One of the funnier comedians to fall into obscurity since his Vegas and
Johnny Carson heydays is Pete Barbutti. Barbutti was a seriously adept
jazz musician and very funny stand-up comic. His regular appearances on
Johnny Carson were legendary and Barbutti's website features a plethora
of Tonight Show appearances from the seventies and eighties in full to
view here.
Eventually Pete started to fade away from showbiz life and entered the
lucrative world of regional Canadian television where he hosted a
cooking program called Celebrity Microwaves (seriously). The title
pretty much says it all (comic actor Richard Deacon also jumped on the
Microwave cooking bandwagon in the eighties, penning a cookbook for
Microwave delicacies). This 1966 Decca LP places Pete Barbutti at the
height of his career. It is sharp, funny and eccentric, and one of
those instances when the comedian is certainly "playing to the band"
except in this instance, Pete Barbutti was from the band. Listen to the whole LP here.
Did it get better? I deleted it from the GE podcast after the first five minutes of ultra-stale "Where are you from?" jokes. It was utterly painful.
Posted by: Stewart | January 11, 2009 at 01:30 AM
Extremely funny in that "didn't see it coming" way.
Posted by: Jonathan Steinke | January 18, 2009 at 06:21 PM