Topping the Toppers

What happens when the insultee gets the best of the insulter?

That question was answered in several columns by comic Joey Adams for Family Weekly, a weekend newspaper magazine supplement. Here’s one that appeared on April 25, 1976. Some of the comebacks are pretty funny.

By Joey Adams:
When the Insult Artists Get Squelched...
In this era of masochistic comedy, some of our greatest personalities have considered it an honor to show up at roasts and be carved to pieces by friends who don’t unintentionally hurt the ones they love. It’s all premeditated murder, written and rehearsed especially for the occasion. But nothing is more devastating to a professional comedian than to be squelched by an amateur—or even by another comedian when he isn’t expecting it.
Imagine, for example, how insult artist Don Rickles felt when he shouted at a lady pest at ringside: “If you were my wife. I’d give you poison’-only to have her answer, “If you were my husband, I’d take it.” That’s why every comedian worth his weight in laughs is constantly prepared for battle. Bob Hope once told me he never went out of his house unless his writers prepared him with ad-libs. But even the best sometimes get topped. Here are a few instances that are among my favorites:
Fred Allen to Max Asnas, who was the owner of New York’s Stage Delicatessen: “Your corned beef gives me heartburn.” Max: “What do you expect in a delicatessen—sunburn?”
Henny Youngman to a waiter: “My glass is empty—what do I have to do to get some water around here?” Waiter: “Why don’t you set yourself on fire?”
Jackie Gleason to restaurateur Toots Shor: “When I walked on stage, the audience sat there open-mouthed.” Toots: “You mean they all yawned at once?”
Eighty-two-year-old Jack Benny to an audience in a moment of seriousness: “I have a violin that was made in 1729.” A heckler in the audience: "Did you buy it new?”

I remember listening one night to Don Rickles devastating a room full of stars. To Orson Welles he said: “Who makes those tents you wear?” To Dean Martin: “You could build a skating rink with the ice cubes you use in your drinks each week.” To Ernest Borgnine: “Look at you . . . Anybody else hurt in the accident?”
But when he picked on Jackie Gleason, he got more than he had bargained for. “You are three of my favorite comedians,” Don said to the fat one. “I wish you were just one of mine,” Gleason snapped back.
Johnny Carson at one Friars Club (for performers) dinner, introduced Howard Cosell as “a legend in his own mind.” He went on. “Just because it’s free, Howard, you don't have to eat everything that’s put in front of you. At least stop eating while I'm talking.” Howard looked up and said, “I couldn't take you on an empty stomach.”
Milton Berle’s tongue can be declared a lethal weapon. He has put down everybody, even the Mayor of New York (“You look good, Abe—you've taken off a little height”). But even Berle was left without an answer once. Milton has a habit of picking on anybody at ringside who is smoking a cigar. Pretending to wave the smoke away, he groans. “Don't you ever inhale?" But one night a man was ready for him. “Not with you in the room,” he answered.
Alan King was in a particularly vitriolic mood at the George Burns—Walter Matthau dinner. He introduced George Jessel as the oldest member: “His idea of an exciting night now is to watch his leg fall asleep.” To Milton Berle: “I think the world of you—and you know the shape the world is in right now.” To Walter Matthau: “Someday you'll go too far—and I hope you stay there.”
Then he started on Henny Youngman: “I would like to introduce Johnny Carson.” he said, “but I am forced to introduce Henny Youngman. A man who started out as a small-time night-club comedian and never lived up to his promise—take Henny Youngman, please . . .”

Henny finished with the toastmaster very quickly: “One thing about you, Alan—you’ve never lost an enemy.”
Those squelches are love pats compared to the time I heard a minister devastate a profane comedian. It happened at an officers’ club in Vietnam. After a pointless and blasphemous story, the alleged comic noticed all eyes were suddenly fastened on a quiet man at the end of the table. “For God’s sake,” blustered the storyteller, “are you a chaplain?” With a slight smile and deliberate emphasis, the chaplain answered. “Yes, for God’s sake, I am.”
Bob Hope told me that when he visits service hospitals around the world he likes to “louse up the joint.” It’s what they want. “One thing they don't want is sympathy.” Bob explained. “They want me to walk into a ward filled with guys harnessed to all kinds of contraptions and say: That’s all right, fellows, you don’t have to get up for me.’ ”
Only once was Bob caught without an answer. We were going to St. Albans Hospital with a troupe of minstrels to cheer up the boys who had just come back from Vietnam. Most of them couldn’t leave their chain or their beds. As we approached one of the wards, ready to throw our punch lines, we heard someone singing above the clatter of our entrance. Then I saw that the singer was a wounded serviceman. He was pushing himself towards us in a wheelchair by the power of his two arms—the only useful limbs he had left.
“Say,” Bob greeted him. “were supposed to entertain you, and here you are meeting us with a song." And the crippled serviceman answered: "When I stopped looking at what I had lost and began looking at all I had left, I could sing again!” What could Bob Hope say to top that?