Oct. 10, 1977 review: Comedian Robert Klein at UB

Certain comedians really speak to me and Robert Klein is one of them, probably because we were born in the same year – 1942 – and share a lot of touchpoints from our formative years, including Yankee fandom. 

Oct, 10, 1977

Comic Klein Rambles

Through Improvisations 

          Comedian Robert Klein steps on stage in a trenchcoat and cap in overheated Clark Gym on the State University of Buffalo’s Main Street Campus at 9:30 Sunday night, puts on his scarf and reassure the 1,900 folks in the student crowd.

          “OK, the score is 2-1 Kansas City in the third inning,” he says. “Number one, the game will take care of itself. If they win, they win. If they lose (gulp), they lose.”

          Klein is from New York City. Brooklyn to be exact. And his allegiance in this baseball playoff series is not exactly a secret. One of this recorded routines revolves around his boyhood idol, Mickey Mantle. The man is rooting for the Yankees. Passionately.

          The Mickey Mantle bit, however, is not one of the things he meanders onto during his 75 minutes. He doesn’t get into the old bits very much at all.

          He prefers to improvise. For instance, he concocts an elaborate bawdy story about the bas relief plaques in the gym. Besides, he’s got a lot of other things to talk about.

          There’s TV commercials like Andy Griffith for crackers (“no matter what you’re doing, it makes you hungry …”) and “the most cynical commercials,” the ones for a vitamin tonic.

          “They couldn’t pick on the old people any more,” he begins, “because old people need their money for frivolous things like food. And electricity. So they decided to pick on women. ‘The most important thing I do for my family every day …’”

          And then there’s just plain TV. Like doing the Johnny Carson show and summing up your life in six minutes. Or the wild animal shows where the camera crew is chasing the beasts across the lens (“Let the snake loose, Jim … well, I don’t know why it won’t move, kick it!”).

          Not to be neglected is his own half-hour TV show – Klein Time – that’s been shot down by the CBS censors. The pilot show had Madeline Kahn and Peter Boyle, he says, and it was supposed to be shown Aug. 2. The offending part, he says, was a film of a paramecium reproducing.

          “In case you don’t remember the textbook on the paramecium – they’re asexual. They split in two. They don’t need another paramecium,” he says.

          In conclusion, he brings out pianist Raymond Johnson from the Improvisation comedy club in New York and shows off his talent for making up songs on request. “ ‘Buffalo Drive-In?’ Hmm, I think it’s a ballad,” he instructs Johnson.

          The UUAB Music Committee, which co-sponsored Klein with the SA Speakers Bureau, made amends for last Sunday’s delays, which kept Jean-Luc Ponty fans standing in the cold rain. It was pretty much a punctual start for opener Sandy Bigtree, a decent Syracuse-based blues septet except for the female lead singer, who might be better off singing country-western.

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IN THE PHOTO: Cover of Robert Klein’s first comedy album, which is probably up in my attic.

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FOOTNOTE: This date found Robert Klein in a transition period. He’d explored his childhood in his first albums and Watergate, another source for him, had run its course. His next big splash, “Nick the Lounge Singer Sings Star Wars Theme,” apparently wasn’t ready yet, though you can see where it was going to come from. That would be a highlight of his appearance as host on “Saturday Night Live” in January 1978.

          As for Sandy Bigtree, she’s a citizen of the Mohawk Nation, she’s still based in Syracuse and still was performing from time to time in the 2010s. In recent years, she’s been a prominent figure in Native American circles. She’s a founding board member of the Indigenous Values Initiative, which collaborates with academic institutions to promote the culture of the Haudenosaunee.