Pat Cashin's CLOWNALLEY: ELMO GIBB REMEMBERS: The Dentist Gag

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

ELMO GIBB REMEMBERS: The Dentist Gag

After an email discussion about reviving the Dentist Gag for the upcoming Clown College reunion, Dean "Elmo Gibb" Chambers sent the following...

I always thought that the dentist gag was pretty stinky. If you don't have a good big-ass nurse it just dies.

Buck Nolan, first-of-May "Omar Gosh" (Michael Ridenour) and I did it on Hoxie-Great American in 1983. Billy Martin would kibbitz on the microphone and Charly Moyer would pipe in from the bandstand whenever the mood hit him. Omar came in as a skinny nurse and Charly piped up, "What a face...what a figure...two more legs and she'd look like Trigger!"

The gag became a masterpiece of verbal one-upmanship, once actually going on just over 20 minutes in Henderson, TN. At the end of the tour Jim Parker came and guest clowned with us. Lou came to visit the show that night; even Hoxie Tucker himself (hat brim up) came in to watch the gag. Parker was wearing one of Flo White's nurse drags. I'd call for the anaesthesia and he'd hand me the hammer. I'd call for the pliers and he's hand me the needle, and so on. I yelled, "Those aren't the pliers!" Parker responded, "Picky, picky, picky!" Buck fell out of the chair laughing, Billy Martin and Charly were about wetting themselves, and Lou was laughing his head off.

There was no way to top Parker on that one.

We couldn't lift Buck back into the chair, so we got a lot of business out of that for a while. We eventually got to the standard, unsatisfying blow-off. Lou came up at intermission and said to me, "Sometimes it's a lot better to be a big fish in a small pond," referring to the intimate size of the Hoxie show. That's the last time I ever saw Lou.

I was going to produce one hell of a dentist gag for Beatty-Cole one year. I made a revolving/tilting dentist chair that was strong enough for the dentist to stand on the arms while working on the patient. The patient had a coat on that had a celastic shoulders gimmick that would raise up over the patient's head, and a fake head put in place by the dental assistant. The dentist sticks a stick of dynamite in the patient's mouth, which blows the head off. Of course, it is quickly restored by hiding the fake head and dropping the shoulders back into place. I stored the stuff at Jimmy Douglas' place, went out doing advance for Beatty-Cole, Jimmy died and the estate people cleared the place out.

What really ticked me off is that my miniature antique covered wagon from the Romig riding act was gone, too. I never could find out where the stuff went off to.

Jimmy produced the alley for many years for the Shrine in Rochester, NY. Kodak would send a team of photographers every year to the show. Jimmy had an incredible store of big blow-up clown portraits stored under the bed in the guest room. Those disappeared too.

What really, REALLY ticked me off was Jimmy's notebook disappeared as well. He promised it would pass on to me. In it was every version of every clown gag he ever saw. Lou Nagy had a similar notebook, too. His instruction to his sister was to burn it upon his death.

THE DENTIST GAG

Props needed:
Dentist chair
Sign for the dentist: DR.I. PULLEM, DDS, DOA, DDT

Doctor's satchel containing:
Stethoscope (I know a dentist doesn't use one, but you can get some pretty good business out of one)
Giant tongue depresser and flashlight
Giant syringe
Stinky shoe (for anaesthesia)
Big drill
Crowbar
Hammer & Chisel
Corn for patient to spit out
Big pliers

Mirror for patient
Cloth to wrap around patient's head to hide fake tooth
Giant foam tooth

I'd make the dentist as demonic and sadistic as possible. Watch the WC Fields short to see some brilliant business on the chair. At the reunion, pull the tooth, turn to the patient and ask how he's doing, turn to the audience and say, "Everybody?"

They will all say in unison, "Hey, Doc, you pulled the wrong tooth!"