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I Thought I Was Taller: A Short History of Mel Brooks (1981)

Posted by Lưu Quốc Toản on November 30, 2012

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An Interview with Willie Tyler and Lester - Part Two

Willie Tyler: I originally discovered the ventriloquist school I went to and the lady who made Lester through an ad in Popular Mechanics magazine. My teacher, Madeline Maher, painted a Jerry Mahoney figure brown and I used that figure for a while. My brother came up with the name Lester. I had the character sitting there for days and I could not think of a name. My brother came home from school and said, "I got it! I got it! There's a guy in study hall named Lester and he looks just like him!" So, that was the first Lester. The medium Lester came when I was in my teens and then the larger Lester, the one everyone knows, was made when I signed with Motown. Most of the places I played for Motown were large venues and the medium Lester I had couldn't be seen far away in the balcony. So the big one is the character you've seen on all the TV shows and that's the one I still have today. Kliph Nesteroff: You were on The Flip Wilson Show a few times. Willie Tyler: Ye...

An Interview with John Barbour - Part One

John Barbour: I came to the United States in the early sixties to track down my father. When that didn't work, I ended up at a place called the Castle Theater. I was there for nearly a year, but then I decided I didn't want to escape reality - I wanted to face reality. My two heroes in television were Edward R. Murrow and Jack Paar. Jack Paar was by far the best of all the people who hosted The Tonight Show . He would have people on that no one else would. I remember when he discovered Nichols and May. They had come out of the Second City and he had met them at the Russian Tea Shop. Their manager was Jack Rollins. They did this little routine, they were intellectual and low key... and on that first appearance they bombed. Jack Paar literally got up from behind his desk, pointed at them and said to the audience, "These kids are funny and I am going to keep bringing them back until you get it." Johnny Carson would never have done that. Not in a million years. Pa...

The Porter Wagoner Show (1963)

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I Thought I Was Taller: A Short History of Mel Brooks (1981)

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