TALES FROM THE SCRIPT: THE BEHIND-THE-CAMERA ADVENTURES OF A TV COMEDY WRITER by Gene Perret Read Free Book Online

mentioned that there was a guy
where he worked who wrote some pretty funny material. Phyllis said,
“Tell him to send me some. i’d like to see it.”
    i sent Phyllis two routines about Fang and her kids. She sent back
a check for $85. That was seventeen gags at $5 a gag. Phyllis bought
material from writers all over the country. in fact, once i was trying
to show some of my material to comedian, Jackie Vernon, who was
pretty hot at the time. When i introduced myself, i said, “i write a lot
of material for Phyllis Diller.”
    He said, “Who doesn’t?”
i became part of an army of housewives across the nation, who
wrote and sold gags to Phyllis. i got some notoriety for one of the
early jokes Phyllis bought from me. That joke singled me out from
the pack, i think.
    in her act, Phyllis used to kid about her cooking. She did gags
like: “i’m a terrible cook. i once went into my kitchen and caught a
cockroach eating a Tum. i had a fire in my kitchen once. What happened was a grease fire broke out in my sink. The firemen put it out
quickly, but 3 of them had to be treated for food inhalation.”
    i heard those routines and sent her a line that read: “i’ll give you
an idea how bad my cooking really is. Last Christmas the family
chipped in and bought me an oven that flushes.”
    Years later when i was working on the Helen Reddy summer TV
show, Joan Rivers walked by my office, popped her head in, and said,
“i know you. You’re the ‘oven that flushes’ guy.”
    Phyllis and i dealt mostly through the mail and occasionally over
the phone. The first time i met Phyllis Diller was when she appeared
at the Latin Casino in Philadelphia and invited me to see her performance. Six friends, my wife, and i went to see her one evening and
the place was packed. As we stood in line, someone came out and
called my name. When i responded, he said, “Phyllis would like to see
you in her dressing room before the show.”
    My wife and i went backstage to meet her. The first thing she said
to me was, “You’re my best writer.”
Rather than graciously accepting the compliment, i said, “Then
how come i’m not in Hollywood?”
She said, “You’re not ready yet.”
it turned out to be the first of many lessons Phyllis taught me and
it served me well throughout my career. it’s better to be patient with
career moves, rather than to rush into them before being prepared.
At that time, i was writing about thirty jokes a week for Phyllis. i
didn’t want to do more because i was afraid it would appear “pushy,”
and also i was afraid she’d balk at paying more.
She said, “Honey, i can afford to buy all the jokes you can give me.
You’ve got to start writing more.”
After that meeting i really started churning out one-liners for her act.
Of course, when we got back to our table, i told everyone about
our meeting and how Phyllis had called me out of line. As we walked
back to our car in the parking lot, i told them all about meeting Phyllis and how she had called me out of line outside the Latin Casino. As
we drove home, i repeated the story of how i met Phyllis Diller after
she had called me out of the line at the Latin Casino. Finally, someone
shouted, “For God’s sake, we heard the story already.”
    This was our table the night I first met Phyllis Diller in person.
My wife, Joanne, is third from the right. I’m second from the right—
the one laughing the hardest at my own jokes.
    So, i shut up . . . for awhile. Then, i told them about it again, just
in case, and maybe a few more times after that.
After Phyllis goaded me into writing more, i upped my weekly
quota from thirty gags to sixty gags. For several weeks, i felt like the
top of my head was going to explode, but eventually, i got used to the
additional writing. Another lesson learned from Phyllis Diller—you
can do more than you think you can.
When i sent material to Phyllis, she marked and numbered which
gags she liked and