If you thought that Jack Webb was all work and no play, with the closest thing to a joke being on radio (Pat Novak For Hire), think again.
Webb branched out and tried a radio comedy show in 1946. Didn't get very far, but then.......! 22 years later, with Dragnet a hit again, Webb appeared on The Tonight Show and did a quick 2:00 skit with Johnny Carson that went down in history as one of the greatest skits in the Carson era (1962-92). If you know anything about tongue twisters, then you're ready for the "Copper Clapper Caper":
You might not know this, but none of Carson's writers, nor Carson himself, wrote the skit. Webb did. Like, who knew Joe Friday actually had a sense of humor?
1 comment:
Belatedly:
Jack Webb was known to his friends as a witty man away from the cameras.
When Stan Freberg recorded St. George And The Dragonet, he asked Jack Webb for permission to do the parody.
It turned out that Webb was a big Freberg fan; he not only gave permission, he sent his Dragnet musical director, Walter Schumann, to personally handle the music (which Schumann did on all of Freberg's subsequent Dragnet spoofs).
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