Word: parkyakarkus
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...Kaufman. "There should be laughter. Otherwise it's some other art form." If Kaufman functions as a one-man Weather Underground, Brooks is a more accessible, ultimately more subversive radical professor of post-funny comedy. Says Brooks, who was born Albert Einstein, son of the dialect comedian Parkyakarkus: "Life is so bizarre anyway, the slightest twist can make it really funny." Brooks' twist is so slight, so deft, that many may not get the joke. In 1975 he and Harry Shearer wrote and produced A Star Is Bought, a record album ostensibly designed to "sell" Albert Brooks...
...born, in any event, right into comedy. Brooks was one of the four sons of Harry Einstein, a radio dialect comedian who performed under the name Parkyakarkus. At 15, Albert had got up his own act (a short-lived double with Joey Bishop's son Larry). At about the same time, he landed a job at KMPC in Los Angeles as a sportswriter; he made up most of the baseball scores. After studying acting for two years at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Tech, he took the family name of Brooks and became a TV comedy writer on a show...
...suggests, this picture aims to present to cinemaddicts a gallery of heretofore unknown players. Unfortunately, of the numerous new faces in the cast, few belong to performers engaged in major roles. These are handled by such eminently unnovel entertainers as Milton Berle, Joe Penner, Harriet Hilliard, and Parkyakarkus...
First cinema appearance of "New Face" Parkyakarkus was in Strike Me Pink (1936), as Eddie Cantor's stooge. As freakish, though not so foolish, as his soubriquet, Parkyakarkus is really Harry Einstein, a onetime Boston advertising writer who, when his friends found his Greek dialect monologs at parties hilariously funny, decided to merchandise his specialty. Response to a few local broadcasts encouraged him to apply for a spot on the nationwide radio hour of Funnyman Cantor, whom he had met socially. From radio, he went to Hollywood. "Parkyakarkus" is an adaptation of the informal invitation with which Dr. Einstein...
Alded and abetted by Ethel Merman, whose singing is almost as bad as Cantor's, the beauteous Sally Eilers, and stooge Parkyakarkus, Eddie's latest certainly affords your ticket's worth of amusement. The utter impossibility of the last fifteen minutes of trick photography does not detract from its being darn funny and surprisingly breath-taking...
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