Shark Bytes

I absolutely agree w/the last post. I am younger, missed the 60's and 70's, and don't feel any the worse for wear. My parents, slightly older than the baby boomers, introduced me to Skelton, and he is quite funny. As a matter of fact, I find I have grown to love old time comedy acts as much as I liked the programs I watched growing up in the 80's. I feel sorry that some boomers really did get messed up this way, but who knows, maybe when there gone a younger generation can rewrite the books and give credit where it's due.

It's real fascinating to me how a generation raised on the Donna Reed Show and Red Skeleton could "grow out of it" with acid, free love and the stuff that is too surreal for me to even begin to post about that supposedly went on at Height Ashbury before the place had to be burnt to the ground and rebuilt to prevent so much bad karma that the whole world probably would have turned to a pillar of salt. What did poor Red ever do to you to deserve this?

Red Skelton? Red Skeleton if I know anything about it.

I consider this an "o.k." show, a little too mild, even by early 60s standards, but that's what made Mr. Skelton such a class act. Sadly, that final season, when it went to NBC was a total stinker. Great run, but went that 1 year too long.

I wish I could see episodes of the 1960s Red Skelton Comedy Hour that aired on CBS. Have any of these shows been released on DVD?

NEVER JUMPED!!!! I, myself am only 18 years old, my grandfather introduced me to this comedic genious about a year after Red's death. Since then, I have seen close to every episode of The Red Skelton Show and can safely say that Red was a true master that never hit below the belt. He was virtuous and moral man and exemplified no better than on his show and public appearances. A few risque comments are no reason to say that this man jumped, the general public simply changed their interests faster than Red could change his techniques, this man is someone that deserves to be remembered forever as a man that brought comedy and values to the small-screen.

Skelton was a tortured genius. I see that a lot of you did research on him, so you know what he was like and what he went through. This show never jumped, although I do find that I enjoy his radio shows more than his live stuff. I do think that the public changed and Red didnt. thats not rose colored glasses that is a sad truth with many old timers. Skelton, Benny and Hope were the greatest. It's a shame that Skelton doesnt receive the hero worship the others do.

The person who wrote Red never jumped but his humor went out of style was right on the money. I cringe when I see tapes of his show now but that certainly wasn't the case when he was must-see TV for me. The next day at school the kids would have a hilarious time reenacting his skits. But we grew out of it. Red never changed his comedy and did not attract new fans. Additionally, he had numerous personal problems. As I got older, I realized Red was just not funny to me anymore. There came a time when I had seen enough.

I recently watched a collection of his shows on DVD. The man was a genius! But after the second year (I think), there was a definite change in the way he presented his humor. In the first year or so, it was alot of slapstick! It was like watching a friend acting out a funny joke. He hammed to the camera and the audience! He laughed at his own jokes, he ad libbed at lot! then something happen to change it. He was still funny, but in a sad way most of the time. His characters were downtrodden most of the time and his humor was in their resolution of their problems. I did some research and I found out that his son died of leukemia. He is, was, and always will be my favorite TV comedian but if he ever jumped the shark, it was after his son died.

For myself, I feel the show never jumped. However I will concede that you could see the show was in it's final days when the last year it moved from CBS to NBC. It also went from 60 minutes to 30 minutes, and added a new Skelton character, a scientist/inventor with a German accent named Ludwig Von Humperdoo. I grew up with this show on Tuesday nights during the 60's. To me, it was classic comedy, and I wish more of it could be seen on television in reruns today. I know some of those shows are available on DVD, but they never show it on TV and that's a shame. This was GREAT television. Far superior to the stuff that's on TV today.

My dad loved Red Skelton He first saw him on stage in 1937 . Red was a highly creative entertainer , and a big influence on other innovative comedians . He was well aware kids loved his show ,and it was good family fare . Red and Jackie Gleason were the last vaudevillians on tv . Even as the world became more cynical , Red's "Good night and God Bless" still rings sincere .

Never Jumped!!! Although I grew up after the show ended, I got to see Red on various TV shows, movies, etc and thought he was hilarious. Just watching the infomercial of his old shows on ***** gives me a chuckle! I DO remember hearing his beautiful rendition of the "Pledge Of Allegiance" - Red meant every word, you could tell. He even served in the Army (He set up a sign in the barracks, "Tour a Movie Stars Home", with the arrow pointing to his quarters) and like Bob Hope, entertained troops for many years. As for the above poster who whined about Red dropping the character of the "Mean Widdle Kid", here's the real story why: Red's son, Richard died at the age of 9 from leukemia. After that, Red was too heartbroken to recreate the character. He even made the announcement (I believe it was on his radio show - my parents remember when it happened) and SWORE the character was forever removed from his routine . It might also interest you to know his show was cancelled by TPTB not because of low ratings (the show finished in the top 20 right up to the end) but because the network wanted to draw a younger demographic. Most of those watching the show were over 50 - not the 18-35's the network really wanted. Goodnight Red, and God Bless.

It is interesting to note for jump the shark fans that the live audience laughter on this show during Red's pantomime skits are the source for many laugh tracks, right up to "Frasier" today. Since there was no spoken dialogue during these skits, it was very easy to get easily edited tracks, unadulterated by spoken lines. Laugh tracks actually go back at least as far as Bing Crosby's radio show, which was the first tape recorded program. According to lore, during one show another comedian was really cooking and Bing asked his recordist if there was anyway to get that laughter into his his monologue. They perfected this during the run of the show.

I don't know if it jumped. I'm just glad there are other people who didn't think it was funny. It's a crude, adolescent male humor that affects me in the same way as the sound of fingernails on a blackboard. But I do appreciate Red as a piece of theatrical history. If you want to see the epitome of an old-time burlesque "Top Banana," watch Red and imagine a stripper making her entrance after one of his comedy skits. It works.

My local pbs station aired a bunch of these last sunday. So I am not too familiar with the show, but I do feel he sort of jumped towards the end of his run. I don't know if it was his type of comedy that died or he became lazy, but what sort of bothered me was his inability to make it through a sketch without laughing. Almost every single line ended with some body giggling. It seemed like they were having fun, and forgot a couple million people were watching. Of course you should enjoy your work, but Red sort of took it too far towards the end, the show became a celebrity hang out instead of entertainment.