“Forgotten Hollywood”- Remembering Humor of Alan Sues!
Manny P. here…
Outlandish sketch comedy was a noted staple of variety shows on television of the 1960’s. Elements of this funny approach has its roots in the song scoring of Spike Jones and His City Slickers. Ernie Kovacs was a pioneering expert in this style of delivering raucous lines with expert timing. A comedian known for this type of humor was Laugh-In regular Alan Sues, who died last week. ALAN SUES ———–>
Sues honed his skills on stage and the silver screen. His credits include Tea and Sympathy on Broadway, directed by Elia Kazan; and film roles in Move Over Darling and The Americanization of Emily.
The comedian is best known for television roles on The Twilight Zone, The Wild Wild West, and of course, his five years on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. The vaudeville concept of sketch was popular on the top-rated weekly program that aired on NBC. Alan worked well with his co-stars Ruth Buzzi, Joanne Worley, Judy Carnes, and particularly, Dick Martin. Popular segments involving Sues included him playing a hungover kiddie-show host, and a crazy sports anchor who rang a goofy bell. As he put it: I love my tinkle!
ROWAN & MARTIN
Sues appeared in television commercials for Peter Pan Peanut Butter during the 1970s. His favorite role was playing Professor Moriarty in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, when he toured with Leonard Nimoy with the Royal Shakespeare Company over a three-year period.
Alan Sues belongs in the television Pantheon containing loud humorous technicians during its Golden Age, joining Don Knotts, Frank Fontaine, Paul Lynde, Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Rip Taylor, Charles Nelson Reilly, among others. This rip-roaring era of sketch-work made the small screen so improvisationally successful, and should never be forgotten.
Alan Sues was 85.
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Monday, December 5th, 2011 at 12:48 am and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
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