The Art of Audio #13: "Abbott & Costello in the Catskills!"

The Joe Bev
Experience

The Art of Audio #13

"Abbott & Costello in the Catskills!"

Joe Bev & friend doing "Who's on First?
at the 1976 Nostalgia Convention at The Staler-Hilton Hotel 

The first time I performed Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First?" was in 1975 at a high school play audition. I was a 16 year old kid with braces and a peach fuzz mustache trying to be Bud to my 17 year old friend's Lou.

Joe Bev performed "Who's on First?
on WOR-TV's Joe Franklin Show in 1976 

In 1976, after winning a contest at the first Nostalgia Convention at The Staler-Hilton Hotel in New York City, my partner and I performed Abbott & Costello all around the New York-New Jersey area and even did "Who's on First?" on WOR-TV's "The Joe Franklin Show". (I had my braces removed the day before.)  You can hear audio of my Joe Franklin appearance here.




I stopped performing Abbott & Costello after my partner and I had a falling out. That was in 1980. You can hear the NPR story I did about it here.


In 2006, I was walking down a lonely corridor during the Oldtime Radio Convention at the Holiday Inn in Newark, New Jersey--when Joe Franklin walked past me. He had not seen me in 30 years. Without skipping a beat, he said, "Bihler & Bev, Who's on First."  


This year, when I was cast as the MC of a Borscht Belt comedy show here in my home of the Catskills, I was asked to pick a character to play. I chose to host the evening as Bud Abbott. Now I needed a Costello. My old partner was out of the question.


Luckily, I found Bob Greenberg, an enormously talented comedian who has been doing Lou Costello his whole life with other Abbotts. Like me, Bob is a trained professional actor with major credits including Saturday Night Live.

Joe Bev & Bob Greenberg as Bud Abbott & Lou Costello

In 1993, Bob had also been on the last week of TV's "The Joe Franklin Show" where he did impressions of Lou Costello and Curly Howard.


For three nights, Bob & I performed not only "Who's on First?" together but wrote and improvised an entire night of hilarious audience pleasing comedy surrounding the music acts, dancers and magician. 


We had never met before and only spoke on the phone twice. Yet we BECAME Abbott & Costello on stage! We looked like them, sounded like them, we listened to each other and improvised many great moments, and worked the audience as if we had been together forever. Our chemistry together was electric! We clicked!


See us performing "Who's on First?" here.

Bob and I even created a new Abbott & Costello bit we call "Luzon Station" and gave the two-hour show a subplot and a title: "Abbott & Costello in the Catskills". 


All three nights were sold out and we had to turn people away. The success has led to more! "Abbott & Costello in the Catskills" will soon be heard on NPR stations and released as an audiobook! 


You will get to hear excepts from it when Bob is my special guest on this week's Comedy-O-Rama online radio broadcast, Saturday, April 14th at 1:00 pm (Eastern) on Cult Radio-A-Go-Go.



Now, Bob and I are ready and willing to become Abbott & Costello anywhere, anytime, for anyone!


We can custom tailor a show to any need and write new material to fit any occasion, plus deliver authentic and exciting performances of Bud & Lou's classic routines, including Who's On First, Susquahanna Hat Company, Niagra Falls, Job as a Loafer, Loan me $50, Cow's Utter, Lou Hates Mustard, and Jonah and the Whale.
         
Want to meet Abbott & Costello in person? Just give us a call at 845-647-9475, and shout, "Heeeey, Aaaaaaabbott!!!" We'll be right over! :-)

Best to you all,

Joe Bev.

Joe Bevilacqua is a veteran award-winning actor, writer, author and producer. His audio is available at Amazon, iTunes, and Audible for Kindle, Blackberry, Android, iPhone, iPod or iPad download, or CD purchase or rental. Find out more!

The Art of Audio #9: "The Christmas I Saved Macy's"

The Joe Bev
Experience

The Art of Audio #9

"The Christmas I Saved Macy's"

I have told many holiday stories on radio over the years. (You can hear many of them on the bottom of this column today.) But the story I get the most requests for is this one I wrote and voiced, which aired on National Public Radio stations in December 2007. (See if you can find the mistake!)

The smell of cotton candy always makes me think of Christmas. It takes me back to the holiday season of 1964. I was three years old, Christmas shopping with my mom at Bamberger's department store in Newark, New Jersey.

Listen to "The Christmas I Saved Macy's"

The store was founded in 1893 by Louis Bamberger, and the building, which was erected in 1912, had a big clock on it. Unlike the sprawling malls of today, Bamberger's took up the entire building and sold everything from ladies underwear to model homes. 

In 1929, Bamberger's was purchased by R.H. Macy Co. of New York City, but it wasn't until 1986 that the name was changed to Macy's when they went national.

Today, there are Macy's across the country, eight of them within driving distance of my home in Napanoch. The store in the Galleria Mall in Middletown (NY) only became a Macy's this year.

My first Beatles album
bought in downtown Newark, NJ - 1964

And you can thank me for it. That's right. The same year The Beatles invaded America, I saved Bamberger's, so if it were not for me, the Macy's we know today may not have existed.

My mom had brought me to downtown Newark so I could see my dad, who was a policeman, directing traffic, white gloves and all, at the intersection of Market and Halsey Streets, where Bamberger's was located.

My black Buster Brown shoes lifted off the sidewalk, as we passed the animated outdoor window displays of Santa and his elves in their workshop, my mom clutching my hand and shoving me through the revolving door into a sea of legs scurrying frantically around me.

In 1964, nearly every kid wore Buster Browns!

After a nondescript visit with Santa, my mom took me into a world I had before never seen—the ladies lounge. It was a handsome place with real wood paneling, glass ashtrays on ornate brass stands and leather chairs in which sat seven or eight Jackie Kennedy look-alikes, wearing pillbox hats, half-jackets and white gloves. They had all kicked off their spiked healed shoes and were rubbing their stockinged feet in between puffs of their cigarettes. A sea of smoke floated above.

My mom sat down, lit up a Marlboro and kicked off her spikes, as I occupied myself by sitting on the carpet and pretending all those shoes were racing cars. 

Suddenly, I heard a woman scream. I looked up and saw flames coming out of one of the ashtray stands. The woman kicked over the stand and jumped up onto her leather chair. Now the carpet was on fire, too. All the woman screamed and jumped up.

A few years earlier, I wasn't so brave!

“Somebody put it out!” urged one woman.

“I can't! I don't have my shoes on!” replied another.

“Me either!” added a third.

I actually do not remember what my mother was doing at this moment, but I do remember the woman who pointed to me as she suggested, “Get that kid to do it! He's got shoes on!”

I stood up and quickly stamped out the fire. To shouts of “Thank God” and sighs of relief, the women descended upon me, lifted me up and passed me around the room while they hugged and kissed me. 

Then, the woman who had suggested my act of heroism picked me up, kissed my cheek and smiled. 

Her makeup smelled just like a delicious cotton candy.

  

 

MORE OF MY CHRISTMAS STORIES:

Buy my NEWEST Christmas stories!

Listen to "The Joe Bev Holiday Treat"

 

Listen to "Rockabilly Christmas" with Ray Campi

Listen to "The Cartoon Carnival Christmas Party"

Listen to"The Misadventures of
Sherlock Holmes" Christmas Special

Buy all 10 half-hours of
"The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes"

Best to you all,

Joe Bev.

Joe Bevilacqua is a veteran award-winning actor, writer, author and producer. His audio is available at Amazon, iTunes, and Audible for Kindle, Blackberry, Android, iPhone, iPod or iPad download, or CD purchase or rental. Find out more!

The Art of Audio #8: "Liquid Comedy 103"

The Joe Bev
Experience

The Art of Audio #8

"Liquid Comedy 103"

It was 1964. I was 5. Dressed like a cowboy--hat, gun, holster, boots. I follow my mom into Tom's Pork Store in Newark, New Jersey. I kicked the sawdust on the floor as I rushed over to the gumball machine in the corner. I put in a penny, turned the knob and out slid a gumball. I popped it in my mouth and turned.

Kenny Savoy, Tom Giannazzo and me
Listen to one of our "Camp Waterlogg" specials here!

"You cowboy?" another 5 year old near the counter asked me.

"Yup," I proudly replied.

"No. You cry-baby," the kid answered.

That was my first encounter with Tom Giannazzo, the son of the pork store owner, and my oldest friend and a founding member of Liquid Comedy.

More about Tom here.

As Tom put it on Facebook recently:

"Weren't we in the womb together? Seems like it goes back that far. I'm sure my knuckle-prints were all over the yard sticks Mrs. Coughlin (our third grade Catholic school teacher) used on you. Or was it one of the crazy penguins? Mrs. Mango? Maybe it was at the Home for Sons Abused by Italian Fathers (The SAIF House)?"

That is Tom's style of humor. If Jim Folly is Chico and Kenny Savoy is Harpo... then Tom Giannazzo is Groucho! (I guess that makes me Zeppo. Hmm.)

Master Sergeant Tom Giannazzo's
23 Years of Service

In fact, in one of our early sketches, a parody on TV's M*A*S*H called M*A*S*S, took place in a Catholic rectory and Tom played Father Hawkeye in a Groucho voice.

Little did we know at the time that Tom would go on to have a successful 23 year career in the United States Airforce. He traveled the world, ran a TV station on Guam, and was a military advisor to a number a major motion pictures and TV series, including Stargate SG-1,  Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, The Sum of All Fears, and The Perfect Storm.

Tom was interviewed for Stargate SG-1: Bonus Disc 3

Tom knew movies even back in college. In 1978 we spoof Star Wars in our stage show. Ours was Star Wars Tonight, a merging of the blockbuster hit with the then popular TV show Fernwood Tonight, which starred Martin Mull as Barth Gimble and Fred Willard as Jerry Hubbard, the show itself a spoof of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Liquid Comedy, circa 1979.
Listen to us on XM Radio!

In our version, Tom was Barth Vadar and I was C3PO Hubbard. Tom wore a Darth Vadar mask. I wore a plastic mop pale on my head with a face drawn on it in magic marker. Our R2D2 was a dented metal garbage can with flashing lights attached. Our guest, Baby Irene (played by Kathy Higgins) tap-danced with three legs (the third was stuffed and sowed onto to Kathy's dress and she flipped it back and forth as she proclaimed "tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap".




 

Listen to another of our
"Camp Waterlogg" specials here!

Tom Giannazzo is now semi-retired and living in Florida with his wife and son. I say semi because I keep dragging him back to work! I'm just now planning new weekly broadcasts of The Comedy-O-Rama Hour: "Camp Waterlogg" to premiere Spring 2012.

Tom Giannazzo's Film & TV credits.

You can be sure there will be juicy parts for Tom Giannazzo (the only man I know who can clap with one hand).

Tom may be may earliest friend by not my earliest memory. THAT is a Christmas story--the year I saved Macy's. But you'll have to wait until you tune in next time...




Best to you all,

Joe Bev.

Joe Bevilacqua is a veteran award-winning actor, writer, author and producer. His audio is available at Amazon, iTunes, and Audible for Kindle, Blackberry, Android, iPhone, iPod or iPad download, or CD purchase or rental. Find out more!