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Milton Berle got laughs or he got nothing, and if he got nothing he made a wacky crack that
pulled the laughter right out of peoples throats. Right out of their hearts. Right out of their souls.
The world was a better place a week ago. It still had an Uncle Miltie in it. If we'd never ever had or known an Uncle Miltie that would be one thing we wouldn't know how much we needed him.
When Milton Berle died on, so sadly, the first night of Passover, the national comedian population wasn't just depleted by one. No. Uncle Miltie was a whole chorus of comedy-a school, a tradition, a couple of genres, a slew of eras. They were all wrapped up in one great nut whose colleagues over a fabulous lifetime ranged from Charlie Chaplin to John Belushi, from the Floradora girls to the Muppets.
Here was a man who not only could always make us laugh but who in fact insisted upon it. He sang a song once that he helped write, one of several on which he collaborated, this one called "Always Leave 'Em Laughing When You Say Goodbye." But dammit he didn't get to say goodbye, and we weren't laughing.
Perhaps someone can launch an investigation in order to pinpoint, just to have it on the record, the exact date and time of Uncle Miltie's last laugh. In "The Last Hurrah," Spencer Tracy says of a colleague, "How do you thank somebody for a million laughs?" But Uncle Miltie gave us a lot more than a million. How do you thank somebody for a lifetime of laughter, for way too many laughs to count?
Comedy pioneer
If you ever met Uncle Miltie, you'd remember it well, and if you ran into him several times, you are bound to remember especially the first For me it was a lunch at the Polo Lounge many years ago, Milton in full Berle; he was in his element, a monarch who presided over the...