Bob Elliott, one of my all time favorite comedians has died. He was 92. Bob worked with his partner
Bob Elliott, one of my all time favorite comedians has died. He was 92. Bob worked with his partner Ray Goulding, mostly in radio, for decades. Their comedy was some of the best, genre-bending and reality warping I’ve ever heard, they exploited deadpan long before it became the staple of comedy it is now. (NYT Obituary)I’m not big on throwing the word surreal around to describe unusual creative output, but I’m hard pressed to come up w/ a better way to describe the Bob & Ray mix of humor, magical realism, and disregard for convention. Bob was famous for portraying the incompetent reporter Wally Ballou, as well as the … President … of … the … Slow … Talkers … of … America, a character he improvised on the spot when they needed to pad out the last couple minutes of a broadcast.If you’d like to sample the work, tune in here at Archive.orgThe duo did lots of TV together, prominent guests on talk and variety shows, as well as their own 15 minute program in the 1950s. Despite working on TV regularly for many decades, they were never a permanent fixture like they were on radio. In 1972s the duo were the central figures in a movie adaption of the Kurt Vonnegut story “Between Time and Timbuktu: A Space Fantasy”. It was poorly received, and has never been properly released (I’m hoping we’ll see one someday, as it would still be a great artifact of Bob & Ray’s work, and the era).His son, Chris Elliot, is one of my all time favorite humorists, and you can see Bob’s influence in the work Chris did on Letterman, Get A Life, and his books. If you every find a copy of “Daddy’s Boy” (link to NPR story about the book) co-written by the two, Get! It! Bob’s granddaughter Abby Elliott is also a comedian and performer, who was on SNL among other accomplishments. There’s a line (direct or not) from Bob Elliott to the perfectly overplayed seriousness of the Airplane movies, the media awareness and metatextual skewering comedy of shows like Sledge Hammer and The Office. Breakthrough phenomenon like Late Night with David Letterman (even aside from his son’s work there), The Daily Show/Colbert Report, Mr. Show, and Harry Shearer’s Le Show owe him a debt as well. Even more far afield creations such as Twin Peaks or the movies of Wes Anderson have Bob Elliott’s influence in their DNA. Awareness of Bob Elliott’s work is sadly at a low ebb now, due to the radio’s lack of prominence. I hope Bob’s passing leads to the opportunity for a reevaluation of his work, and an increase in its prominence and popularity. -- source link
#bob elliott#chris elliott#abby elliott#radio theater#radio#wally ballou#kurt vonnegut