Word: patters
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Perhaps the material does not quite carry a full-length opera, however. There are some slow moments, especially in the beginning, when a home-style funeral takes place. Things pick up with the arrival of Alan Rinsler as Buddy, the son returned from college. His two patter songs about hitchhiking and airplanes are high points in the production. The other members of the cast are also capable, especially Anne Rindlaub as Mom and George Brown as Lou, the cowboy. John Bernard is a sincere Pop with a marvelous farmer accent, and T. T. Meyers is fine as a fiery neighbor...
Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music (Mon. 9:30 p.m., NBC). Host George Marek spins fine platters and lively patter...
...chiggers beneath the skins of network bigwigs and Madison Avenue operatives is the custom of the free plug, or "plugola." A TV comic, disk jockey or M.C. slips a brand name into his patter, e.g., "They said I was drunk, but it was all relative-Old Grand-Dad," and he or his gagwriter can count on the "payola"-a case or two of whisky in the next delivery. Offenses have occurred most persistently on the Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Arthur Godfrey, Steve Allen and Robert Q. Lewis shows; yet the networks fear to order their stars to stop the practice...
...Fang (Nervous Norvus; Dot). One of those tough patter songs with a science-fiction twist: this cat was born on Mars and he's laying the other planets low. He wears "real nervous pegs with a crazy crease," and he's gonna "hit these chicks with a Martian jolt." Good for a spin...
Lines like that numbed the funnybones of Allen's pre-World War I audiences. When he wasn't twanging out patter, he pyramided cigar boxes on his chin and twirled hats through the air as "Freddy James, the World's Worst Juggler." At times he also did a ventriloquist's bit with a dummy named Jake. He had outdistanced the drag-off hooks with which managers yanked booed performers into the wings, but he was still patronizingly tagged as a "coast defender," i.e., a smalltime vaudevillian who played only Boston and such outlying provinces as Maine...