on well into the wee hours of the morning..as Rickles was just breaking in, (having had some good success in the smaller clubs of Miami Beach), the 2 giants in Vegas, were Shecky, and of course the incomparable Buddy Hackett...both soon went on to play the big showrooms, for the large dollars, as their success grew, and they became way too big to still play the lounges....
That's interesting. I wonder how much of the Borscht Belt comics influenced, or were influenced by, the Vegas shows and turnouts (successes or lack thereof). In other words, if you could make it in the Catskills, were you billed for the big acts in Vegas? Vice versa? Which venues were the largest influences? Thanks.
gfcardi..Very interesting question...the Borscht Belt of course was in action earlier than Vegas featuring many smaller hotels, so many comics got their start there primarily playing to Jewish audiences and so their material was geared that way, Miami and Miami Beach was also underway in the 1930's but really took off immediately following WWll...Las Vegas entertainment didn't really start big time until the Flamingo was built in 1946...the bottom line is, if a comic was good, he could be booked in any of the 3 places..but for me the Vegas Lounges of the mid-late '50s are the most interesting, because they were the breeding grounds, the "minor leagues" if you will, where , young talented entertainers, could hone/develop their skills, experiment a bit, and really develop a professional act...and if they caught fire, go on to success in the "main rooms", appear on television, (which of course was just coming into its own at that time), and go on to super stardom...it was a very different era indeed...
Thank you, that's a great, informative answer. I grew up on Long Island, then moved to Boston in the early 80s where I went to comedy clubs once or twice a week--I've always enjoyed listening to comedic styles change over the years. I grew up listening to George Carlin--on vinyl! And I enjoyed watching old reruns of Graucho Marx's "You bet your life." I found it fascinating that some comics went on to great success even if they were as good (in my opinion) as others who continued to work the smaller circuits. So I'm curious how much the venues played a role and I knew about the Borscht Belt but not the role of Vegas in the late 40s and 50s. But like just about everything in life it's part skill, part luck, what you know and who you know....I suppose that's too philosophical for a TH-cam discussion topic. ;) Thanks again! Greg
Greg...it's interesting in that coincidentally, I too grew up on Long Island {Hicksville/Great Neck}..probably about 20 or so years before you...and the cojmedy clubs sprang up in the late '70s ( the Improv, Comedy Store etc) all around the country, to replace places like the great Hotels of the Borscht Belt which were rapidly dying off (due to jet travel, air conditioning etc)..and became proving grounds for all the names you know, Seinfeld, Leno, Letterman, Romano, Kevin James, etc..so they learned their craft, but the ultimate goal was a sit-com where a successful show led to huge money..{except of course Leno and Letterman who both became multimillionaires dominating with late nite programs.....I believe there has been a dropoff in the number of comedy clubs since its height, but for instance I see that Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling (of Howard Stern show fame) and another Long Islander, still manages to be booked into local clubs on LI and the tri state area...anyway, its a very interesting topic for me as well, and fun to write about it!....Dan....
A talented comic doing whatever makes the audience laugh. That's what we need more of. A comic would never get away with this routine in today's cancel culture. Freedom for comedy! Long live Shecky!
I keep checking back from time to time to see if anybody has posted the HBO Shecky Greene comedy routine. I watched it when I was a kid, over and over again because my mom had recorded it on a betavision VCR. We would really watch his show wrong with George Kirby and George Carlin... a small segment of that HBO show was in this clip. Classic comedy lives on.
Shecky said "It's a song I will never forget, if I live to be 100 years old," at 6:14 and he's well on his way, 95 years, six months, 12 days as of this writing.
Somehow I just knew he was going to rhyme that with liver. Better than some of the standups of the time but not fit to share the stage with a Marx Brother.
When I was a kid, I didn’t care for Shecky Greene. And I felt the same way about Alan King. With both of them, I rarely heard a good punchline. I rarely even chuckled. And both of them had a kind of bombastic style which seemed to be indicating to us that ‘This is very funny. I don’t really need a punchline. Aren’t I hysterical?!’ The whole Chinese bit was a perfect example. Also, even at the time I realized that there was something wrong about it - that it was mocking an entire culture. Whereas WE in our closed-mindedness, were certainly mockable.(I also never cared for Jolson’s imitation of blackface minstrels). *THERE DOESNT SEEM TO BE A RETURN KEY ON THIS KEYBOARD. Sorry. But because this routine was exceptionally not funny to me (“funny“ usually can override even the most tasteless, politically incorrect routine for me), I realized that viewed from the point of view of non-white males, this show could be seen as very obscene. (A Pet peeve of mine; people seem to feel it necessary to remark how these comedians from the past, are so “wholesome” and “clean” Irl, I’m sure they definitely were not! Does that make sense to anybody? Thanks for reading. (I feel like saying “we’ll get through these difficult times)
The comedian guy had a great talent for comedy and a good style. But Groucho had no talent and no style; he was just a walking mustache who got famous only because he was a Jew.
itsnotatoober , No you stupid. He was Italian. Not all were Jews back then. Wake up. There are other peoples in America too other than you foreigner Jews who only love Israel and hate America. Go back to your Israel enemy foreigners.
j walkin another fucking idiot that watched a bunch of TH-cam videos and now believes anti Semitic conspiracy theories. Groucho Marx had on the spot fast funny one liners which is something many can’t do including professional comedians. Stop blaming the Jews for your failures.
For that year, 1965, Shecky had a style all his own. He owned that stage. Not many comics had that kind of charismatic confidence. Not until the 70's when Lenny Bruce made headlines for vulgar content did we see such boisterious material ....on stage in front of America that is. Mae West was another story. We had Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason but these were family shows. Shecky was one of the first to show America what their lives were really about.
RIP, Shecky or whatever your name is! Great set, put a smile on my face and tears in my eyes.
RIP Shecky Greene, who died today at 97. 12/31/2023
Great voice he had, Funny jokes too.
One time at the NYC Friars Club I had the pleasure of performing for Shecky at his coming out party. Howard Rapp once again introduced me to Shecky at Jerry's Deli in Studio City LA. Shecky was a real gentleman...
This was Delightful!! Thank you, Sir. Rest in peace. 💐
RIP Mr.Greene! We just got back from Vegas where we saw two comics. Almost walked out. Every other word was f*ck! After a while it gets boring! Give me comics like Shecky any day !!😅
RIP Shecky. Lots of references to people no one has even heard of today. Old guys like me recognize Al Jolson singing in black face "Mammy!"
Probably best if that Mammy guy isn't as prevalent today
@@JackieDaytona1776it was of it’s time we have to accept that things change
@bambinoandmore46 yeah but that doesn't mean people need to remain on pedestals
That’s a terrible comment to make about such a great man. What the hell is the matter with you? Seriously.
What is your major malfunction, Daytona?
RIP, Shecky😢
I was at Wells Fargo Bank this morning and I heard a powerful voice singing out in the lobby I looked over to see the legendary Shecky Greene holding one of the bank's employees as he sang one of the most beautiful melodies I have ever heard... Thank You Shecky!!!
Which city?
Which song?
I was the stripper.
My uncle, Nick Vanoff, was the Executive Producer. Enjoy.
Happy Birthday Shecky ! 94 years young in April 2020 . Wonderful !
Just read a very recent article on Shecky, about the fact that he likes betting on horses. He said (paraphrasing), "8-5, I wake up breathing tomorrow." Gotta love Shecky! Last of a dying breed!
@@321snootHe died last night
@@carinitolafountain5978 Oh, man. R.I.P. Shecky. Made it to 97, though; not bad. Thank you for the info.
Shecky is one of the names I've heard but not really checked out. Thanks for posting!
Thank you Shecky and may you rest in eternal peace 🙏
Shecky passed away December 30, 2023 at age 97.
December 31
April 8: Happy birthday Comedian-Actor Shecky Green. Thank you and God bless. Thanks for the upload, will Friedwald. Blessings
RIP Shecky
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE SHECKY GREENE! ONE OF A KIND!
Thanks so much for this clip.
Moved out of Vegas 2 years ago I miss having breakfast and betting horses at sunset station with shecky a super nice guy !! Lots of funny memories with him.
Love Shecky Greene
Happy 93rd Birthday 🎂
I used to eat at Roma in Beverly Hills and more times than not, Shecky and his family would be there as well. You could always smell the cigar smoke from Arnold’s cigar as well.
still alive at 93..shecky was a huge star in vegas...till the times changed and vegas changed...a bit of insanity helped him along the way....but...many historians/critics claim he was the funniest guy ever on a stage..i actually saw him in vegas..about 37-8 years ago...cant say i remember much...except that the waiters kept wanting to give me a better seat...i never found out why...lol
To see a show like this live back then would of been like being at the Oscar's.. lov the ole days. Thx to poster. Never heard of this man. Thx!
This Guy sounds nothing like Animated Series BeetleJuice's Impersonation! Where did he get it from???
This is so fucking funny oh my gosh. Thank you for uploading.
Wow and he's 96 years young
When Don Rickles broke into show biz on the strip in Vegas, Shecky was the local comedy star. Rickles had no real jokes, just improv insults for the audience. But his act grew by word of mouth. Stars would flock to it just to get insulted and brag of it as a badge of honor. Don's ambition was to get as big as Shecky.
+Dexter Haven ...The mid-late 50's was the heyday of the original lounge acts in Vegas..acts which would go on well into the wee hours of the morning..as Rickles was just breaking in, (having had some good success in the smaller clubs of Miami Beach), the 2 giants in Vegas, were Shecky, and of course the incomparable Buddy Hackett...both soon went on to play the big showrooms, for the large dollars, as their success grew, and they became way too big to still play the lounges....
That's interesting. I wonder how much of the Borscht Belt comics influenced, or were influenced by, the Vegas shows and turnouts (successes or lack thereof). In other words, if you could make it in the Catskills, were you billed for the big acts in Vegas? Vice versa? Which venues were the largest influences? Thanks.
gfcardi..Very interesting question...the Borscht Belt of course was in action earlier than Vegas featuring many smaller hotels, so many comics got their start there primarily playing to Jewish audiences and so their material was geared that way, Miami and Miami Beach was also underway in the 1930's but really took off immediately following WWll...Las Vegas entertainment didn't really start big time until the Flamingo was built in 1946...the bottom line is, if a comic was good, he could be booked in any of the 3 places..but for me the Vegas Lounges of the mid-late '50s are the most interesting, because they were the breeding grounds, the "minor leagues" if you will, where , young talented entertainers, could hone/develop their skills, experiment a bit, and really develop a professional act...and if they caught fire, go on to success in the "main rooms", appear on television, (which of course was just coming into its own at that time), and go on to super stardom...it was a very different era indeed...
Thank you, that's a great, informative answer. I grew up on Long Island, then moved to Boston in the early 80s where I went to comedy clubs once or twice a week--I've always enjoyed listening to comedic styles change over the years. I grew up listening to George Carlin--on vinyl! And I enjoyed watching old reruns of Graucho Marx's "You bet your life."
I found it fascinating that some comics went on to great success even if they were as good (in my opinion) as others who continued to work the smaller circuits. So I'm curious how much the venues played a role and I knew about the Borscht Belt but not the role of Vegas in the late 40s and 50s. But like just about everything in life it's part skill, part luck, what you know and who you know....I suppose that's too philosophical for a TH-cam discussion topic. ;)
Thanks again!
Greg
Greg...it's interesting in that coincidentally, I too grew up on Long Island {Hicksville/Great Neck}..probably about 20 or so years before you...and the cojmedy clubs sprang up in the late '70s ( the Improv, Comedy Store etc) all around the country, to replace places like the great Hotels of the Borscht Belt which were rapidly dying off (due to jet travel, air conditioning etc)..and became proving grounds for all the names you know, Seinfeld, Leno, Letterman, Romano, Kevin James, etc..so they learned their craft, but the ultimate goal was a sit-com where a successful show led to huge money..{except of course Leno and Letterman who both became multimillionaires dominating with late nite programs.....I believe there has been a dropoff in the number of comedy clubs since its height, but for instance I see that Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling (of Howard Stern show fame) and another Long Islander, still manages to be booked into local clubs on LI and the tri state area...anyway, its a very interesting topic for me as well, and fun to write about it!....Dan....
A talented comic doing whatever makes the audience laugh. That's what we need more of. A comic would never get away with this routine in today's cancel culture. Freedom for comedy! Long live Shecky!
Whine, bitch, moan, cancel culture!!!
He passed away last night
Classic comedy from the Golden Age of Guilt-free Political Incorrectness!🤣🤣🤣
One of the greats! Unfortunately, he didn't do a lot of TV. Great talent!
Every night is Saturday night in Fabulous Las Vegas, ladies and gentleman!
One of the greats.
Shaky Green, thanks Groucho.
What is this the Catskills?
Saw Lennie Briscoe mention him in a Law & Order episode. He was really funny! An intelligent comic!
I keep checking back from time to time to see if anybody has posted the HBO Shecky Greene comedy routine. I watched it when I was a kid, over and over again because my mom had recorded it on a betavision VCR. We would really watch his show wrong with George Kirby and George Carlin... a small segment of that HBO show was in this clip. Classic comedy lives on.
there was an HBO Shecky show? I definitely remember in the early 80s they had a Buddy Hackett show, I was around 11-12 and found it hilarious.
Couldn’t do that routine today !
What a FANTASTIC entertainer!!
I think the humor is historically priceless
Brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brilliant.
Shecky said "It's a song I will never forget, if I live to be 100 years old," at 6:14 and he's well on his way, 95 years, six months, 12 days as of this writing.
He died last night. 97 years old
@@carinitolafountain5978he died 10 months ago
He reminds me so much of a young Lou Costello.
Classic humour and brill...!!
I miss the Bowtie in Showbusiness!
Italian Chinese?
Pic of shecky on Facebook vintage Los Angeles with Alison martino today
Groucho was still sharp. Great lines!
Boy, he really sounds like dean martin at times in his impersonation of Al Jolson
sure that chinese restaurant wasn't in little italy?
He was being racist about two for the price of one. Very Jewish of him boom tish.
I noticed too, that he slipped into an Italian accent a time or 3 or 4-
Graucho born 1890 👌
When there was actual entertainment on tv
Pauli Walnuts sent me here 🤣🤣🤣
What is this the Catskills?..lmao
Groucho sounded slightly pickled.
“Shakey” Greene?
How awe ya!
There's no sound whatsoever. 🤔
RIP
lol libs would detonate today at this humor, which makes it ten times as good
He is hilarious!
what's that he said? machmi meshugi? i assume its yiddish
Meshugganah is Yiddish for "crazy", "insane"...sometimes shortened to Meshug
Somehow I just knew he was going to rhyme that with liver. Better than some of the standups of the time but not fit to share the stage with a Marx Brother.
At least he was honest with his show biz name 🤣🤣🤣
I was looking for a video by the world famous comedian Greeny Sheck. I must've clicked on this by mistake. Never heard of this guy.
Shecky Greene is like the original Kevin Meany.
And just remember what Lenny Bruce had to say about Shecky.
Never heard of this guy before I heard someone compare the Trump Show rallies to a ‘Shecky Greene’ routine. WOW. Spot on!
Beyond...you are a great comedian. I didn't know what a jew was when I grew up watching him. But wish I was a jew. Could have been a star...right?
Your aunt Carol did ok
That's gotta be the worst Chinese accent in the history of television.
Chris Kassel True, but very good routine.
+Chris Kassel I think in routines like this, the badness of the accent is part of the humor.
It's like an Italian Chinese accent
it's a jewish chinese accent. yeah he knew the italianos. that was how it wuz in those days. i gotsk them chopsticks down!
lol!
He is a true Narcissist, absolutely no self awareness of how flawed he actually is
cuffo
When I was a kid, I didn’t care for Shecky Greene. And I felt the same way about Alan King. With both of them, I rarely heard a good punchline. I rarely even chuckled. And both of them had a kind of bombastic style which seemed to be indicating to us that ‘This is very funny. I don’t really need a punchline. Aren’t I hysterical?!’ The whole Chinese bit was a perfect example. Also, even at the time I realized that there was something wrong about it - that it was mocking an entire culture. Whereas WE in our closed-mindedness, were certainly mockable.(I also never cared for Jolson’s imitation of blackface minstrels). *THERE DOESNT SEEM TO BE A RETURN KEY ON THIS KEYBOARD. Sorry. But because this routine was exceptionally not funny to me (“funny“ usually can override even the most tasteless, politically incorrect routine for me), I realized that viewed from the point of view of non-white males, this show could be seen as very obscene. (A Pet peeve of mine; people seem to feel it necessary to remark how these comedians from the past, are so “wholesome” and “clean” Irl, I’m sure they definitely were not! Does that make sense to anybody? Thanks for reading. (I feel like saying “we’ll get through these difficult times)
His Chinese accent is ridiculous:More like Italian . .
This bit did not age well
mob ties
Not actually funny. Disappointing. Give me Henny Youngman any day.
Lol chinese italian
👎🏻👎🏻
The comedian guy had a great talent for comedy and a good style. But Groucho had no talent and no style; he was just a walking mustache who got famous only because he was a Jew.
shecky was also jewish you moron. they all were back then
itsnotatoober , No you stupid. He was Italian. Not all were Jews back then. Wake up. There are other peoples in America too other than you foreigner Jews who only love Israel and hate America. Go back to your Israel enemy foreigners.
He was a Jew... Born Fred Sheldon Greenfield
j walkin another fucking idiot that watched a bunch of TH-cam videos and now believes anti Semitic conspiracy theories. Groucho Marx had on the spot fast funny one liners which is something many can’t do including professional comedians. Stop blaming the Jews for your failures.
For that year, 1965, Shecky had a style all his own. He owned that stage. Not many comics had that kind of charismatic confidence. Not until the 70's when Lenny Bruce made headlines for vulgar content did we see such boisterious material ....on stage in front of America that is. Mae West was another story. We had Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason but these were family shows. Shecky was one of the first to show America what their lives were really about.