robplunkett2 — 18 years ago(May 13, 2007 06:25 PM)

I remember being at the Improv (I hope I'm remembering the place right) at the very end of the 70's, the December 31 1979-January 1, 1980 show. Bruce Mahler was the climax act. The MC announced that he was going to be on a show called Fridays (which for some reason I supposed had something to do with Joe Friday of Dragnet) and he started out strong, pretending to be a fountain, spitting water through his teeth into the audience, doing a mock commercial, "Cometo heestoric Eetaly". From that moment he had us. He did many bits, several of which he later repeated in the comedy sketch show Fridays, that had us rolling in the aisles; the ventriloquist with a genuine supermarket chicked as a dummy, the Mexican DJ, etc., etc.
It was a great way to welcome in the 80's, no comedian I've seen on stage has ever made me laugh so hard. I followed Fridays with interest and am glad to see that, despite the scorn of the elite, practically everybody who comments on it on sites like this love and miss it.
Sadly, I saw him on one of those stand up comedian shows years later and he did some similar skits but it was very obvious that he was just going through the motions and he, consequently, wasn't funny at all. Never saw him since except on Fridays reruns. I don't know if he was just having a bad day or if the heart had gone out of him.