Tuesday, May 11, 2021

The Great Jewish Comedians: The Canadian Comedy Team of Wayne and Shuster

In the twelve years of Jewish Humor Central we've profiled and shared video clips of 56 great Jewish comedians. But in reviewing the list, we realized that until now we focused only on comedians from the United States. 

Wayne and Shuster, one of the funniest and most creative comedy teams of the last century came to us from Toronto, Canada. Johnny Wayne (born Louis Weingarten) and Frank Shuster were active professionally from the early 1940s until the late 1980s, first as a live act, then on radio, then as part of The Army Show that entertained troops in Europe during World War II, and then on both Canadian and American television. 

Wayne and Shuster appeared 67 times on The Ed Sullivan Show from 1958 to 1969. Their sketches ran for about 12 minutes and were elaborate in their use of costumes and had large casts of characters.

In the first five minutes of today's video, Wayne and Shuster present spoofs of TV commercials. Then they introduce the first part of a sketch called The Matzo Bowl, a football game version of the battle between David and Goliath. We'll show part 2 next week.

Enjoy!

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1 comment:

  1. I remember them on CBC radio, Thursday nights at 9pm, from the studio at 9 McGill St. in Toronto. I went to see them live many, many times in the 40s and 50s. TV came later. YouTube has many clips.

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