OCR Text |
Show Pat Paulsen: from prime time TV to 'Cartoons' photos by Dave Adler I II If1"' I I ..... . ... . 1 I .', X ' r V , - 'V ' ; - .. " " j Jt A. - ..( , s fjr - I I 7 ' " ff f ? i - - y , , v ll . I V 'wy? ill ll Ay- 'h----7 ; -. ;.: ; " . ' . A. i " . i 1 v. ' .,.- . ' ..... ..- . " . r- ' - I . , t 3 . ,., , . .., $ . . . .0 ;A . i I K V " w. ' 1 f I t, ... . 4 vV V'i- A ft. ' .,r 'I - :m - iv . ': v H . j ' 1 1 1 v ,s , . ..... . .,. a. J -...1 "Tommy (Smothers) was the least egotistical comedian I've ever known as far as helping people' -Pat Paulsen by Rick Brough Most of the public thinks of Pat Paulsen as a political comedian the guy who ran for president and did the garbled editorials on the Smothers Brothers Show. Paulsen calls himself a guy who does "silly" humor. Perhaps one example is the song he wrote for Tom Smothers about a guy who fell in a vat full of chocolate. He then yelled "Fire!" explained the singer, because no one would help him if he yelled "Chocolate!" Paulsen's style of comedy is featured at the all-comedy Salt Lake nightclub, Cartoon's, from March 14 to 17. (Please see What's Going On.) This week Paulsen talked to the Record about his humor, past and present. He doesn't define any particular source for his humor, "It's just whatever comes to you," he said. Early in his act, he said, he does some of the deadpan political humor that was his trademark on the Smothers show. "But you can't do that all night." He uses double-entendre in his act, he said, but not the more explicit humor of current comedy. Asked about Eddie Murphy's controversial stand-up act, he said, "I don't care what he does." But it's not a brave thing to do so many years after Lenny Bruce, he said, and when the profanity is used redundantly it becomes boring. Paulsen has 30 years of experience in doing comedy, after growing up listening to such radio comics as Jack Benny, Burns and Allen and Bob & Ray. In the '60s he wrote items like "Chocolate" and "Mediocre Fred" for Tommy Smothers, then became a household name of the Brothers' show. He doesn't say much about the brothers' fight over censorship with CBS. "I was a worker for Tommy, really," But he adds, "Tommy was the least egotistical comedian I've ever known as far as helping people." Paulsen said Smothers helped to launch such luminaries as Glen Campbell, Kenny Rogers and Steve Martin. (Martin was also a writer on "The Pat Paulsen Half-a-Comedy Hour," a solo effort in a variety show. Since the Smothers era, Paulsen has also starred in such movies as "Where Were You When the lights Went Out?" "Night Patrol," "Harper "Har-per Valley P.T.A." and "Bloodsuckers "Blood-suckers From Outer Space." He admitted, "I seem to have this facility for making really shty movies." ' He has also played to college audiences. "They don't know who I am, but to them a comedy act is a comedy act. I can go anywhere. He'll even play before a Chamber of Commerce. After all, he said, those are the '60s kids grown up. Paulsen doesn' t think of himself as a nostalgia figure from the Love-Child Love-Child era. "I have more than enough to do." He owns a winery in California and a stage theater in Michigan. And he is still "out in the trenches," he said, with the young comics working the comedy clubs around the country. "I'll work as long as 'I'm alive." |