Word: laughs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Narrative Gift. On his show, as well as on his records, Flip Wilson spins out these impersonations in anecdotes, not one-liners. His gift is for dialect and narrative, not gags. The laugh track of a Bob Hope or a Milton Berle is a crescendo to climactic punch lines. Flip's graph would be all hills and valleys, zigs and zags. He puts his material over gently, through sheer likability-and considerable body English. Though only 5 ft. 6 in., he has an amazingly elastic physical grace, and a repertory of motions that recalls the masters of silent movie...
...compared with other comics, particularly black comics, his humor has a visceral appeal. Wilson is not just a black comedian, any more than Jack Benny is just a Jewish comedian. His characters and his situations are black, but his humor is universal. He has the talent to make blacks laugh without anger and whites laugh without guilt. "Flip touches more comic bases than anyone else," says Actor and Playwright Ossie Davis (Purlie Victorious). "He retains some of the tradition of the clown as against the comic. A comic is a personality who deals with verbal delivery and usually with bland...
...punch of a Godfrey Cambridge, or the intellectual edge of a Bill Cosby. His approach is at once older and newer than that of the others. The message about racial injustice is the same as Gregory's, for example, but Flip sneaks it in and shakes loose a laugh before the audience can object. After telling a story about Indians, he asks: "How would you like it if you bought a $50,000 house and somebody came along and put up a wigwam next to it?" Or: "This is my riot jacket-I got it in Buffalo...
...fairy tale, the grumpy king runs a contest to find a jester who can make him laugh. Unsuccessful contestants go to the block. The winner gets a new suit of motley and the next-to-impossible job of making the king laugh again. In journalism, the dyspeptic despot is usually played by an editor who starts off saying something like "This page is too damn dull. It needs some humor." Serious words are then circulated among the clever headline writers and droll cityroom pinochle players that there is an opening for a funny columnist...
...fans. In fact, he has managed to keep his portrayal both serious and believable. As his quickly sidelined partner. Reni Santoni deserves praise for making his lines sound less hackneyed than they were written. Andy Robinson's performance should corner him the market on psychopaths. His demonic laugh would warm Edgar Allen Poe's blood and curdles everyone else's. Adjectives like "bone-chilling" were invented for eyes like his. And the controlled delirium of his voice completely confirms his satanic presence as Harry's ultimate...