Rudy de Luca

            On Sunday morning I memorized the fourth verse of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are two verses left to learn. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since May 14. 

            I played my Martin acoustic for song practice and it went out of tune during every song. 

            Around midday I finished touching up the Blue Bliss paint on my bathroom rack. It’s ready now to mount on the wall, which I’ll probably do on Wednesday.

            I weighed 91 kilos before lunch. That’s the most I’ve pushed the scale in the early afternoon since March 2. 

            In the afternoon I rode up to The Dufferin Mall to buy socks and underwear so I don’t have to do laundry this week. I bought six ankle socks, six crew socks, and six pairs of briefs. Just riding up to the mall I saw two trees that had been torn down by the wind storm last night. 

            I weighed 90.4 kilos at 17:55. 

            I remembered to buy beer but the liquor store across the street closes early on Sundays so I had to ride down to the one at Uppity Village where I bought two six-packs of Creemore. During that ride I saw another blown down tree. 

            I weighed 90.2 kilos at 18:45. A little less than the evening of March 3. 

            I was caught up in my journal just before supper. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, black olive paste, tomato pesto, two sliced sausages and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 7, episode 17 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks who does the makeup for the show. She says it’s a little old guy named Al Schultz and she brings him out. He’s not old and in fact he later married Vicki Lawrence and they were together for 56 years until he died. 

            Someone asks if this is a repeat show. 

            Carl Reiner and Carol play a husband and wife who got to a restaurant to meet an insurance agent so they can be covered for accidents. Carol’s character is extremely accident prone and has only recently woken up from her second coma after their house burned down. Even just sitting there at the table she gets cut by broken glasses, burned by her husband’s cigar, gets a champagne cork shot into her mouth from across the room, has one of her real fingernails torn off, and she’s stabbed with a fork. The insurance man arrives (played by Harvey) and he gives them the papers to sign. Carl signs them but Carol still needs to sign. However, before she can, Carl accidentally steps on and breaks the fingers of her signing hand. Harvey sees she’s accident prone and cancels the deal. He closes his briefcase on her hand and starts dragging her away as he leaves. 

            Harvey plays an executive who is about to fly away to get married. Carol plays his dedicated secretary of 16 years who is staying behind to mind the office and obviously is in love with her boss. After he leaves she sings “Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim from the 1973 musical A Little Night Music. 

            Carl plays a marriage counselor who is on the phone with Bob who is thanking him for helping him patch things up with his husband. Harvey enters his office and he is the husband of a famous nightclub comedian named Totie Phyllis. He says the problem is that she will never stop joking even at home. Carl says to send her in but she refuses to enter until Harvey gives her show business intro similar to Johnny Carson’s entry. She makes a big intro and behaves as if the marriage counselor is a talk show host. She also brings her drummer wherever she goes so he can play a rim shot after every joke. Carl asks Totie if she loves her husband and she answers, “Does Raquel Welch sleep on her back?” (A reference to Raquel’s famously large breasts). Carl suggests a treatment whereby whatever joke he sets up, she doesn’t respond. He asks, “How fat is your mother in law?” Totie bites her fist to keep from responding. He asks several more questions. She screams and tries to crawl under his desk. His final question is, “What do you get when you cross a duck with Sonny Bono?” She collapses and Carl says she’s cured. Harvey picks her up and rejoices that he finally has his wife but she says, “An Italian quack is what you get when you cross a duck with Sonny Bono!” Harvey tosses Totie out the window. 

            Harvey comes to the supermarket with a hot date named Trixi. He’s bought several gourmet items because he plans to bring her back to his place and fix her a great meal before scoring. Carol plays the cashier and takes a long time to ring up all the items while Trixi is getting impatient and also is getting hit on by several men while she waits. A Boy Scout holds up three fingers in that organization’s salute but Trixi holds up five fingers to indicate his offer is short. By the time he’s finished Trixi is already leaving with someone else. 

            The final skit is a Mexican version of Little Red Riding Hood called La Caperucita Roja. Little Red Riding Hood is played by Carol in the character at that time very well known, voluptuous and highly sexualized Spanish actor, singer, and guitarist Charo. When she jerks her hips to the right or left it causes men to fall over as if they’ve been struck. Vicki in a Mexican accent plays the interpreter. Harvey plays the grandmother. Instead of a wolf there is a bull played by Carl Reiner. In La Caperucita’s basket she carries for her grandmother her special tortitas (which they say are little cookies but looking it up I see they are pancakes). They say that La Caperucita has the sweetest tortitas in town. The bull wants her tortitas and so he goes to grandma’s house to replace her. Grandma (played by a variation of Harvey’s big buxom woman character) has the hots for the bull. La Caperucita arrives but sees the bull’s horns and escapes. The matador (played by Lyle) replaces the woodcutter in the traditional story but when he sees the bull he runs away. La Caperucita defeats the bull with her cape and everyone wants her to kill him but her grandmother says to let him live with her. Then Carol and Vicki toss tortitas to the audience. Carol sings her usual closing song but in Spanish. 

            One of the writers for The Carol Burnett Show was Rudy de Luca, who cofounded The Comedy Store with Sammy Shore in Hollywood. He also wrote for The Tim Conway Show, He co-wrote Silent Movie, High Anxiety, Caveman (starring Ringo Starr), Million Dollar Mystery, Life Stinks, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, The Good Bad Guy, Screw Loose, and Box Office 3-D. He wrote the screenplay for Transylvania 6-5000. He co-starred in The Return of Count Yorga, and The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine.