Rodney Dangerfield Makes Everyone Laugh Uncontrollably 

our  lunch. Okay. Okay. This girl was fat and ugly. Oo, she ugly.  How ugly? I took her to the beach. They asked me what I used for bait.   Chicky kid. When I took her home, my mother put newspapers on the floor.  Rodney Dangerfield made everyone in the room lose control the exact moment they thought they’d adjusted to whatever he’d say next.

 I got a niece, an ugly girl. She got married. She’s happy. She married an ugly guy,  right?  And today they got two very ugly kids.  Ugly kids. Yes. In fact, they’re all so ugly in a family album, they only keep the negatives.  This is Rodney Dangerfield making everyone laugh uncontrollably.

 Rodney’s absurd morning exercise.  Every every day there’s something, Johnny. You know, today’s been a terrible day. Terrible day today.  What happened today?  I got up this morning, did my push-ups in the nude. I didn’t see the mouse trap. [cheering]    Yeah. I can’t take the pressure, Johnny.

It’s bad for my health.  How is your health?  Now it’s time for help.  Tell you,  my friend, Dr. Vinnie Boom.  Yeah, that’s the one. Dr. Vinnie, my health is bad. Very bad. Just kidding. Very bad.  He describes his program like he’s a serious athlete doing something that requires insane dedication, but hilariously flips the narrative in the blink of an eye.

 I’m not a kid. I’m getting old.  I know I’m getting old. Well, my last birthday cake looked like a prairie fire.  You know how it is. I know. I’m getting my age. I want two girls at once, you know. Yeah. If I fall asleep, they got each other to talk to.   What’s new with you? [cheering]   Rodney’s take on classy people.

 But sometimes meet people act too classy. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like a lot of women sometimes they act so classy. Like a woman has to go to the bathroom. She never says, “I’m going to the bathroom.” She’s I’m going to powder my nose. I mean, if that’s where her nose is, she’s in a lot of trouble.

 You   a lot of strange people out there.  Strange people. I met a guy last week got a problem though. Guy let No. Yeah. He told me he had an affair with a girl 3 months ago. He’s going nuts. He didn’t know what to do. He told me what happened was the rabbit didn’t die. It just stays in critical condition.

 You know,  brilliant. Everybody has problems. In fact, I was talking to my brother the other day, you know, and well actually I said my brother, he’s my half brother.  Half brother?  Yeah. Well, we have the same parent. He’s just that way.  He questions which body part refined women are calling a nose when they announce they’re going to powder it.

Converting a polite expression into an image nobody can stop picturing. Why he prefers the Tonight Show over everything  else.  Well, it’s always a pleasure to be here. I mean, people are nice, so you treat me right. You know, I did another talk show. I got no respect at all. I mean, it was my turn to sit down.

 Johnny wouldn’t move over.  I get some rough days, Johnny. Rough days. Oh, some days I start drinking early. I’ll tell you that.  Oh, boy. The other night in Las Vegas, I’ll tell you, I got loaded on what I’m doing. I played dice. I lost a,000 bucks.  I got even though I stole 400 Sweet and Lowe’s.  It sounded like Rodney was giving a genuine compliment right up until his actual stated reason arrives and has the entire audience laughing.

 The laxative joke breaks Johnny Carson.  I mean, you got to exercise. I don’t exercise. Old exercise. Come on,  kid. If you see me jogging, it means a laxative is working.  Now, the other day, I took a laxative, started to work in a bank, and banks have no men’s rooms, you know, only for the employees.

 If you work there, you can use the men’s room. I had to go so bad I applied for a job.  Now you get older, you start using laxatives. And I’m getting old. You kid in my backyard, I got a kidney shaped poo with a stone in it. I mean, old.   Only someone like Dangerfield can take a laxative before a bank visit. Get blocked from the employee restroom and solve the situation by applying for a job on the spot.

 Rodney tells Carson about the hostess he met.  There’s a lot of sexy girls around. Check it out. Oh, I met a sexy girl a few weeks ago who worked in a restaurant making hamburgers.  She told me she can make a big boy in 3 minutes and a boy big in 2 minutes.  Very sexy girl.   Now you meet girls. No, you can’t believe him. You can’t believe not.

 I was with one girl. She said, “I don’t do this normally.” I said, “It’s all right. I’ve been a little weird myself.”    One time he allowed himself a hopeful beat to consider that this encounter with a lady might end differently. Of course ends with him getting a joke out of it and no action.

 Rice diet line breaks the room.  I tell you what mean nothing works out. You know I’m still heavy. I can’t lose any weight. Now last week I went nuts. I tried the rice diet between meals. Kept folding my shirts.   And my doctor, he don’t help either. He told me to run 5 miles a day for two weeks. I called him up.

 I said, “Doc, I’m 70 miles from my house.  What a doctor.” Well, one time I saw him, he gave me sleeping pills. He told me to take them whenever I wake up. Rodney describes the rice diet with the solemn tone of a man who has exhausted every other option, then drops the punchline, and the word rice suddenly carries a completely different meaning from anything it suggested before.

Gambling gives Dangerfield new ways to lose. Now, with gambling, I’m never lucky. Well, last week, I shut off the opening gun. They killed my horse. I mean, I’m getting old. I’m not a kid anymore. I know I’m getting old. In Vegas, I played a slot machine. Three prunes came up.  I mean, people look at me, they think I’m the type of guy get I get drunk and go to the track, right? They’re wrong.

 I get high. I get drunk and go to the track. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I mean, I I love my kids, you know, but sometimes they can really give it to you. I remember one day I came home from the racetrack. I had eight losers. I opened the front door, my kids jumped on me and they said, “Let’s play horsey.”    Rodney approaches every wager with just enough visible confidence to make each eventual loss feel specifically personal, as if casinos have individually reviewed his file and arranged outcomes before he arrived with

his money and his apparently reasonable expectations. Rodney’s Saturday Night Live set has the audience in shambles.  Smart kid I got. The other day I told him about the birds and the bees. He told me about my wife and a butcher.  I don’t get no respect from anyone. Well, last Christmas my kid wanted a BB gun. I gave him a BB gun.

 He gave me a sweatshirt with a bullseye in the back. I was an ugly kid, too. I had plenty of pimples. One day, I fell asleep in the library. I woke up. A blind man was reading my face. Hey, my wife never went for not a sexy guy. I know I’m not sexy. Only this morning when I put on my underwear, I hear the Faloom guys giggling.

SNL gives Dangerfield the opening monologue, and he immediately treats the live national stage like a branch of his own comedy club with short setups arriving in rapid succession before the audience has finished settling from the introduction. He doesn’t lean on cast members or scenery, using only the tie adjustment and the agreved stare as the complete visual punctuation required to carry the run from start to finish.

 I tell you, I can’t relax, you know. The other night, I was in a place I felt like having a few drinks. Someone went over to a bartender. I said, “Surprise me.” He showed me a naked picture of my wife. I tell you, nothing goes right. You know, my sex life is nothing. My wife cut me out to once a month.

 Cut me out to once a month. Oh, I’m lucky. Two guys in know. She cut out completely. Hey, kid. I know I’m ugly. I stuck my head out the window, got arrested for moaning. I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. I went through plenty with the first of my hitchhike to got beat up. I USED THE WRONG FINGER. LAUGHTER repeatedly overlaps the next setup, and by the end, a major NBC production transformed into a direct stand-up assault conducted entirely on Dangerfield’s terms.

 His wife kisses the dog, but avoids him.  Man, I tell you, I can’t relax. You know, my dog drives me nuts. My dog, he wants me to have made him. I wouldn’t m him. Let him go through what I go through.  I mean, last week was rough. Are you kidding? Last week, I looked up my family tree. Two dogs were using it.  I mean, when I was a kid, it was different. I had a rough.

 When I were 2 years old, my parents got a dog, and I was jealous of the dog, so they got rid of me.  My wife, I got no sex life. The dog keeps watching me in the bedroom once I learned how to beg.   I’m told to watch my wife. I learned how to roll over and play dead. Rodney maps his position in the marriage by comparing himself to the family dog and discovering the dog ranks measurably higher on every metric his wife applies.

Reporting the research with the wounded certainty of a man who has been conducting this study long enough to produce reliable conclusions.   I tell you it’s tough to stay married to my wife. How do you think I feel? She kissed a dog on her lips and she won’t drink from my glass.  I tell you, I’m sorry it’s a little late getting here tonight.

 You know my dog, he started trouble again. I mean, I got a dog. tries to run the whole house. But the other night, he started trouble. He went over the front door, he started to bark. I went over, I opened the front door. The dog didn’t want to go out. He wanted me to leave.  My dog, too. She gives me trouble.  Your dog?  Yeah.

 Yeah. I got a female dog, you know. I tried to mate her. She wants 50 biscuits. [snorts]  She kisses the animal directly on the lips without hesitation, then refuses a single sip from Rodney’s drinking glass on hygiene grounds that the dog’s mouth apparently doesn’t trigger under the same evaluation system. And I tell you, I got a dumb dog, too.

 My dog, we call him Egypt. Every room, he lives a pyramid.  Man, my wife, I got no sex life either.  In my house, he put the mirror over the dog’s bed.  Are you kidding? I know I’m ugly. My dog find out we look alike, he killed himself.   How many kids you have?  I got two kids. I love my kids. You know, I know that  kids, of course.

 But our boy gives me trouble lately.  Really? He’s at the age now. He copies everything. He sees something, he copies. You know, this kid imitates everything.  That’s why we got rid of the dog. You  all right?   The joke confirms that even a pet with no social standing generates less genuine revulsion from the woman who feeds both of them than the man whose glass she won’t approach without a visible expression of concern.

 Christmas becomes another personal disaster.  I mean, the kids today got it too good. When I was a kid, it was different. I had it rough. Well, Christmas, I got batteries. Toys not included. I don’t got no respect from anyone. Well, last Christmas my kid wanted a BB gun. I gave him a BB gun. He gave me a sweatshirt with a bullseye in her back.

I mean, I’ll tell you, my wife isn’t too smart, you know. Well, she wouldn’t buy a Christmas seal. She said she wouldn’t want to feed him.  I mean, this girl was fat and ugly. Oh, she ugly.  Ugly, huh?  How ugly were Christmas? They hang her and kissed a mistletoe. Okay, she’s ugly. I’m telling you.

 Holiday warmth is gone with the wind the second Rodney starts describing Christmas through his domestic experience. With presents, family expectations, and seasonal goodwill immediately revealing themselves as new mechanisms for rejection rather than opportunities for comfort, he delivers the material like a man who accepted sometime in early December that the month wasn’t going to improve his situation.

 And that early resignation gives every cheerful holiday subject a dark underside. The familiar seasonal vocabulary was never designed to carry. Every cheerful tradition becomes slightly damaged once his personal history enters the picture. And the crowd laughs at the precise gap between the season’s ideal image and the miserable version Dangerfield reports from inside as someone who has been receiving this specific delivery of Christmas for as long as he can remember.

 Dangerfield’s jokes make Martin Short laugh.  Okay. Okay. Ready? All right. Hey. [cheering] All right. I’ll tell you one thing though, Martin, you got to you got to watch your drinking. I’ll tell you that. I mean, I solved my drinking problem. I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. I still drink. I use a different name, that’s all, you know.

 Oh, what can I tell you? But Kevin, how are you, baby? Huh?  Ronnie, what’s up, man?  Going along. Going along. Trying to make the most of it, you know.  Yeah.  But Vegas is something, isn’t it?  Really something.  A lot of things people don’t know about Vegas. You know, right here, the population never changes. Never.

 Every time a kid is born, some guy leaves town.  Hey, listen. Martin Short is already one of the most kinetic performers Jay could place beside anyone. Yet, Dangerfield still pulls the segment toward his own tempo with the patient confidence of someone who has been slowing rooms down long enough to know they’ll follow.

 One time I took out a belly dancer. She told me I turned her stomach.  And one time they fixed me up with a girl, I got stuck, I’ll tell you that.  Yeah. Blind date lag, you know.  Yeah. They told me she had early American features. Yeah, she looked like a buffalo.  Martin fills conversational space with impressions and physical energy that makes even simple answers look like performance pieces, while Rodney sits with the posture of a man who has been disappointed since breakfast and made whatever peace with that before driving

to the studio. Dangerfield, ladies and gentlemen.  Oh, come want to finish.  He’s drunk.  Oh, yeah. You’re good.  Okay. Whatever you say. I don’t know. Now I lost my place.  I just assumed you had to breathe at one point.  I’m talking about She looked like a buffalo, I believe.  Oh, buffalo. Buffalo. Yes.

 Buffalo. Okay. Anyway, I uh    The brightness of Martin’s style makes Dangerfield’s weary delivery sound even drier by contrast, and the audience starts anticipating that every topic Jay introduces will somehow end in humiliation before either guest finishes responding.

 By the close, Jay and Martin look less like fellow guests and more like two delighted witnesses to Rodney taking control of a couch he was technically only sharing. The Mike Douglas set cracks up the crowd. I figured out why. Cuz a car and a girl are very much alike. I mean, with either one, a car or a girl, when you get a new one, if you don’t break it in right, they’ll give you trouble.

 And if you get a used one, they always lie about the mileage.  Now, I tell you, I tell you, with cars, you don’t know who to believe. I remember one time I had my car fixed. It went in one place, the guy gave me an estimate for $100. I got the bill, it was $200. I said to him, “How about the estimate for $100?” He says, “You’re right. I forgot that meant you $300.

” This underappreciated late60s Mike Douglas show appearance reveals a Rodney whose famous identity was already remarkably complete years before the broader audience had developed sufficient exposure to fully register what they were watching. He walks onto a polite daytime stage built for cheerful celebrity conversation and immediately introduces a much harsher comic rhythm without appearing to notice the contrast between his frequency and the surrounding programming environment.

 The darker hair and younger face look different, but the voice, the pacing, and the agrieved stare underneath every setup are unmistakably the same machine running at the same speed that would still be running decades later. Watching him perform before fame at this time, the early Mike Douglas material confirmed the specific  persona didn’t develop gradually, but arrived essentially complete long before the right broadcast format founded.

 This 1969 appearance closes this collection perfectly because it answers the question all the other clips raise without directly addressing, which is  where this specific comedy came from before the Carson Couch received the version their audiences remember. Nobody compared to Rodney Dangerfield could make every room he entered immediately understand that whatever was about to happen next was going to be the most efficiently devastating version of human humiliation currently available anywhere in the building. Let us know

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