To fill out the comedy sketches on the show we needed another actor—a third banana. So Howard Morris was hired not only for his ability to do foreign double-talk with Sid and Carl, in addition to his comic acting skills, but also because Sid said, “I need somebody I can pick up by the lapels and shove my nose into his face.”
I said, “I know the guy! He’s Howie Morris and he’s funny and weighs about a hundred pounds.”
Sid auditioned him by picking him up, shouting into his face, and then putting him back down. “You’ve got the job,” he said.
Howie Morris was a bright comedy addition to Sid, Imogene, and Carl. I remember one of my most successful sketches consisted of a takeoff on an old Emil Jannings German film called The Last Laugh. Sid is being dressed as a German general by Howie Morris. They both spray the scene with meticulous phony-baloney German double-talk. For instance, Howie spits on the brass buttons of the general, and then brushes them clean.
Sid shouts in fake German, “Vas ist los bist du mishuga? Spritzin auf ein General?”
Howie replies apologetically, “No, no, Herr General. Ich habe nisht geshpritz auf ein General. Ich habe geshpritz auf dem buttons!”
Big laughs! When Sid is fully dressed, he marches in all his splendor—brass buttons, epaulets, medals, etc.—through the revolving doors of the hotel. When he reaches the sidewalk he pulls out a whistle and blows it loudly. As a cab pulls up he opens the door for a couple to enter and we realize that he’s not a general, he’s just the doorman. Thanks to the talents of Sid and Howie, the sketch really worked.
About Howie Morris, let me say this—I loved him. He became a dear friend. But before he actually knew me well, I decided to rob him. Let me explain…
I figure nature made two different types. One type was little birds, pigeons, white mice, etc. They were victims. They were called prey, and Howie was one of them. The other type nature made was wolves, bears, lions, etc. They were called wild beasts, and I was one of them.
One night, when Howie and I were walking down a street in Greenwich Village called MacDougal Alley it was quiet and nobody was around. It occurred to me that this would be a perfect place to rob someone. So I slammed Howie against the alley wall and said, “Give me everything in your pockets and your watch and your ring!”
Howie said in a half laugh, “You’re kidding, right?”
I just growled. He decided to take the safer course and gave me everything, including his watch and wedding ring. And then I said, “Run!” And he ran home.
The next day, I got a call from Sid. He said Howie had just called him and said that I robbed him.
I said, “It was a crazy joke! It was a perfect place to rob somebody…so I robbed Howie. Please go along with it for a while.”
Sid chuckled and said, “Sure, why not.”
When I saw Howie, I acted perfectly normal, like nothing had happened.
Howie said, “About last night…”
And I said, “What about last night?” And crossed my eyes slightly.
Howie said, “Nothing! Nothing! Forget it.”
I let it go for about a week and then I said, “Howie! It’s all coming back to me…Did I rob you last week in MacDougal Alley?”
He said, “Yeah, and I really could use my wallet and my car keys back.”
I gave him everything back including his watch and his wedding band and apologized and said, “As you know, I’m in analysis and every once in a while I’m overcome with things I can’t control.”
About a year later Howie and I were out to lunch together and we had rented a boat to paddle around the Central Park Lake. As we rowed under a bridge, it was suddenly dark and quiet and a perfect place to rob someone. So I slapped him in the face and shouted, “Give me everything in your pockets, and get out of the boat!”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he emptied everything he had in his pockets, and once again gave me his watch and his wedding ring, and then stepped out of the boat into waist-high water and waded to shore.
I didn’t wait more than a few days this time to return everything, along with another apology.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand.” He thought for a minute and then added, “How often you think you’re gonna do that thing?”
I laughed, hugged him, and said, “I think the joke is over.”
To begin with, Your Show of Shows was written by Mel Tolkin, Lucille Kallen, and me. Sid often sat in on the writing sessions. Unlike other variety show stars, who didn’t respect the writers and would send back scripts with comments like “This stinks!” scribbled on the cover, Sid really cared about the quality of the writing and would sit in the writers’ room and work with us from time to time. He wanted to be there for each premise, each line, and each note. He knew what he wanted out of the writers and the scripts. Mel, Lucille, me, and occasionally Sid, first worked in a writers’ room that was also the chorus dressing room at the City Center. We were creating comedy amid racks of socks, underwear, Roman togas, and Japanese kimonos. After we became a hit, we could afford better office space. Max Liebman took offices at the City Center and we wrote the show in Max’s L-shaped office in Suite 6-M. The writers’ room was now fancy enough to have a couch and two chairs! Later on, Carl Reiner would often sit in with us too, throwing in really valuable ideas. In the writers’ room, we were less concerned （and to be fair, in some instances not concerned at all） about one another’s feelings and more about the best show we could produce. Sixty million people were watching the show every week and we had to come up with an original script of at least six comedy sketches every week for thirty-nine weeks a year. That was pressure. You could yell and scream at someone in a writing session, and an hour later you’d be having lunch together, laughing as if the contentious session had never happened. Writing an hour and a half show each week for thirty-nine weeks a year is absolutely impossible! But somehow we did it, and most of the stuff was damn good.