Monday, October 01, 2001 6:06:57 PM
This is one of the last days of the year when I can sit out here in the back yard with the laughing squirrels and the drooping sun flower plants. My mind turns, surely this evening, surely as a compass needle twitches towards magnetic north, toward Duke, the Wonder Dog!
A bit of history for enlightenment, please, maestro!
It was circa 1975 give or take a year, mostly take. The only comedy clubs in America were in San Fran, LA or New York and a tip of the hat to Second City. So we of Lackzoom, in the grand tradition of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, produced our own shows. We would rent a barn like space, print posters that would get tacked to utility poles, and, if we were firing all three cylinders, a newspaper interview, just for the publicity please. There is a picture of me in a turtle suit and Marc as a Martian that made the late edition of - I think - the now defunct Pittsburgh Press. Definitely the big-time.
At first we were tentative. Didn't trust our comedic instincts. We would ask others to perform with us. I think the highest price we ever charged was $ 1.50 per ticket. Actually, we didn't have tickets just Gelt in Hand at the Door stuffed into a shoe box. The show would sometimes last four or five hours. The poor audience sure got their money's worth.
The night that Duke performed there was a Magician, The Flying Zuchini Brothers, B Futz and his all Girl Review singing entr’acte, two sets of Lazkzoom, but before our first appearance - Duke the Wonder Dog!
I swear, I don't know how we found Duke and his Master. My suspicion has always been that they walked in off the street. The audience, by now molded into a crack comedy cluster, after being wowed by a magician, surprised by the antics of the Zuchinis and serenaded by Futz with his rendition of Hey, There Little Girl I Want Your Cookies was ready for anything as Duke took Center Stage . There were all kinds of paraphernalia on display. Step stools, boxes of matches, balls, open backed chairs, one of those pedestals that lions stand on in the circus, things that squeak in a mutt's mouth, most of all an aquarium and a raw egg! Duke was a mottled gray wonder of a German Shepard, Rin Tin Tin looking. Bright as all get out, unlike his Master.
Master: I want yins all to meet Duke, the Wonder Dog!
Audience: (Applause.)
Master: Say, hello, Duke!
Duke: Growl and Bark! (No you, nit, Duke didn't talk he was a Wonder Dog, not an escapee from Doctor Doolittle!)
Master: (with a grin) Hey, ye're simple Duke! (Looks toward the audience)
Audience: (An uneasy laugh! A cough or two.)
And then Duke goes through a couple of tricks. Lights a match! Smokes a Kool! Acts like a cowering cat. Barks America the Beautiful. Plays a drunk in a bar (Wait, maybe that was me later on).
Duke, pro marvel that he is, goes through the act, probably a little bored and definitely tired of being called “Simple!” and swatted on his back, which is causing a certain disquiet and an sympathetic backlash in an audience that is not particularly made up of animal rights activists, just plain folks with a great regard for Fido and Fluffy sitting peacefully at home with the kids and baby sitter. Duke was rapidly gaining their compassion.
The finale:
Master: As most of yins know dogs don't like to stick their heads unner water!
(Well, hell, I never knew that, but it made as much sense as anything we had seen. My mind and spirit went along for the ride)
The master with a water hose commandeered from the kitchen, begins to fill about a thirty gallon aquarium with honest to God Monongahela Tap while he patters on about the fact that it is hard for a dog to pick up a raw egg without breaking it between his powerful jaws.
(Sure! You can sense what is coming!)
Master commands dog to pick up the raw egg, proof positive, I suppose, that Duke is indeed a Wonder. Duke balks just as he is about to put his chompers around the frail egg. Master says (yep), "Y'ere simple Duke and shoves the dog's head down hard, smacking doggy jaw against the floor. The audience, who has been up until now patiently knitting, begins to erect a guillotine. Duke to his credit and to my anguish sucks it up and picks up the egg in his powerful jaws...then gently sets it back on the floor, unscathed. He's a Wonder! He growls triumphantly. Proving to everyone who the really simple one is.
A deathly silence fills the room as Duke's Master puts the slobbery egg into the bottom of the aquarium!
The audience begins collectively gasping for breath in the electric air as the sheer terror of what is about to happen simmers slowly into their consciousness.
Master: Duke! (The master commands, the dog isn't even looking at him any more) Get that egg!
Duke does not move a muscle.
Master: Grabs the dog's head. Lifts it up higher than the edge of the tank, over the water. It is clear now by the menacing canine growls of both Duke and the audience that they are all shocked beyond any relief and mightily pissed.
Master: And shoves Duke's bristling head into the aquarium!
Long suffering, Duke, is, at last, done. His drenched head comes out of the water sputtering. The sounds that he is making would frighten a pack of tigers on the prowl. His hackles up, Duke is at the end of his poor doggy patience and the audience is cheering him on!
I wish I could say that Duke tore the guy's arm off and that the people finished him, but Master Yins, even his dim bulb finally beginning a smoldering glow of understanding, senses his defeat, and pulls Duke by his choker toward the kitchen and the rear door. That was the last that we ever saw them. I still gnaw on the squeaky thing later at night after watching Lassie on the Animal Channel.
After a rousing intermission. We performed our comedy until about one AM.