RIP Rodney Dangerfield

He may have been the last of the great old-style, maybe vaudeville-like comedians. Jack Benny, Henny Youngman, George Burns, Milton Berle and now Rodney. His appearances 20+ years ago with Johnny Carson were hilarious--no one could get Johnny laughing harder and Dangerfield played off that energy and was on top of his form there.

He had a persona, an everyman who didn't get respect ("when I was born the doctor saw me and slapped my mother!") He carried that schtick farther than any other comedian, possibly other than the penurious image that Jack Benny created for himself.

Today, comics are almost unrelentingly political, scatological and sometimes cruel to other people. Rodney Dangerfield poked fun at himself, well the exaggerated person that he created, anyway. Drew Carey could have taken on the mantle of Rodney Dangerfield, but in his show, changed his character about half-way through and had beautiful women falling all over his character--changing from the middle-level manager who is a loser in love.

I saw Rodney Dangerfield in a large club many years ago, (before "Back To School") and I just about broke a rib, I was laughing so hard. Only when I saw Steve Martin early in his career had I laughed as hard, but Martin's non-sequiturs don't play as well in repeating them now, Dangerfield's jokes will go on.

It's a sad day in humorville.