Sorry for the bad pun, but I couldn’t resist. When I first saw the eBay auction for this Morty Gunty postcard from The Funny Company TV show, I thought it was just like the one I had way back in late ‘64.
But looking at it now, I realize it’s not likely the same one. That postcard was printed in blue, including the autograph. Further, I don’t recall the words “Keep Smiling” being on the card, but my recollection could be faulty on that point.
So the mystery deepens. Based on my memory, there must have been at least two different printings, if not two different postcards.
At last! I own an original Morty Gunty autograph. Not a pre-print. It appears to be inscribed “To Max.” I first wrote about it at this link, but I hesitated to buy it until humor writer Arnie Kogen confirmed the authenticity of the autograph. So I bought it, and here’s my scan, which is an improvement over the auction picture.
Comments for my Morty Gunty posts now include one of his daughters, and his daughters’ babysitter! This is wonderful. I’ll be contacting both soon, and hopefully be putting them in touch with one other.
PBS is running a series called Pioneers of Televison. It’s not necessarily about the first TV personalities, but performers who broke new ground in their own time. One of them is Carl Reiner, who had pitched a pilot called “Head of the Family,” featuring Morty Gunty originating the role of Buddy Sorel, later done by Morey Amsterdam in The Dick Van Dyke Show; who, frankly, I thought was too old for the part. It was fun to see a few moments of Morty Gunty on PBS tonight.
If you take a look at this past post, you will see that Morty’s daughter Sheryl has added a comment. I’m very pleased that Sheryl found my Web site, and I hope she spotted her late father on TV this week.
I was very fortunate a few months ago to have comedy writer Arnie Kogen, of TV and MAD Magazine fame, visit this blog and relieve my concern that I may have played a role in the demise of comedian Morty Gunty’s NY TV show for kids back in 1965. Gunty was the first comic who Kogen wrote for, and later the same was true for writer Alan Zweibel, best known for his stint on the original writing team of Saturday Night Live. He helped develop the characters Roseanne Roseannadanna and Emily Litella for the late Gilda Radner.
It all started when Alan Zweibel’s mother chatted up a comedian she saw open for Engelbert Humperdinck. Zweibel laughs at the thought of it. “She just went up and approached him, and said, ‘My son can write jokes.’ And pretty soon I was writing for $7 a gag for a comic named Morty Gunty.”
Alan Zweibel: The History of Me is a one-man show Zweibel has been performing at various venues throughout this year. Friday night he was in South Orange New Jersey, as featured in this newspaper article.
I’d like to embed a video excerpt of Zweibel doing The History of Me, but YouTube says it can’t be embedded. So instead here’s a picture of Zweibel you can click to take you to YouTube.
Here’s an interesting factoid about comedy writer Arnie Kogen, to whom I am eternally grateful. He went from selling typewriters to banging them — so to speak! This comes from a book I referred to previously, Completely MAD, A History of Mad the Comic Book and Magazine, by Maria Reidelbach.
For over thirty years Kogen has been one of Mad’s most consistent contributors of television, movie, and celebtiry satire, and for almost as long he has been one of the most active television comedy writers in the business. Kogen was selling typewriters on the Lower East Side when he was introduced to Gaines and Feldstein by Paul Krasser, who published The Realist in an office adjacent to Mad’s at 225 Lafayette. Kogen’s start at Mad led to writing for a number of prominent stand up comedians and performers, including Carol Burnett, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Ronald Reagan. He’s also received many awards for his television writing, including three Emmys.
The book is from 1991, so Kogen has now been a Mad contributor for over 45 years! In fact, he wrote the Spider-Man 3 parody in the latest issue. In addition to Ronald Reagan, the list of prominent stand up comics includes, of course, Morty Gunty.
