Larry Gelbart: He always looked like he had been sucking on a lemon. He had this real literally sour puss. He was very literate and we’re in a very post-literate society now. He was about words. He was primarily an author who was best, the best interpreter of his own words. He wouldn’t survive for a second in today’s you know, stampede toward wherever we’re heading so quickly. He was an acquired taste. You didn’t turn him on and say I like this guy. You turned him on and said I like what this guy is saying.

Alan Buz Kohan: Fred was the thinking man’s comedian. And he was just so bright. And there, again, I’m sure he had a much bigger hand in the writing of the shows than a lot of the other comics who relied on the writers.     And I just I just don’t know if I, I may have this right, but some things stick in your mind even though, you know, a half a century or more has passed. And I remember one radio show where Fred, he used to play a character like a Charlie Chan character, it was called One Long Pan. And he was a detective. And there was a crime being committed at the circus. And he was called in to solve the crime. And the crime was that the, the contortionist had been killed, murdered, and he was found him in the shape of an R. He had bent his body in the shape of an R because he would do the whole alphabet, that was his, his act. And One Long Pan looked at the situation and he figured out who the murderer was and why the crime was committed. And the solution was that the contortionist wife killed him because she didn’t wanna see him make an S of himself. And I still remember for no reason. I, I don’t know many contortionists. I haven’t been to the circus in years. But certain jokes, certain lines, certain things stand out and that was one and that’s a well thought out joke, you know. It’s really you’ve gotta think about that to come up with it in the first place.