Read TALES FROM THE SCRIPT: THE BEHIND-THE-CAMERA ADVENTURES OF A TV COMEDY WRITER for Free Online Page A

my definition, a joke is a series of words
that ends in a paycheck, i never really wrote any jokes for Mickey
Shaughnessy.
    The contract i had with Cozy Morley was a faux document. it was
a quasi-legal agreement that i wrote myself. Whereas the party of the
first part never did any of the jokes that were written by the party of the
second part, and whereas the party of the second part doesn’t remember ever receiving a check from the party of the first part, be it therefore
understood that this agreement hereto didn’t amount to a hill of beans.
    Slappy’s contract, though, was legit. Slappy was a black comedian, who had been in show business most of his life. He was once
the partner of Redd Foxx. With the emergence on television of other
black comedians, notably Dick Gregory and Godfrey Cambridge,
black comics were being integrated into the white nightclubs. Slappy
wanted fresh, topical material to capitalize on that.
    After that phone call from Rex Morgan’s office, i wrote some audition material for an appearance Slappy had in a Philadelphia night
club. Hot topics at the time were the new movie, Cleopatra , and the
scandal involving the stars, Richard Burton, Liz Taylor, and her husband Eddie Fisher. One joke i did for Slappy was about the low-cut
costume Liz Taylor wore in the film. He said, “i went to see that
movie, Cleopatra , the other night. The man behind me kept saying,
‘i never saw anything like that before. i never saw anything like that
before.’ i turned around. it was Eddie Fisher. The man next to me
said, ‘i have.’ it was Richard Burton.”
    Another big movie then was Lawrence of Arabia. For Slappy i
wrote: “i went to see that movie, Lawrence of Arabia , too, but i couldn’t
enjoy it. i can’t enjoy any movie that has that many people running
around in white sheets. no sir, i get nervous when i see two or three
Good Humor men hanging around together.”
    According to our agreement, i’d supply jokes to Slappy on a
regular basis and he’d pay me 5% of whatever salary he earned as a
comedian. Faithfully, Slappy sent me the AGVA (American Guild
of Variety Artists) contracts for his various engagements, and just
as faithfully, he sent my cut. i was now a professional earning about
$1,500 a year from my joke writing. i was in Show Business. i was
making money from writing jokes. i was happy. Slappy was an ideal
partner. He listed my name in any ads he took out in the papers—
“Special Material by Gene Perret.” What an ego boost.
    Slappy always praised the good material and ignored the bad.
Once, i auditioned for another comedian at the same time i was writing for Slappy. This comic called and complained bitterly about the
thirty-joke routine i had sent him. “There’re only two gags in that
whole batch you sent me that i could use. You sent me thirty jokes
and i only liked two of them. You expect me to pay money for three
pages of material when i can only use two? The next batch had better
be a lot better if you want to write for me.”
    Then, Slappy called. “Hey, two of those jokes you sent me worked
beautifully. They got screams. Do a couple more like that, will you?”
naturally, i went to work writing more jokes for Slappy and never
wrote another word for whatshisname.
Slappy even paid my expenses periodically to come see his act
and hang around with him backstage at the Playboy Clubs. Once, he
    Slappy White (on the left) and former Heavyweight Champion
Joe Louis at the Club Harlem in Atlantic City
    flew me to Boston to catch his act at a club in nearby Revere Beach.
Between acts, he told me to take his car and go to another club to
catch the comedy team of Reese and Martin. “See what kind of stuff
they’re doing and how well they’re going over.”
    Slappy drove a brand new, top of the line Cadillac. i was driving a
twelve-year-old Buick at the time that usually required a screwdriver
to help it get started. in the club parking lot, i