"When I was born, I was so ugly the doctor slapped my mother”

February 3, 2018 4:39 PM

The one-liners were impeccable, unimprovable. Dangerfield spent years on them; he once told an interviewer that it took him three months to work up six minutes of material for a talk-show appearance. If there’s art about life and art about art, Dangerfield’s comedy was the latter — he was the supreme formalist. Lacking inborn ability, he studied the moving parts of a joke with an engineer’s rigor. And so Dangerfield, who told audiences that as a child he was so ugly that his mother fed him with a slingshot, became the leading semiotician of postwar American comedy. How someone can watch him with anything short of wonder is beyond me. - Letter of Recommendation: Rodney Dangerfield (SL NYTIMES)

The iconic Carson clip

posted by beisny (60 comments total)

Respect: got.
posted by Beardman at 5:04 PM on February 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

I asked the cabbie to take me where the action was. He took me to my house...
posted by jim in austin at 5:16 PM on February 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

He's right that Rodney hit his stride in the mid-70s, but only in that he moved from a solid (here's the '69 Ed Sullivan set, which is nowhere near as bad as Halberstadt makes it out to be) nightclub comic to someone who routinely killed and had some mass cultural visibility. It's easy to forget how many genuinely mediocre-to-awful, totally forgotten comics were working clubs in the 60s, and who never got beyond them. Rodney got better and better, but he was never the bottom of the barrel or a total failure.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:23 PM on February 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

I wish I found that clip funny :(
posted by stevil at 5:26 PM on February 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

Also, Dangerfield had the strange journey of starting young, quitting for more than a decade, coming back, and having wild success. That's exceedingly rare in any art form, but especially in comedy which seems more and more youth-and-up-and-coming obsessed as the years go on.
posted by Philipschall at 5:38 PM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

He was an awesome comic, no doubt. But for some odd reason, I never found his shtick to be my cup of tea. He was like Don Rickles; I knew he was funny, but we just never clicked.

He was, in fact, the only element in Caddyshack that made Judge Smails a marginally sympathetic figure at times.

(Yes, I do have a sense of humor, thankyouverymuch.)
posted by darkstar at 5:48 PM on February 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

How someone can watch him with anything short of wonder is beyond me.

This is an amazingly spicy take.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:03 PM on February 3, 2018

It was funny at the time . . . Things change. I still love him in Caddyshack, but mostly for his physical humor.
posted by Peach at 6:09 PM on February 3, 2018

This is an amazingly spicy take.


It looks good on you, though!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:27 PM on February 3, 2018 [29 favorites]

Yeah, the whole time I was watching the Carson clip, I was thinking, "man, this wouldn't work in the 21st century and there's no aluminum siding gig to go back to either..."

But punching yourself is the ultimate form of punching down, and he sure made his... uh... mark, with that.
posted by klanawa at 6:28 PM on February 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

Yeah, the whole time I was watching the Carson clip, I was thinking, "man, this wouldn't work in the 21st century and there's no aluminum siding gig to go back to either..."

This is the way of comedy - there's hardly anyone, even the greats, who have a truly vital, universally acclaimed career for more than a decade or two at most. People who were giant - GIANT - either get forgotten, or at best get lip service from later generations of comedians. It's a mountain of skulls.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:41 PM on February 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

Wow, tough crowd.
posted by kram175 at 6:45 PM on February 3, 2018 [49 favorites]

My mother had to tie a steak to my face to get the dog to play with me.
posted by CynicalKnight at 6:54 PM on February 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

Rappin’ Rodney
posted by porn in the woods at 6:55 PM on February 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

He’s brilliant even in death: he’s buried in LA’s most sought-after cemetery where plots go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. His gravestone reads “There goes the neighborhood.”
posted by armoir from antproof case at 6:59 PM on February 3, 2018 [58 favorites]

The jokes are old, but his physicality got better and better. He was an old man extremely uncomfortable in his own skin, so aware of his lack of worth in the eyes of the world. The sweating, the adjusting the tie, the nervous swallowing with eyes darting around... The jig was up before it started, you suck and we all see it. Poor glorious bastard.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:38 PM on February 3, 2018 [13 favorites]

I still laugh out loud at early Woody Allen and Bill Cosby routines, as reprehensible as they both are, they were also incredibly funny. Dangerfield never clicked for me at all, I suppose because he and his shtick were so all American WASP, sexist, seemingly dumb. I guess there was nothing I could relate to and I didn't listen especially deeply.

After reading this I just gave some listens to his stand up. Reading that he was Jewish (which, given his profession and self deprecating humor and everything, I don't know why I hadn't realized), I thought there might be something there for me. But no. One liners as a style just give nothing to connect to emotionally. He doesn't seem to bring anything about his authentic self to his act. There's no narrative, nothing personal, except I suppose some kind of weird self revulsion.

Yeah, I still can't connect with him at all. But interesting back story.
posted by latkes at 7:46 PM on February 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

I've never seen Dangerfield in anything except the Carson clip and his extremely disturbing turn as Mallory's molesting stepdad in Natural Born Killers. He's introduced in a memory presented as a sitcom, but he was able to physically project an aura of sadism despite the high-key lighting and low-res video. I don't think just anyone could have done it.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:53 PM on February 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

"I tell ya, I don't get no regard. No regard at all. No esteem, either."
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:37 PM on February 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

Metafilter: It's a mountain of skulls.
posted by belarius at 9:25 PM on February 3, 2018 [7 favorites]

I don't find Dangerfield's material from 40 years ago as funny as the crowd clearly does, but that's kind of how these things go. I think you don't get Mitch Hedberg without Dangerfield coming first. Hedberg had way more obliqueness in the angles of his jokes but there's something of a common thread there. The brown tie joke would make sense coming out of either comedian's mouth.
posted by axiom at 9:29 PM on February 3, 2018 [11 favorites]

'Back To School' is still one of my faves.
posted by spilon at 9:40 PM on February 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

I get that not everything he did is relevant or approachable today, but to really appreciate Rodney Dangerfield you have to also appreciate that while it looked effortless there was SO much work behind it, and the article does give you a feeling for that. Similarly, you can think of Phyllis Diller as a dated, old-school comedian or you can think of her as the person who meticulously assembled an index card file of over 50,000 jokes.
posted by yhbc at 9:45 PM on February 3, 2018 [15 favorites]

I miss Rodney. I think you need to be Of An Age to appreciate him. This is a peril of comedy, alas.
posted by MissySedai at 9:52 PM on February 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Mousetrap. Ha!
posted by Toddles at 9:53 PM on February 3, 2018

Nathan Rabin has just finished his "No Respect January" series of essays focusing on Dangerfield's later movies; there is some sharp writing detailing these odd remnants of Dangerfield's career.
posted by JDC8 at 10:07 PM on February 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

I don't know, Richard Pryor is still funny. George Carlin is still weird. I get that Dangerfield was older than them but even though sure, they are old fashioned too, there's something that just doesn't click for me about him. I suppose yeah now I get there was more under the surface... Per Wikipedia he was a huge stoner? Maybe he was more of a guy doing a trade, comedian, and less of a person trying to be an artist or innovator... honestly it's hard for me to get past the endless wife jokes. All these guys were misogynists, but like, Lenny Bruce was also something else? Different strokes I guess.
posted by latkes at 10:17 PM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

@axiom it's interesting you should bring up Mitch Hedberg. in Todd Glass' new special on netflix, he has a bit where he does Mitch Hedberg jokes as Rodney Dangerfield and it slays (imo).

I am quite partial to Dangerfield because he had so many mannerisms in common with my grandfather.
posted by oog at 10:18 PM on February 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

> oog:
"@axiom it's interesting you should bring up Mitch Hedberg. in Todd Glass' new special on netflix, he has a bit where he does Mitch Hedberg jokes as Rodney Dangerfield and it slays (imo).

I am quite partial to Dangerfield because he had so many mannerisms in common with my grandfather."

I will need to see that.

Something makes me think this might be a double, because I recall reading it (I think from here) and it led me down a rabbithole I appreciated, since I had forgotten his standup brilliance (having let the movie Rodney take up too much headspace).

I got my kid karate lessons. Now he make ME eat MY vegetables. I tell ya...
posted by Samizdata at 10:38 PM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think you don't get Mitch Hedberg without Dangerfield coming first.

Sort of - rather, blunt, straight-up joke comedy itself used to be more common. Hedberg seems to actually have been a throwback to a bygone era.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:43 PM on February 3, 2018

If you're unfamiliar (as I was) the NYT "Letter of Recommendation" column is quite wonderful.

Past columns include: Memewear, Gum, The Rothko Chapel, CPR Training, Zip Ties, High Visibility Golf Balls, Ghosting, Duolingo, Floating, Indian Butterscotch Ice Cream, Detroit Techno, Home Karaoke, and the list of randomness just goes on and on. I'm off to read some now.
posted by el io at 10:54 PM on February 3, 2018 [9 favorites]

The linked video just made me anxious but in caddyshack he had such screen presence it was magnetic.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:08 PM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Can someone please explain the “yellow teeth” … ”brown necktie” joke?
posted by monotreme at 12:44 AM on February 4, 2018

I don't know, Richard Pryor is still funny. George Carlin is still weird. I get that Dangerfield was older than them but even though sure, they are old fashioned too, there's something that just doesn't click for me about him. I suppose yeah now I get there was more under the surface... Per Wikipedia he was a huge stoner? Maybe he was more of a guy doing a trade, comedian, and less of a person trying to be an artist or innovator... honestly it's hard for me to get past the endless wife jokes. All these guys were misogynists, but like, Lenny Bruce was also something else? Different strokes I guess.


Dangerfield seems like a bit of a throwback to an earlier era - in his own era. I can appreciate the craftsmanship of some of it, though.
posted by atoxyl at 1:33 AM on February 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I don't know, "A girl phoned me the other day and said .... Come on over, there's nobody home. I went over. Nobody was home." so perfectly encapsulates something. I don't think it could be described as old fashioned.

And for my 2 cents, I recently rewatched some Richard Pryor specials and didn't find them funny anymore.
posted by Literaryhero at 1:46 AM on February 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

There must have been a first time that he delivered the "I don't get no respect" line. I wonder how it went over?
posted by thelonius at 3:25 AM on February 4, 2018

He was like Don Rickles...

No, he was not. He wasn't my kind of comedian, but he wasn't full of vicious insults.


But punching yourself is the ultimate form of punching down...

Looks like up to me.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:58 AM on February 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

So that’s who Neil Hamburger’s persona/shtick is a reference to.
posted by acb at 4:11 AM on February 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I've never seen Dangerfield in anything except the Carson clip and his extremely disturbing turn as Mallory's molesting stepdad in Natural Born Killers. He's introduced in a memory presented as a sitcom, but he was able to physically project an aura of sadism despite the high-key lighting and low-res video. I don't think just anyone could have done it.

I feel like NBK is a film that hasn't aged particularly well. In this case, though, it's a film that's just aged strangely. This sequence must feel very different now than it did in the early '90s, when Rodney Dangerfield was someone a person Mallory's age would have seen on television a lot as she grew up; the joke, to the degree that it is a joke, is that she's replaced her own abusive father in her memories with a ubiquitous media presence who makes her think of him (or perhaps Rodney Dangerfield is just a more tolerable alternative). At this remove, it's merely Dangerfield playing a disturbing serious role with a jarring laughtrack in the background. I do wonder what it would be like to see the scene minus cultural context.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:46 AM on February 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Dangerfield doesn’t make me laugh because he never surprises me. I know more or less where each joke is going to land. Hedberg might be formally similar in that his routines were full of isolated one-liners, but I never knew where he was going. Each one was a surprise. Hedberg’s direct antecedent was Steven Wright, not Dangerfield.

My favorite Dangerfield performance, if I had to choose, was his work in Kubrick’s The Killing in 1956.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:03 AM on February 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

monotreme: a brown tie would match his yellow teeth. His teeth are so yellow that the dentist can’t do anything about it - all the dentist can do is recommend a tie colour that’s complimentary to his disgusting teeth.
posted by thedamnbees at 6:52 AM on February 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Can someone please explain the “yellow teeth” … ”brown necktie” joke?

It could be simply interpreted as a “the dentist gives up and offers a matching outfit” joke, but I think it’s also an absurdist take on a “pee and poo are funny” joke. Your teeth look like pee, so let’s hang something that looks like poop around your neck to complete the set.

In a weird way, I think this is one of his more interesting jokes because it’s the exact same structure as his other material, and it’s doo-doo humor, but he made it so weird and abstract that you have to wonder for a second if there was even a joke there.

And really, that’s his whole career, right? This 60-year-old who’s doing a stand-up format that was as simple as it gets and already outdated when he started, and yet he became something of a comedian’s comedian with it.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:57 AM on February 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

You wanna make 14 favourites the hard way?
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:07 AM on February 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

But punching yourself is the ultimate form of punching down...

Kinda depends on which direction you punch more than anything. And whether you're playing twister or not . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 7:21 AM on February 4, 2018

Some of his jokes become so well known, most people don't even realize they were his:
I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.

And one we always told each other as little kids:
My old man, I told him I'm tired of running around in circles, So he nailed my other foot to the floor.

I'm sorry people don't get his humor anymore. Is it a generational thing? Because I think we need that kind of humor now more than ever. People present their best selves on social media. Studies show that many people get depressed reading their friends' posts on Facebook--their new house, their great family, all the fun activities with friends. Everyone has problems in their lives. Things don't go as planned. You get lonely and depressed sometimes. You don't see that on Facebook, so someone reading it might feel that they are the only one. That's why I liked the 'bad mom' type blogs.

Rodney made the bad parts of life into humor, with himself as the punch line.


I remember I was so depressed I was going to jump out a window on the tenth floor. They sent a priest up to talk to me. He said, "On your mark..."
posted by eye of newt at 8:53 AM on February 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

I am quite partial to Dangerfield because he had so many mannerisms in common with my grandfather.

He also reminds me quite a bit of my grandfather, except for having a different specific accent. But, my grandfather was an arrogant asshole. Despite being a mediocre tradesman who never accomplished much personally or professionally, he firmly believed he was the most important and intelligent man who had ever lived and expected to be worshiped by everyone around him. He told awful jokes and demanded everyone laugh at them. He treated his wife, his kids, his neighbors, and his professional subordinates like garbage and died with a smug grin on his face believing his cruelty was always justified.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan. I don't buy the self-deprecating schtick. Everything about Dangerfield reads as "idiot bully" to me. Life's too short to spend time hanging out with bullies, much less paying to see them on stage.

But, it's also entirely possible I'm unfairly mapping the actions of all the Dangerfield-like people I've met onto the man. I have absolutely no idea if he ever treated people badly in real life, which is the only test that really matters. Even if he had been a jerk, he clearly made a whole lot of people happy, which is a great thing and worth celebrating.

To be clear, I can absolutely believe there are Dangerfield-like grandfathers in the world who are also good and kind people. I don't mean to suggest anything unflattering about the previous commentor's family.
posted by eotvos at 8:56 AM on February 4, 2018

yhbc, you got me watching Phyllis Diller routines last night. She is very similar - not just the rapid-fire one-liners, but also the self depreciation. It's interesting how different this is coming from a woman than a man. I guess one thing that's evolved in comedy, even with comedians that still do a lot of one liners, is the act is going somewhere. It references itself and, ideally, builds to something. I watched a Mitch Hedberg special last night too - I'd never heard of him before - and it was interesting in that his mood builds as the show progresses, and finally it does reference itself a bit, even as the show is ostensibly a series of weird one liners. I think every performer at this point now knows some 'rules' of storytelling, and it's hard to imagine anyone just telling a series of jokes with no emotional variation or narrative whatsoever.

Anyhow, this was a surprisingly thought-provoking post.
posted by latkes at 9:46 AM on February 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yes. Rodney Dangerfield, such a mensch.
posted by mikelieman at 9:52 AM on February 4, 2018

Personally, I've always found his comedy a little too much like a the joint of a stiff pillar in a perilous meadow. You want there to be more substance, but there isn't...and maybe that's the punchline.
posted by saysthis at 10:33 AM on February 4, 2018

When I go off to teach, I still announce every time: I'll be back when I have no class.
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:47 AM on February 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

The only thing I have heard about his personal life is that he smoked weed like a roadie for Steel Pulse.
posted by thelonius at 11:04 AM on February 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

little too much like a the joint of a stiff pillar in a perilous meadow.--saysthis

Pillars have joints? Why is the meadow perilous? Why is there a pillar in the meadow?

What does this mean?
posted by eye of newt at 11:04 AM on February 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

Hedberg’s direct antecedent was Steven Wright, not Dangerfield.

The thing that's reminiscent of Hedberg in this particular clip is the meta-deprecation about his own act, and the anxious mannerisms which become part of the act.
posted by atoxyl at 11:05 AM on February 4, 2018

little too much like a the joint of a stiff pillar in a perilous meadow.--saysthis

Pillars have joints? Why is the meadow perilous? Why is there a pillar in the meadow?

What does this mean?
posted by eye of newt at 3:04 AM on February 5 [3 favorites +] [!]

It's tough to explain. It's a little like how some commenters in this thread have said truancy in imaginary towns is the direct result of correct Stephens, but when you really look at it, sometimes there's just no synonymity.
posted by saysthis at 12:16 PM on February 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

"I sing the national anthem at cock fights" was legitimately funny, maybe because of Colin Kapernick, but that was mostly it.
posted by bookman117 at 1:15 PM on February 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I get no respect. I can’t understand something I read online, I tell my doctor maybe I ain’t seein’ right. He says “You’re no Mitch Hedberg either.” Yeah, sorry for the convenience, doc!
posted by infinitewindow at 1:22 PM on February 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was going to tell you my favorite Rodney Dangerfield joke:

A hooker stopped me on the street and told me “I’ll do anything for $50.” I said, “Paint my house.”

But when I checked, it turned out to be Henny Youngman.

Maybe it's only funny if you've ever spent an entire summer painting your own house. If you have, it's not only hilarious but something you desperately wish could happen in real life.
posted by HotToddy at 1:48 PM on February 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

as a kid in the 70's 3 things were funny on TV.

Rodney Dangerfield was one of them.

This was 4 channel, maybe 5 channel, TV.
posted by Max Power at 5:04 PM on February 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Wow, I forgot about that one. Damn.
posted by gottabefunky at 6:34 PM on February 4, 2018

I kinda liked Dangerfield, I didn't think his jokes were that funny, but I liked the existential angst. I think he really lucked out with getting on 'Caddyshack', the role and the timing worked perfectly for him. The rest of his career could have just slid away otherwise.

Nathan Rabin has just finished his "No Respect January" series of essays focusing on Dangerfield's later movies...
Wow, this stuff mostly looks really unwatchable.
posted by ovvl at 2:33 PM on February 5, 2018 [1 favorite]