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The previous a number of years haven’t been too nice for Martin Brief’s celebrity-interviewing alter-ego Jiminy Glick. After popping up within the canceled selection sequence Maya & Marty, Jiminy arguably hit an all-time low when he interviewed “Donald Trump,” as performed by Jimmy Fallon, on The Tonight Present.
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However the Glick character rebounded in a giant means this week, first with a lukewarm roast of Invoice Maher, adopted by an look on Jimmy Kimmel Dwell! the place the portly character hilariously questioned Invoice Hader concerning the demise of Willie Mays and life at Diddy’s pool home.
Based on Brief, he didn’t initially create Glick to parody dangerous journalists, however relatively, to satirize “morons with energy.” And to additional immerse himself within the character, he donned an understandably controversial fats swimsuit, impressed by a scene within the 1991 comedy Pure Luck, by which his character will get stung by a bee and swells up. Recalling that co-star Danny Glover remarked “I can not see you in there” throughout filming, Brief opted to take an identical, prosthetic-heavy method to Glick.
However Brief additionally owes a giant debt to comic Sammy Labella, aka Skip E. Lowe.
Labella, who handed away in 2014, had a minor Hollywood profession within the Nineteen Forties, even showing briefly in a Lucille Ball comedy, earlier than finally turning into an everyday nightclub comedian and a USO performer. In 1978, he created the pseudonym “Skip E. Lowe” for the Los Angeles-based public entry speak present Skip E. Lowe Appears to be like at Hollywood, which ran for 35 years. Labella/Lowe, interviewed greater than 6,000 folks, together with Hollywood legends like Orson Welles, Shelley Winters and Milton Berle.
Lowe additionally made headlines within the ‘90s for attacking conservative fraudster Charles Keating with a “powdered blonde wig” that he stored in an “MGM journey bag.” One thing Lowe appeared fairly pleased with.
Brief credited Lowe with having partly impressed Glick throughout an interview with David Letterman, explaining that the character is “a bit little bit of Skip E. Lowe. … He talks to folks, however he will get confused with super enthusiasm.” It’s not onerous to see why; Glick’s mannerisms, bluntness and occasional non-sequiturs definitely appear draw on Lowe.
Brief wasn’t the one comedic performer to take discover of Lowe, both. In 1998, only a 12 months earlier than Glick first appeared on The Martin Brief Present, Harry Shearer penned a prolonged piece about Lowe, singling out the interviewer’s charming ineptness, and odd interviewing model. “Skip E. Lowe Appears to be like at Hollywood doesn’t a lot re-invent tv as de-invent it,” Shearer wrote, “returning it to these wonderful days earlier than focus teams, when the tube was protected for eccentricity and obsession.”
However Brief additionally started parodying Lowe greater than a decade earlier than Jiminy Glick got here to be, enjoying a personality named “Skip E. Excessive” on SCTV.
Per Lowe, he knew Brief previous to his fame, again when he was a “busboy” at Chasen’s, the legendary Hollywood restaurant the place, maybe not coincidentally, Jiminy Glick labored as a busboy for eight years, in line with his fictional biography. Lowe additionally claimed that his good friend, Paul Shaffer, used to ship tapes of his present to the “very proficient” Brief, which led to the comic “placing this character, Jiminy Glick, along with my model.”
In different interviews, Lowe was much less charitable on this topic. “He’s making me seem like a careless interviewer!” Lowe informed The Village Voice in 2001. “Martin Brief thinks no one remembers that on SCTV, he had a personality named Skip E. Excessive with a blond wig and a black turtleneck. He says (Jiminy Glick was impressed by) Merv Griffin. It’s not Merv Griffin, it’s me! He solely admitted it as soon as on the Letterman present.”
“I stroll down Sundown, and other people say, ‘Jiminy Glick!’ It’s terrible!” Lowe complained.
And, to be truthful, no one would need to be confused with a personality who requested Mel Brooks, “What’s your massive beef with the Nazis?”
You (sure, you) ought to observe JM on Twitter (if it nonetheless exists by the point you’re studying this).
