By John Saleeby
September 1, 2001
| |
This
picture displays the complex character relationship between Freddie
Prinze and Jack Albertson, stars of "Chico and the Man." |
When we were little punks
in the sixties we used to watch an awful TV show called "The FBI" starring
an actor named Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and the big joke was "Well, yeah
- But who the hell was Effrem Zimbalist SENIOR!?! Haw haw haw!!!" Just
the other night I walked into a room full of people watching Jay Leno
interview Freddie Prinze Jr. and during one of the many long, painful
pauses between the end of Leno's questions and the eventual arrival
of Junior's answer, I asked the group if any of them knew who Freddie
Prinze Senior was. Nobody had a clue, although one of them knew something
about Effrem Zimbalist Senior.
I found this exceedingly
sad, although not quite as sad as the sight of Freddie Junior sitting
in a chair struggling to force coherent speech out of the front of his
head without giving himself an aneurysm. Leno was waving around the
latest issue of Cosmo Junior, Cosmo Virgin, Cosmo Acne, or whatever
the hell the teenage version of Cosmopolitan is called (Cosmopoliteen?)
in which Junior had been selected in a reader's poll as Boy Of The Year
or Cutest Guy EVER!!, I dunno, I can't think about this stuff very long
without feeling really creepy and auditioning to play piano for John
Cougar. Leno was in a froth over this and his discussion with Knucklehead,
Jr. , which lay somewhere below the dialogue between an Irishman muttering
to a lump of corned beef he's found on the floor, went basically like
this -
LENO: Lookit what they picked
as your best feature! Look!
JUNIOR: I dunno, I dunno . . .
LENO: Your BUTT! They picked your BUTT as your best feature! Your BUTT!!!
JUNIOR: I dunno what to say, I dunno what to say . . .
LENO: Your BUTT!!! Your BUTT!!! They like your BUTT!!!
JUNIOR: I dunno what to say. I dunno what to say . . .
And it went on and on like
that until Junior suddenly used a word with four syllables and Leno
immediately went to a commercial before all the little girls turned
into lesbians. Lord, these guys are dumb. DEVO
was right, as technology has gone forward man has gone into reverse.
What a pathetic change from when Freddie Prinze Senior first appeared
on The Tonight Show more than a quarter century ago. This is another
thing you kids may not know - In the old days The Tonight Show was actually
quite a good TV show that intelligent human beings could watch from
beginning to end without wanting to drive to Los Angeles and murder
everyone involved. It was hosted by a man named Johnny Carson who had
what people in those days called "talent." Carson applied this gift
to the now forgotten art of "humor," using it write and deliver intricately
crafted verbal compositions referred to as "jokes" which prompted listeners
to emit a spontaneous sound known as "laughter." Eh, I'm wasting my
time with this - soon as you read the name "Carson" you mongoloids started
thinking I was talking about that guy Carson Daly on MTV and began panting
for a little juicy Tara Reid gossip. Anyway, anyway, anyway… unlike
Leno who would tell you Gary Condit was a really funny guy if the bastard
was about to come out and tell five minutes worth of Connie Chung jokes,
Johnny Carson only told you someone was funny if they were really really,
really funny. And when Freddie Prinze Senior appeared on The Tonight
Show in 1973 at the age of nineteen, he was so funny that he became
the most popular stand up comic in America overnight. BOOM!!! Millions
of people who were in bed at the time woke up the next morning wearing
Freddie Prinze Fan Club Pajamas.
Freddie Prinze was born
Frederick Karl Pruetzel on June 22, 1954 and grew up in the Washington
Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Washington Heights!?! Hey, I used
to live in Washington Heights! Really middle class, square kinda place,
mostly Hispanic and Jewish which is apt because Freddie was Puerto Rican
and Hungarian Jewish. Everybody assumed I was Irish because I was white
and drunk. (I was known as "That Fucked Up White Guy Who Hangs Out In
Comedy Clubs With Niggers And Queers." - You see, after what eventually
happened to Freddie, people in Washington Heights don't have a real
high opinion of the kinda people who frequent comedy clubs and CHEERS
TO THEM!) A bright, creative lad, Freddie became King Of The Block by
designing and building his very own Ham Radio. Hey, when I was that
age I couldn't make a ham sandwich, but lemme tell ya . . . Determined
to make it in show biz, Freddie got a flunkie job at The Improv comedy
club, eventually spending so much time there he dropped out of high
school to work on his act full time. The Improv!?! Hey, I used to perform
at The Improv! (I was known as "That Fucked Up White Guy Who Should
Just Go The Hell Back Up To Washington Heights.")
The stand up comedy scene
in those days wasn't at all like it is today. Nowadays the U.S. Census
Bureau estimates that seventy eight percent of the population is working
on a stand up act, but when Freddie Prinze was starting out, the only
stand up comics in New York were Jay Leno, David Brenner, and Richard
Lewis. Now stop writing Dick Cheney Heart Attack Jokes long enough to
think about that - When Freddie Prinze began doing stand up the only
competition was Jay Leno, David Brenner, and Richard Lewis? Shit, no
wonder he made it so fast!! Those guys have got a lot of nerve still
showing their faces in public after getting their butts so decisively
thrashed by some dumb ass teen age high school drop out! Oh man! Whoooo!
Ouch!
Immediately following his
debut on The Tonight Show Freddie went prime time with "Chico And The
Man" in which he co starred with Jack Albertson. "Chico And The Man"
was a huge hit but I don't remember watching it very much. This was
the early seventies, and all us really cool people were too busy listening
to Big Star, The Velvet Underground, and The Broken Arms to watch some
silly TV show. (What!? You never heard of The Broken Arms!? You square!?!)
But it didn't last very long. Freddie was a big drug user ( Lenny Bruce
was his idol - When are we finally gonna quit teaching children to worship
that piece of shit? When are - Oooohh! I gotta go - Keith Richards is
on TV! My man! ) and it wasn't long before he was a total mess, his
wife dumped him (See, it fell apart so fast I didn't even have time
to tell you he got married and had a baby son), he was arrested for
driving drunk, and - in a grim foreshadowing of the fate which was soon
to befall him - he performed at Jimmy Carter's Inaugural Ball. Freddie
spent his final days bombed out of his skull watching The
Zapruder Film over and over again (Hey, I do that to bring myself
OUT of a depression!) and, after a long binge of qualudes and coke while
under the worried eye of fellow comic, Alan Bursky, Freddie shot himself
in the head on January 29, 1977 at age 22. Speaking as a former stand
up comic, allow me to share my insider's perspective of this tragedy
with youse rubes - The Real Reason Freddie shot himself was having Alan
Bursky around. You have to be or have been a stand up comic to know
this, but Alan Bursky is The Biggest Asshole In The World. Ask any stand
up comic you happen to see , "Who's the biggest asshole?" and they'll
tell you "Alan Bursky!" ( If they're funny they'll do a little trick
with the syllables to make "Alan Bursky" sound like "Chicken Of The
Sea." ) Don't get me started on the details, you don't wanna know -
Just take my word on it, if you had Alan Bursky hanging around with
you in your house all the time you'd be taking tons of drugs and then
blowing your brains out, too. He's an ASSHOLE!!
The obvious facts are that
Freddie was far too talented and intelligent for a piece of crap show
like "Chico And The Man" and too young and inexperienced to be in Hollywood.
He should have been left to develop on the lower rung of the comedy
business - High School. Anybody who would allow a teenage boy to drop
out of high school to hang around in comedy clubs all night should be
locked up in prison. No, even worse than prison, they should be locked
up in a comedy club. No, I don't have a chip on my shoulder about comedy
clubs!! Leave me alone!! Don't bother me until it's time for me to go
on!!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN JON STEWART JUST CAME IN AND YOU'RE PUTTING HIM
ON BEFORE ME!!!!! AAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!! GODDAMMIT!!! SHIT!!! AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!
But if Freddie Prinze Senior
was too smart and talented for Hollywood you sure can't say the same
thing about Freddie Prinze Junior! Is he worried that squeezing out
two or three lumps of ca ca like "Head Over Heels" or "She's All That"
a year will hurt his career in the long run? Hell, no - You might as
well have asked Eddie Murphy if anybody really wanted to see him in
"48 Hours II" or "Beverly Hills Cop III". If it wasn't for Hollywood
this dope would be working in the Drive Thru Window at Wendy's. The
only plausible explanation for this young man's career is that Hollywood
felt so guilty over what happened to his dad twenty four years ago everyone
agreed to do everything they could to help his poor little sonny boy
lead a happy life without him. Hey, that might explain why a useless
sack of shit like Jim Belushi has a new
sit com on ABC with a cute babe like Courtney Thorne Smith!
Now - Maybe I'm getting
a little nasty here, but Freddie Junior is so lame an actor he may just
be even worse than ANDREW MCCARTHY! Mon Dieu! Yes, an actor so completely
forgettable that no matter how often the local Fox affiliate reruns
"The Joy Luck Club" I am always genuinely surprised to see that he is
in it, ("Hey, Andrew McCarthy! What are you doing with all these Chinese
people? Raising funds for Al Gore? Haw haw haw!!") Andrew McCarthy was
a member of the eighties Brat Pack, most of whom were killed in a tragic
fire at Judd Nelson's house in 1985. Well, almost. I got lost and burned
down a record producer's house by mistake. I've always held that McCarthy
was the most horrible actor I have ever seen, but now that Freddie Prinze
Junior is here I'd be more than happy to see my man Andrew as Stanley
Kowalski in Tennessee William's "Streetcar Named Desire" with Rosie
O'Donnell as Stella and Louie Anderson as Blanche DuBois. He is so dead
on his ass we should call him Frederick Karl Pruetzel Junior. My Fellow
Americans - Our Course Of Action Is Clear . . . . This is a job for
Alan Bursky Junior!
