Emcee Opening Quotes

The final word was her daughter’s, in a frank and touching memoir, Knock Wood. Yes, there were disagreements; there were plenty of generation-gap misunderstandings. At the bottom of it was a girl who desperately needed the approval of a father who felt stripped when he had to speak as himself, with no dummy on his lap to make light of things. The book is a love story on both sides: in the end Candice Bergen has placed Charlie McCarthy in an open, healthy spotlight, as a vital piece of her personal history. Bergen did little in television. He was a radio man, even though his art was primarily visual. With Charlie and Mortimer, he emceed the 1956 CBS audience show Do You Trust Your Wife?, and he made numerous guest appearances on TV variety shows of the ’50s. He grew old and gray. Charlie, of course, was eternally young. In September 1978 Bergen announced his retirement: he would do a few more shows, then give his dummy to the Smithsonian. Charlie had been his companion for 56 years. A week later he appeared with Andy Williams at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. He died in his sleep after this performance, Oct. 1, 1978.

During the first month the Comedy Act Theatre was open, Damon Wayans and Robert Townsend came in together. Club emcee, Robin Harris brought Damon onstage to do a set, and Damon made the mistake of dissing Harris in his own house, asking the audience, “Doesn’t that guy look like a black, ugly Eddie Murphy?” Harris heard the comment and returned to the stage. “They played ‘the Dozens’ and Robin destroyed Damon,” says club owner, Michael Williams. “Damon just stepped into something he couldn’t get out of. By the time Robin was finished with him, he was dumbfounded. He didn’t know what to do but stand there, hold the mic, and listen.”

The emcee marches around the outside of the circle, keeping up a steady banter of insults intended to keep the audience entertained, but also clearly distracting the furiously pounding men. They would occasionally crack up laughing and slow their beat when a particular barbed shaft struck home. The emcee's eyes remain locked on the ginger woman on her knees in the center, holding her breath against the plastic bag. It's easy to poke fun at the men. Most of their eyes are squeezed closed and their heads arch back. They bare their teeth with their lips pulled back in a gaping rictus. They look so serious — right up until the emcee mocks their manliness and their visage disintegrates into an open-eyed chuckle. Whenever this happens it takes them a few seconds to re-assume their battle pose. The ginger woman is calm now. Her eyes have closed and she kneels with a certain kind of bravery, very erect and with poise.