Slappy White

My guest today was born in the mid-40s, like me, and became best known as a writer and producer for television.

However, his show business career began before that when he was, among other things, straight man for stand-up comedian Slappy White.

His first TV writing assignment came in 1969 on the short-lived variety show Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters.

He went on to write for some of the most successful shows in TV history, including Laugh-In, Sanford and Son, All in the Family, MASH, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, and The Golden Girls, among others.

I thought I could, you know, make a little extra money because I thought I was funny and I had some limited success doing that.

And then one night, Wednesday night, I was watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from New York City and black and white television.

And there was this comic on there called Slappy White.

And he was doing a bit called The First Black Vice President.

No.

What year did Slappy White die? Rich is

nodding in agreement.

Well, you know, I went to Red Fox's Broadway show where it was him.

It's already funny.

It was him, the surviving stepbrother, Slappy White.

No Skillet and Leroy? No, but LaWanda Page, who suddenly popped out in the middle of the show in a balcony as Ann Esther.

I love it.

And so we finish, and we go to see Red Fox at the Sahara.

And Slappy White is opening for me.

And I'd worked with Slappy.

Slappy.

They were great.

Great with

Tom Hanks, the slappy white stories.

Yeah.

Have you heard his-

"It's like Slappy White or something." [laughs]

Have you heard his ukulele song? He plays a, plays a ukulele.

Yes.

That's what I meant by everything changed.

So you now had like suddenly Nipsey Russell is on television a lot more and, you know, Slappy White.

And these older comedians like – Moms Mabley and Pig Meat Markham, like suddenly they have a resurgence because people are kind of curious about this world of comedy.

And and there's, you know, this underground world of dirty records with, you know, Red Fox and Lawanda Page and all of those people.