MILTON BERLE: THE MOST OVERRATED COMEDIAN

A lot of people liked Uncle Miltie. Being born in 1974, he was pretty much before my time, but I am a student of old comedy. My two favorite comedians were Jack Benny and Jackie Gleason. There are so many overrated comedians that you could throw a custard pie and hit 10 of them, but the all-time honors go to Milton Berle. Berle was one of those comedians that you are supposed to laugh at . He looked funny, he dressed in outrageous getups (often women’s clothes, an instant comic turnoff for me), and he did anything for a laugh. He made a lot of noise, and he had a frenetic, wacky persona. In short, he behaved the way a comedian is supposed to behave. I admired his energy and courage and even his brashness—he bullied laughs out of audiences through the sheer force of his slam-bang style—but I never once cracked a smile. I don’t like clowns, and Berle was essentially a clown.

In April of 1979 Milton hosted Saturday Night Live. Milton is in the pantheon of the worst hosts the shows ever had. He sabotaged the show to be a self-serving celebration of himself, and made everyone in the cast absolutely miserable the entire week. The most amusing moment in the entire now is  Dan Aykroyd looking like he wants to punch him during the goodnights. He was widely viewed at the time and now as a very poor host, who planted his audience. The only sketch of the whole thing worth a damn is the Widettes. BUT - if you really want cringe worthy Uncle Milty, check out his workout tape. It's really a thing and extremely uncomfortable.

In 1993, Berle turned up on the MTV Movie Awards with crossdresser RuPaul. These two decided to drop the pre-written banter and go for the jugular. Things quickly turned tense, with RuPaul ad-libbing: “So you used to wear gowns, but now you’re wearing diapers” and Milton replying with, “Oh, we’re going to ad-lib? I’ll check my brain and we’ll start even.” Major yikes.

As late as the late 1990s, Berle thought he was still Mr. Television. He was appearing at an awards show and asked the audience to join him in singing his old theme song "Near You". No one knew the song or what he was talking about. Berle was television in the 1950s, and the only reason I can see why is because audiences were hungry for any entertainment on television - so Milton Berle slipped in. Even before television, Berle was a failed movie and radio performer. Not be be negative, but I never understood why people thought Milton Berle was funny. To me he was corny, unfunny, and mostly unwatchable in anything I saw him in...