The Funniest People in Television and Radio: 250 Anecdotes

This is a short, quick, and easy read. Anecdotes are retold in my own words to avoid plagiarism. Most of these anecdotes are meant to be funny, but some are meant to be thought-provoking. • Star Trek: The Experience can be seen at the Las Vegas Hilton. Among other attractions are actors portraying characters from the various Star Trek series. Many of the actors are very good, and they stay in character. For example, a famous Ferengi is Quark. When a fan yelled "Quark!" at an actor in a Ferengi costume, the actor sighed and said, "Billions of Ferengi in the Universe, and they [Hu-Mans] all think we are Quark!" The Ferengi are a notoriously acquisitive species, and Star Trek fan Kevin Wagner was shocked that an actor playing a Ferengi agreed to pose for free for a photograph with a fan. Therefore, Kevin quoted the 13th Rule of Acquisition to the Ferengi: "Anything worth doing is worth doing for money." However, the actor playing the Ferengi knew his stuff: "Don't quote the Rules of Acquisition to me, Hu-Man. Free publicity!" • George Burns and Gracie Allen had years of experience performing in vaudeville before they started doing their radio show. This long experience came in handy when mishaps occurred on their show. One day, the lights in the studio went out, and no one could read the script. On another occasion, Gracie accidentally dropped her script, and the pages scattered everywhere. Both times, they ignored the script. George simply asked, "Gracie, how's your brother?" — and Gracie started one of their well-memorized and very funny vaudeville routines. • Comedian Soupy Sales used to collect portraits of United States Presidents and American founding fathers. On his TV show for children, he once told his young viewers to go through Mommy's purse and Daddy's wallet and mail him "the little green pieces of paper with pictures of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Lincoln, and Jefferson on them. " In return, he promised to send the children a postcard from Puerto Rico.