Danny & Stannie

Danny Kaye stepped up to receive Stan Laurel's special Academy Award, after the comedian fell ill.

Danny Kaye and Stan Laurel didn’t exactly run around in the same circles. Kaye hob-nobbed with the elite in all fields—the finest actors and musicians, nationally known doctors and politicians. Laurel’s closest friends were his fellow screenwriters and other behind-the-scenes show biz folks.

Yet Danny greatly admired Stan’s work and talent, and in the early 1960s was among the many who visited the elderly Laurel at his beachside Santa Monica apartment. There, Laurel would welcome all who called, whether famous admirers like Dick Van Dyke and Marcel Marceau or just plain regular folks who’d always dreamed of meeting their idol.

Stan finally gets his hands on the prize.

In 1961, Laurel was selected to receive an honorary Academy Award, but shortly before the ceremony, he developed a hemorrhage in his left eye. He had Danny Kaye accept the Oscar for him. Soon after, Dick Van Dyke personally delivered the statue to Stan.

(Ironically, one other special Oscar was presented that same year—to Gary Cooper, who was also too ill to attend and had his award picked up by Jimmy Stewart. Four weeks later, Cooper was dead of cancer.)

Laurel would live four more years. By the time Stan passed away, on February 23, 1965, Danny—through his weekly variety show—had become a fixture on CBS. Not long after, a photographer who had visited Stan at his apartment several times thought the Tiffany Network should pay a proper, posthumous tribute to Laurel and recruited Van Dyke and other celebrities to convince CBS.

CBS agreed. But instead of showcasing the work of Laurel and Hardy, CBS used only quick, seconds-long clips and instead turned A Salute to Stan Laurel into a variety show featuring dance numbers and a parade of CBS sit-com stars in unfunny skits (from Lucille Ball to Fred Gwynne dressed as Herman Munster). Kaye’s second banana, Harvey Korman, appeared in one sketch as a cop.

Danny was also asked to participate and wisely declined to appear in any sketches. Instead, he consented to briefly reminisce about accepting Laurel’s Oscar and introduce a clip of Stan receiving it. The short bit was reminiscent of the “Sit Down Spot” Kaye would do at the end of each week’s Danny Kaye Show. Though he appeared for less than 60 seconds, Kaye received equivalent billing of those who were cursed with larger parts. The show was widely panned by audiences.

For those interested in Laurel and Hardy and the full story of the awkward variety show tribute, check out the forthcoming book Laurel & Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies, which is being launched in a special collector’s edition pre-sale on KickStarter. In fact, those who buy a copy of the new book can also add on Danny Kaye: King of Jesters at a discounted price (see "Me and My Pal" package)! So there is a Santa Claus!

The Sketch Danny Saved by Obliterating

Danny Kaye had a blast helping to destroy this Mikado spoof on a 1964 episode of The Danny Kaye Show, and crack up Imogene Coca and Harvey Korman in the process.

The new Danny Kaye: Legends DVD contains several slick entries of the Danny Kaye Show, but one episode that was so riddled with screw-ups it could have turned into one of the most embarrassing productions Kaye was ever associated with. Instead, thanks to Danny’s ad-libbing, it turned into one of the most fun.

What helped tremendously that week were two of Kaye’s co-stars, guest star Imogene Coca and series regular Harvey Korman. Coca had decades of experience adjusting to mid-performance mishaps. In 1939, she and Danny had appeared in dozens of sketches together live on stage at Camp Tamiment, and in the 1950s she and Sid Caesar had performed countless more sketches on live TV. Kaye’s TV series wasn’t live, but almost. It was shot “live on tape,” meaning it was recorded straight through in real time and then aired on CBS, usually with minimal editing, four nights later.

Series regular Harvey Korman, on the other hand, had much more trouble keeping a straight face when the unexpected came up, as weekly viewers of the Carol Burnett Show know (which Korman signed on for weeks after the last Danny Kaye Show aired). Tim Conway, in particular, knew Harvey’s weakness and would delight in trying to crack him up and get him off script.

Danny wasn’t quite so bad, but would occasionally try to break up Korman to help liven up a so-so sketch. Such was the case on the taping of December 6, 1964. Practically from the start, things started to go wrong. During a quick cold opening astronaut sketch, Danny stumbled on some of his lines and laughed it off—but you can see that he’s amused by Harvey slightly dropping his straight face, just for a millisecond. A dance number and a “perpetually-unemployed Rudy” skit followed, without a hitch. But then came Tony Bennett singing a few songs and one of the camera operators, for some reason, kept shooting the overhead boom mic.

Next up was one of Imogene Coca’s patented routines, a spoof of Swan Lake, with her in a molting swan costume. Although a comedienne, Coca had also spent years studying ballet and would frequently parody it. Swan Lake, too, went off effortlessly, because it was a number built around Coca and one she had performed many times before.

But then the wheels came off the bus. At Tamiment, Kaye and Coca had done a Jewish Mikado. So for the TV episode’s big production number, they’d do a World War II Japanese Mikado, called the Fledermikado.

From the opening scene, the actors started tripping on some of their lines. Korman began losing a little of his composure. Kaye—probably sensing the sketch would otherwise be flat—called him out mercilessly. He also took note of all the other things that kept going wrong—what was supposed to be an avalanche of hats falling from the sky turned into a dribble. Harvey hit his hat on the top of a low doorway. Harvey’s fake beard fell off. Kaye used the fallen beard as a punchline and prop for the remainder of the sketch, at one point even pinning it on Coca’s chin. By the end of the skit, he had the entire dancing troupe in hysterics.

Proof that this disaster was far more hilarious than if they would have stuck to the script is the fact that, as was their custom, the episode was taped in front of a live audience twice, once where the sketch went relatively smoothly, and once where everything went wrong. You can see which version ended up airing the following Wednesday night.