Joking Matters with Saul Turteltaub

[Zoneboy]

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Sometimes it gets really cold in New York. How cold? Well it got so cold once that a flasher started describing himself to a passerby ... so cold a guy snowed in his pants.

If you can remember when there were only two or three channels on the television set, you probably know the work of comedy writer and Sun Valley resident Saul Turteltaub.

If he didn't write your favorite jokes from the classic sitcom era, he probably remembers who did.

"Comedy has been my life," he says. "You can say and do anything these days. But in the 1960s it was different. You could say 'heaven,' but not 'hell.' You could say 'devil,' but not 'god.'"

Warm and avuncular, with a sometimes mischievous grin, Turteltaub played a part in the transformation of popular culture in America, from the staid and sometimes intolerant 1950s to the let-it-all-hang-out 1970s. He wrote for 36 TV comedy series, putting jokes in the mouths of Dick Van Dyke, Phyllis Diller, Redd Foxx, Jackie Gleason, Carol Burnett and Bill Cosby, to name a few.

He won three Emmy Award nominations, and a Peabody Award, as well as a Humanitas Award for "The Shari Lewis and Lambchop Show."

"Growing up, all I wanted to do was be Jerry Lewis," he says wistfully.

Turteltaub first came to Sun Valley in 1954 to work as a bus boy at the lodge. On leave from Columbia Law School, he had been dreaming of visiting the glitzy Idaho ski town since watching "Sun Valley Serenade" with his folks in the Catskill Mountains of New York in 1942.

The first person to sit at his table was Groucho Marx, and two young ladies, ages 11 and 18.

"This was heaven for someone who wanted to be in comedy. I served them all buns and butter. The next day, Groucho married the 18-year-old."

When Turteltaub got out of the Army in 1947, he was watching TV and recognized an old girlfriend doing a comedy routine with puppets. He sent Shari Lewis a letter and then a comedy sketch, and was soon hired to write "Sheri Lewis and Lambchop" for the next five years. It was his first steady gig.

Then came work on Allen Funt's "Candid Camera" and "That Was the Week That Was," which won Turteltaub the Peabody Award.

Comedy writers were challenging television network censors with provocative writing and testing social barriers in a country in the throes of tumultuous change.


"Back then, if Dean Martin came out with Lena Horne on his arm, the network executives would yell, 'We'll lose the South!' We always tried to do the right thing, but unfortunately, they were more afraid of losing clients, in losing the people who bought the soap."

After writing for the Carol Burnett Show (her famous ear tug was a hello to her grandmother), Turteltaub wrote for the "New Dick Van Dyke Show" in 1971. One episode featured a character playing Van Dyke's son, who brought home a black girlfriend one day.


Meanwhile, a fledgling sitcom called "All in the Family," created by Norman Lear, was getting bad reviews.

"It was an exceptional show," Turteltaub says. "The genius was in creating Archie Bunker."

"All in the Family" won several Emmy Awards that year and became one of the country's longest-running sitcoms, embarrassing many a bigot along the way.

Turteltaub's Dick Van Dyke episode ran also, following the success of "All in the Family."

"But only because Van Dyke's deal with the network gave him final say over the script," Turteltaub says.

He also wrote for "Sanford and Son," which featured Redd Foxx and was brought to America from England. The original show featured white guys, instead of black guys, and was called "Step Toe and Son."

"There was a time when Redd Foxx and other black comedians couldn't even enter the clubs to do their shows because of discrimination," Turteltaub says.

He says comedy writing is not what it used to be.

"In the old days, you'd have a few freelance writers and one or two people finishing the script at the end of the day. By the time I left 'Cosby,' there was a room full of 15 writers trying to one-up one another. The humor stays horizontal. People can only laugh so hard."

Turteltaub and his wife, Shirley, are visited in Sun Valley regularly by two sons and their families. They have three grandchildren.

In reflecting on his career in comedy, Saul Turteltaub seems to have few regrets. But if he could do it all over, he said, he would rather have one show that runs forever rather than many different writing jobs over the years.

"'The Cosby Show' ran for eight years and then sold into syndication for $300 million. The actors on 'Seinfeld' worked an extra year for

[Marvo301]

Great article! It's fun to hear stories from someone who"was there"!