Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 22, 1993 TAG: 9311200036
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON MILLER KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And doesn't it seem as if we've already seen all these people being inducted into some Hall of Fame somewhere?
That's probably true for most of the six. But there's no limit on how many Halls of Fame a person can be inducted into during a single lifetime. You don't have to check out of one to get into another, so nobody's likely to complain. This is an all-new Hall of Fame cobbled together by producer George Schlatter for comedy performers to be inducted into annually during the November ratings "sweeps" on NBC. Presumably, they're still eligible for other Halls of Fame on other networks during the February or May ratings sweeps.
Let's face it, when the honorees themselves seem to feel a little ho-hum about being inducted into another Hall of Fame, we may have reached the saturation point.
"This award is, without a doubt, the most recent I've received," Berle says upon being honored.
Winters hefts the odd-shaped award and observes that he doesn't like to criticize sculptors, but it would have been nice if they'd kind of evened it off a little.
Burnett suggests her award really belongs to Lucille Ball, who "opened the door for all of us and gave us the goals to aim for." She's already making plans to get it to its rightful owner up there in Show Business Valhalla.
"I'm gonna hang onto this sucker," Burnett says, raising the award, "and when I see her I'm gonna give it to her."
Because we've seen most of the best clips from the careers of these six comedy stars too many times already, they're not the highlights of the two-hour show. Actually, the highlights are relatively scarce. Theoretically, the biggest laughs should come from the contemporary comics who turned out to present the awards in a blizzard of quips.
Instead, with a few notable exceptions, the contemporary comics only demonstrate why they're unlikely to ever wind up in any Halls of Fame themselves.
Paul Reiser of NBC's "Mad About You" is a good example. His jokes are pretty lame. It must be rather humiliating to have the 97-year-old guy you're introducing - George Burns - get bigger laughs than you just by wagging his cigar at the crowd.
Much funnier is Sharon Stone, who was Burns' official "date" for the awards ceremony. Stone tells the crowd Burns had been advised not to date a young woman like her because it might prove fatal. But he rejected the advice, Stone reports, and told the doctor, "If she dies, she dies."
Burt Reynolds also has a few good lines at his own expense while introducing his good friend Burnett.
"Carol, I love you," he tells her. "Otherwise, I would have married you."
If there's any outstanding segment, it would have to be the one that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the honorees: A song and dance number by Jason Alexander of "Seinfeld," in which nothing goes according to plan. The chubby Alexander starts out in top hat and tails, singing in a rather nice voice, but soon begins to stumble over everything in sight. By the end of his number, in which he dances with five chorus girls, he has lost his pants, been slapped, tripped and burned, and momentarily winds up with an apple in his mouth, looking like a pig ready for roasting.
Now, if he can keep that up for a another 40 or 50 years, maybe we'll see him inducted into somebody's Hall of Fame someday.
by CNB