♪ ♪ [ Wind whistling ] ♪ >> It was an Oz without the Wicked Witch.

Sullivan and Ulster counties located about 75 miles from New York City, were for over 50 years the largest resort area in the United States.

More than 500 hotels, countless bungalow colonies and rooming houses were a mecca for millions of tourists.

A time when a vacation meant a trip to the mountains.

From the 1930s to the late '60s, the Catskill hotels were the setting for the most important, fascinating era in American humor.

During that time, comedy went to school, and what a graduating class.

>> You see, in those days comics had some place to be bad.

>> When you go to the mountains, that's where you learn.

>> You become more familiar with yourself, you know you can share things that you were scared to share with an audience.

>> They didn't tell you to go away because you had a dream of being a comedian.

>> It was a laboratory, it was marvelous.

>> If they're not laughing, you'd better close it down quick.

>> The Catskills was the breeding ground for the stand-up comic.

>> The Catskills basically was a school for comedy.

>> They asked me to do a show in a hospital in front of a patient, and I was singing, dancing, telling my best stories.

So, on the way out I said to him, "I hope you get better," he said to me, "You too."

>> ♪ Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh ♪ ♪ Don't you know everyone wants to laugh?

♪ ♪ Your dad said "be an actor, my son" ♪ ♪ "But be a comical one" ♪ ♪ They'll be standing in lines ♪ ♪ For those old honky tonk monkey shines ♪ ♪ Now, you could study Shakespeare and be quite elite ♪ ♪ And you can charm the critics and have nothing to eat ♪ ♪ Just slip on a banana peel ♪ ♪ The world's at your feet ♪ ♪ Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh ♪ ♪ Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh ♪ ♪ Don't you know everyone wants to laugh?

♪ ♪ Your grandpa said, "Go out and tell 'em a joke" ♪ ♪ "But give it plenty of hoke" ♪ ♪ Make 'em roar, make 'em scream ♪ ♪ Take a fall, butt a wall, split a seam ♪ ♪ You start off by pretending you're a dancer with grace ♪ ♪ You wiggle till they're giggling all over the place ♪ ♪ And then you get a great big custard pie in the face ♪ ♪ Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh ♪ ♪ Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh ♪ ♪ Make 'em laaaaugh ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] >> This stage doesn't look like much now, or, this nightclub for that matter.

Yet in hundreds of places like this, stages, nightclubs, cabarets, venues large and small, elegant and rudimentary, there once was magic.

>> Boy, what a crowd!

What a crowd!

Last week I told my wife, "A man is like wine, he gets better with age," she locked me in the cellar.

>> Take my wife please!

I take my wife everywhere, but she finds her way home.

>> We can be this disgusting, we can go in front of a synagogue and sing about pork.

>> Comedy headliners performed and future comedy greats got their start.

A time when audiences in the thousands would attend a single show and luxuriate in the richness of these very surroundings.

Hard to believe now, but it's true.

I'm Robert Klein, and I was there.

>> A 1, 2, 3, 4!

[ Up-tempo jazz plays ] >> When I was a busboy I watched the shows from the back of the club.

My first opportunity to see comedians live.

Their mastery, making people happy all because of a skillful comedian.

It resounded like a Chinese gong over my head.

Wouldn't that be a wonderful life?

In the Saturday night show, these mountain comics absolutely fascinated me.

They'd come out, "Hey!"

You know, "Hey!"

A very staccato, "Hey, you two bald-headed men, you put your heads together, you make an ass of yourself, but seriously!"

Insulting, you know what I'm saying?

Hey!

The clarinet gets stuck in their mouth again.

Then they'd go into these English jokes with Yiddish punchlines.

They did this sometimes and it drove me crazy -- I don't understand Yiddish.

And the guy has me hooked on a good story, and I'm trailing along.

He goes, "Know what happened last night?

I went to my wife, I said, let's make love."

She said, "I can't, went to the doctor, I got a pill.

You know what happened?"

[ Speaking Yiddish gibberish ] >> The Catskill comedians were audience-tested in a way no other comedians were, and they were able to succeed, because they knew what was funny.

They had tried it out.

>> The audiences, they're very picky.

You couldn't do anything near off-color.

And making money, $10 a week.

>> Working in front of tough audiences, they could refine their timing, check out the competition, lay an egg, if you will, and not be banished forever.

Besides, they had a bed, meals, and even made a few bucks.

They watched, listened, and learned.

>> It was a very natural thing to develop your craft over there because you had to do a show, some form of entertainment almost every day.

You come to somebody's house and tell them a joke that you told them yesterday, that's the best way to get thrown out of a house.

And you would have gotten thrown out of the Catskills if you were telling the same jokes.

So you had to be improvisational, creative, and develop all kinds of tricks for comedy, for entertainment.

The trick of comedy is to entertain people, not entertain one sick Jew like me with a neurotic problem.

>> In essence, the Catskill hotels created a comedy bootcamp for American humor.

Basic training for a generation plus of our most gifted comics, who tickled countless funny bones and profoundly influenced popular entertainment worldwide.

♪ >> The comedians that have graced our stages were an experience.

Guys like this, I don't think you'll ever see come around again.

I mean, they were just marvelous entertainers.

Guys like Red Buttons and Jan Murray, Dick Shawn.

>> Jewish parents feed their children certain kinds of food that keep them from moving quick.

[ Laughter ] Matzah balls.

>> Jackie Mason.

>> As a matter of fact, I was so ugly as a baby that my mother used to diaper my face.

>> Alan King.

>> My wife takes 40 minutes to put lipstick on.

There's a reason -- she's got a big mouth.

>> Well, we had the cream of the crop of the resorts, of the one-nighters, of the club dates.

People like Totie Fields.

>> Do you know what I found out about Jewish food?

It goes in and it never comes out again.

>> Norm Crosby, Jack Carter, Joan Rivers.

>> When I was single, I was the last girl in Larchmont, New York, to get married.

My mother had a sign up, "Last girl before freeway."

Oh, you have no idea!

>> We also had Shecky Greene, Myron Cohen.

>> About a Texan who went to Israel on a visit, who said to his Israeli host, "You get to my home in Dallas, I'm going to take you to my ranch."

He said, "I can't tell you how big my ranch is, but when I get into my car at 7:00 in the morning, I'd drive for 10 hours and I still didn't reach the end of my property."

The Israeli says, "You know, once I had a car like this myself."

>> And Rodney Dangerfield.

>> Oh, yeah, my wife can't do nothing right.

I mean it, she can't cook at all.

My backyard, the flies chipped in to fix the screen door.

[ Laughter ] >> I started to pick up some of the young comics who were just developing and on the rise.

Gabe Kaplan, David Brenner, Bill Maher, Robert Klein.

>> The best course I ever took was Abnormal Psychology.

I loved that course, no more theoretical...

There they are in front of you -- sick people!

>> Jerry Seinfeld told me that he used to sneak into the back of the nightclub, and you know, this is part of what convinced him to be in show business.

>> What is that age that old people reach where they decide when they back out of a driveway, they're not looking anymore?

You know how they do that?

They just go, "Well, I'm old, and I'm coming back."

>> Billy Crystal worked here and enjoyed it.

>> Odd casting in movies, like, Edward G. Robinson in "The Ten Commandments" -- good actor, wrong role.

"Where's your messiah now?"

"Hey, Pharaoh, where's your Moses now, see?"

"Yeah, yeah, let my people go, now!"

>> This is why I love the Catskills!

>> They weren't household names.

I'd put them in on a Saturday night in the summertime, and my guests were saying, "Who?," you know, "Who is this guy?

>> The Catskills were the "American Idol" of that period.

You talk about a proving ground?

That was the place where so many broke in.

>> It's an antique, gold heirloom.

It's really spectacular.

My grandfather on his deathbed sold me this watch.

>> If Ed Sullivan was watching, if Steve Allen was watching, they would get their TV exposure and take it from there.

♪ >> As we move deeper into the 21st century, it's apparent that some of the most familiar figures in American culture are its comedians.

How did it come to be that a nation that started the 20th century laughing at jokes of folk humorists, such as Will Rogers, end up captivated by Robin Williams, go from Jack Benny to Woody Allen, and conclude the 20th century captivated by the urbane parodies of "Seinfeld"?

Perhaps it goes as far back to the birth of Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, history's first-born Jew.

Isaac means "he shall laugh."

This is the name, according to Genesis, that God told Abraham and Sarah to give him.

It seems, according to the Old Testament, that they laughed when he was born.

Hey, if you had your first kid when you were 100 and your wife was 90, you'd have to laugh too.

>> The Jews are the people that couldn't get out of this sandy desert.

And they had an idea to make food out of this biscuit-like material that sat on a rock for eight hours, and it got baked, and they ate that while it crumbled worse than crackers, and that's dinner?

We're eating matzah.

♪ You matzah been a beautiful baby ♪ And we think it's funny.

>> God and the Jews.

George Burns even played God, a match made in heaven.

When Burns was 99, the London Palladium theater offered him a one-year contract.

Burns refused, insisting on a multiyear deal.

"After all," he said, "I'm only 99."

This raises a crucial question.

What comes after chutzpah?

♪ >> You had to have a sense of humor for Christ sakes.

That's what got the Jews through it.

It was our salvation and it was our understanding that we'll get through it if we're not too terribly serious.

>> For now begins the Inquisition!

>> Oy gevalt!

>> ♪ The Inquisition ♪ >> ♪ What a show ♪ >> ♪ The Inquisition ♪ >> ♪ Here we go ♪ >> Jews, in order to survive over the millennia, seemed to develop a survival mechanism, jokes in the genes, if you will.

>> ♪ The Inquisition, what joy ♪ ♪ The Inquisition, oy, oy ♪ >> The virtue of the Jewish people in comedy is that they could always find the joke.

The people are up in front of the German firing squad, and one of the guys says, you know, "Long live the Jewish homeland."

And the other guy says, "Shh, don't make trouble."

>> They had to be so alert to what was going on because without that alertness, they would have been dead.

And that kind of psychological skill was crucial to being able to be a good comedian.

>> To know that you're going through something and it's hard, and it's rough, but you make a joke.

>> See Hitler on ice!

♪ >> If you can laugh at your situation, wow, what a gift.

>> The target of the Jewish humorist is to puncture the pompous and bring down the high and mighty to a common human level.

>> And now we come to a young man who recently played a command performance for the Queen of England.

And how many boys from Brooklyn can say that?

Alan King.

>> Alan King had a command performance before the Queen.

And Queen Elizabeth, according to protocol said, "Hello, Mr.

King."

And he replied, "Hello, Mrs.

Queen."

[ Needle scratches ] Which course is typically Jewish humor.

We're all in the same boat, we're all going to die, we might as well laugh until we get to that terminal point.

>> Most of the Western philosophers were Jewish.

And we trace Moses, who invented the law.

>> These 15 -- Oy.

Ten, Ten Commandments, for all to obey.

>> Which nobody obeyed, then Jesus, who invented forgiveness, and nobody wanted to forgive.

And then Marx, who invented sharing the spoils, which nobody wanted to do.

And then Freud, who said, "If you can't stop stealing and you can't forgive and you can't share, do you think you can understand other people?"

And nobody wanted to do that.

Then finally, Einstein arrives, the fifth Jewish philosopher, and he says, "Dear President Roosevelt, I have a bomb which can destroy everything we've built up until now."

And this caught on.

>> Jewish humor comes from the shtetl... ♪ ...and its ability to hold two opposite ideas at the same time like wealth and poverty, pain and pleasure.

>> Would it spoil some vast eternal plan?

>> Witness Tevye as an example, raising his fist to God, bemoaning his fate.

He can't get too mad of course.

It's God.

And it's a musical.

[ Coo moos ] As Jews immigrated to the New World, that fist, with humor mind you, became gloved in gags, railing not against God or secular matters, but against alienation, societal demands, expectations.

>> Jews flooded into the Lower East Side.

The concentration of Jewish population was more dense than Kolkata is today.

There were 500 people per acre at one point in the early 20th century.

There was a sense of doom and gloom in the crowded tenements.

>> Doom and gloom of course, but what a fabulous new field for complaints, doubts, and guilt.

Triple oy vey!

The waves of immigrants still learning how to be free collided with new forms of prejudice, and they reacted with humor, woven into a chain-link fabric of survival armor.

>> And a brand-new kind of comedy was born, one that required a particularly Jewish experience, but in a particular American setting.

>> The primary form of entertainment for the newly arrived Jewish immigrants was Yiddish theater.

It provided the familiarity of their native language... >> [ Singing in native language ] ♪ >> ...audience camaraderie, stories, and characters that many had embraced as young men and women.

>> Most of it we did on 2nd Avenue.

That was our Broadway.

I joined the chorus in the Yiddish theater, and I learned how to sing and I learned how to dance.

>> Miss Esta Salzman.

>> The audience loved it.

It was wonderful.

I worked with the biggest stars of the Yiddish theater.

>> Some of the more notable performers were booked on the many vaudeville circuits.

Comedians, singers, novelty acts, dancers.

These hearty performers crisscrossed the country.

From the turn of the century until the early 1930s, vaudeville flourished.

>> Somehow or other, my father always found it in -- enough pennies to take me to vaudeville shows, and he loved vaudeville.

He was a bit of a comic himself.

But we'd get there for the show, and... >> How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

>> ...he'd leap over the seats like a jackrabbit to get into the first two rows.

But if the guy on stage wasn't funny, he'd say, "He's a faker," and that never left me.

And all I remember is that, whenever I'd go on stage, and I decided to go into this crazy world, the one thing that keeps running in my mind is my father saying about this guy, "He's a faker."

So that influenced me in a lot of ways.

It also put me into therapy.

>> Vaudeville comics used exaggerated accents, stereotypical characters, garish makeup, costumes.

Jewish jokes, words, expressions entered the American culture.

>> What's new?

What's new?

Nothing.

What's nu with you?

>> Nothing.

Nothing's new, no.

>> And I remember sending away for tickets to see Eddie Cantor.

>> Mr. Olson, would you play something for Eddie?

Do that, will you?

[ Up-tempo music plays ] >> And all of a sudden out of the wings comes this little guy with dark hair, black hair, little guy.

He starts jumping around.

♪ Oh, potatoes are cheaper, tomatoes are cheaper, now ♪ And he was like a puppet.

>> ♪ Oh, the dumber they come, the better I like 'em ♪ ♪ 'Cause the dumb ones know how to make love ♪ >> To be known as a Jewish entertainer in the 1920s and '30s was severely limiting.

Anti-Semitism was rampant.

Israel Itzkowitz became Eddie Cantor.

Nathan Birnbaum, George Burns.

Benny Kubelsky, an Orthodox Jew, surfaced as Jack Benny.

Fanny Brice overly exaggerated Yiddish accents, though in fact, she never learned or spoke Yiddish.

>> ♪ And a guy named Ahmad Hammel ♪ ♪ Knocked me off my camel ♪ ♪ Without as much as "Pardon me, my dear" ♪ >> As vaudeville in the 1930s expired, unable to compete with rising costs and the proliferation of motion picture houses, Jewish comedians struggled to seek an outlet for their developing talents.

And then, breakthrough!

Here, in the Catskill Mountains, specifically Sullivan and Ulster counties, families sought the pleasures of country life away from compressed city living and unhealthful conditions.

They didn't have manual skills and barely spoke English.

They frequently lacked money, but what they didn't lack was the courage and drive to succeed.

Selig and Malke were typical.

In 1914, after laboring in sweatshops for years, they somehow scraped together $450 and bought a broken down Catskill farmhouse grandly named Longbrook Farm.

Out of necessity they took in a boarder, then another.

By the end of that first summer they actually turned a profit of $81.

Now, they were in the hospitality business.

Their last name was Grossinger.

♪ >> As every travel agent knows, a vacation means different things to different people.

>> Mr. Ellis, we're going on a vacation together, and we'd like you to help us.

>> Someplace not too expensive.

>> Yes.

>> I think I can fix you up with a place where you will meet a few congenial young men.

How would you like that?

>> Oh, that'd be swell.

>> That sounds good.

>> I see.

>> ♪ We're gonna hitchhike ♪ ♪ Up to the Catskills ♪ ♪ We're on the highway ♪ ♪ Route 17 ♪ ♪ We're gonna hitchhike ♪ ♪ Up to the mountains ♪ ♪ Up to the finest resort we have seen ♪ ♪ Everyone's going on a Catskill Honeymoon ♪ ♪ >> I vaguely remember the first trip that took at least eight hours.

We took a train.

>> ♪ She'll be coming 'round the Catskills when she comes ♪ >> ♪ When she comes ♪ >> ♪ She'll be coming 'round the Catskills when she comes ♪ >> ♪ When she comes ♪ >> They added an engine to the train so it can get up the hills.

When you went through tunnels and everything, by the time you reached your destination, you were covered with soot.

>> Resorts were constructed by mostly Eastern European Jews.

The bungalows, cottages, and hotel communities flourished, providing new, exciting, diverse venues.

A new breeding ground, a kosher fertile crescent, where Jewish American comedy was nurtured.

>> I feel so good.

I just got back from a pleasure trip.

I took my mother-in-law to the airport.

[ Laughter, rimshot ] >> Vaudeville was dying, burlesque was dying, and so, the same people came into the Catskills.

And they started to create.

They created the writing.

They created the sketches.

>> We did a sketch, a comedy sketch, and then we wound up with a song and a dance, and they loved it.

It was very funny.

You don't see that comedy anymore, certainly not in these days.

>> I was about 15 years old and wanted to be an actor.

And a man named Ernie Glucksman came down and said, "We need somebody to throw the knife."

[ Thunk ] [ Audience gasps ] It was an Apache act, a husband and wife, and they were beating the heck out of each other.

At one point they gave me the signal, and I threw a knife out.

The man took the knife and he stabbed this woman who was his wife, and the audience applauded.

It was crazy.

I got 5 bucks.

>> He got a crazy phobia.

He thought he was a taxicab.

Well, I took him to a psychiatrist and after two years, I went to the psychiatrist, nothing was happening.

I said, "Come here, my friend is coming to you two years, he thinks he's a taxicab."

I said, "Are you going to cure him?"

The doctor said, "What for?

He takes me home every night."

>> The Catskills served as a training ground, not only for comics, but for American citizenship, evoking deep feelings of security long sought.

The guests could be themselves in this land of hope, land of the free.

>> The Catskill Mountains had a tradition of Judaism about it because Gentiles almost never went there.

They never heard of the place.

Half of the Jews never even saw a Gentile.

A Gentile was something that you saw in the movies.

You went to the movies, you saw Gary Cooper, you said, "That was a Gentile."

Jews never saw somebody 6 feet tall.

There was no such thing as a 6-foot-tall Jew.

>> Gentiles, "Hello, I'm a Gentile, and I walk straight as a stick."

Did you ever see an old Jew?

They're schlepping, schlepping!

"Hi, I'm an old Jew, I'm 22 and I'm schlepping."

>> Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.

All of our outdoor activities will be in full swing today.

There'll be boating on Grossinger Lake, swimming at the pool, golf, tennis, handball, basketball, volleyball, and all other outdoor sports.

>> The Gentiles are running, playing basketball, volleyball, handball, they're running back and forth.

And the Jews are saying, "You see a piece of cake here?"

>> And, okay, well, let's go.

Let's meet right over here.

>> As guest demands increased for leisure time choices, social directors became key figures, creating a myriad of activities day and night.

>> I am a very firm believer of exercise.

I mean, that's how I stay firm, you know?

>> Some ordained clergymen even served as social directors.

>> [ Singing in native language ] Everybody.

[ Laughter ] I became a rabbi and I hated it.

You're supposed to be learning the Torah.

A beautiful blonde would walk by, I'd lose my place, I'd forget what I'm talking about.

I went to the Catskills and became a social director, so I'm there with about 100 people in a small hotel, and I would spend my whole day bothering them to play basketball.

They were all Jews, they don't want to play basketball, they don't to get off the chair.

Then at night I would tell jokes.

And I became a hit right away.

One person could love you and another person can't stand you depending on his relationship to you.

I want to show you an example.

I have a girlfriend.

To me she's the most remarkable, the most wonderful person in the world, next to me.

But to my wife... [ Laughter ] >> They had just the person who would be called a tummler, who would run around wildly and jump in the pool to get people laughing.

That was how the entertainment started in the Catskills.

>> The tummler was a porch clown who created tumult, excitement, anything to get a laugh.

Amuse the guests, whatever it took -- physical comedy, impressions, mime, the kosher court jester.

Get their attention and keep it.

>> They were doing Simon Says.

They were doing games.

They would dance and sing.

The jester entertained the people who came to these small hotels when they started off.

They were working 18 hours a day, and they were always breaking in some kind of material.

>> David Daniel Kaminsky's show business debut came when he played a watermelon seed in an elementary school play, no doubt the oddest seed in the patch.

At 13, he ran away from home.

At 15, he was a combination busboy and comic on the Borscht circuit, as part of the White Roe Lake Hotel Social Staff working as a tummler.

The word was he was much too crazy.

A tummler too crazy?

He must have been something.

Danny Kaye was really something.

[ Fanfare plays ] [ Crowd gasps ] >> I think Danny Kaye deserves credit as the pioneer.

[ Crowd gasps ] Danny Kaye used to combine a number of cultures -- Russian, Jewish, and American.

>> ♪ A rolling Russian hussar ♪ ♪ Or very British Empire ♪ ♪ Or like the cagey Viennese ♪ ♪ Who already eats the cheese while he says, "No, thank you, please" ♪ ♪ Be smart ♪ >> Danny Kaye's important because he made the jump from the Catskills to the big time.

>> It's "The Danny Kaye Show."

And he showed that the training he got in the Catskills really paid dividends.

I think he encouraged many people to follow.

>> Professor, as head of the organization, I should like to welcome you.

Would you care for a cigar?

>> Oh, thank you very much.

Where you going, buddy?

>> Sid Caesar the Great.

His legions came not from Imperial Rome, but from the Coast Guard via Yonkers.

>> Hold it!

My wife is a chain smoker.

Caesar, in an all-out campaign, conquered the audiences at the Avon Lodge and the heart of Florence Levy, the owner's daughter.

The Avon Lodge is long since gone.

However, Florence has been Sid's Empress for over 60 years.

♪ Sid began as a saxophone player just starting to turn his talents towards comedy.

>> Sid Caesar, back in 1938, played in our band.

>> Go, man!

>> He was a very funny guy, I've been told.

>> He also used language as Danny Kaye did, nonsense language.

He could talk pidgin French.

>> [ Speaking French gibberish ] >> Pidgin Italian.

>> [ Speaking Italian gibberish ] >> Pidgin German.

>> [ Speaking German gibberish ] No, we didn't have any Japanese then, but it was -- [ Speaking Japanese gibberish ] And I like you.

>> Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Al Murray.

>> My dad and my mom worked together in the Borscht circuit.

They would get $30 for the club date.

>> And always a gentleman.

>> And if they brought the kid, they got five more.

>> We present now those two stars... >> So, we were doing good at $35 a pop.

[ Applause ] When I wasn't well or I couldn't work, we lost $5.

But I made it up to them.

Now, have you ever see a kid of six in a tux?

He's a winner before he goes on.

I did the only song I knew at the time, which was "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

It was perfect in the 1931s and '32s because of the Depression.

My foot slipped and I broke one of the floodlights, which exploded.

[ Boom, laughter ] I really was frightened.

My body movement made that audience laugh.

And I heard the laugh and I knew I'm in the right place!

And I had spasms for days after that knowing, "I don't want to sing 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?,' Dad.

I want to do what made those people laugh."

He said, "You can't develop a career on breaking a bulb.

I said, "But that's not it.

We get rid of the bulb, find out what the visual something is that I can work because the laugh didn't come from the explosion.

It came from how I reacted to it.

And I have to find out how that works for everything else."

[ Boat horn blows ] >> WEZD, New York.

[ Radio chatter ] >> Brooklyn and the Bronx were the home for so many entertainers, guests, and hotel staff.

>> Growing up in Brooklyn was like no other world.

Every time I think back on it, I look on it with greater fondness each time I think.

It was a culture that was unique.

Brooklyn was unique.

I grew up in Bensonhurst from 1943 until I left to go down to Miami to go break into broadcasting in 1957.

I left Brooklyn, but Brooklyn didn't leave me.

♪ [ Horn honks ] >> I grew up in the Bronx, Decatur Avenue between 211th Street and Gun Hill Road, on the sixth floor of an apartment building with 85 other families.

It was a vertical existence.

We never "went out."

We went down.

We never "returned."

We went up.

Maybe that's why I feel at home in an elevator.

The halls smelled of pie baking in the afternoon and boiled chicken in the evening mixed with the scents of hundreds of people.

♪ There were the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Giants.

Stickball, Coney Island, the Grand Concourse.

But for thousands of families, anticipating a trip to the mountains made them wish that summer was already here.

>> When it got hot in the summertime, there was no air-conditioning.

And most of the Jews, when it came out, couldn't afford it.

The fire escape was the only vacation they could afford if they couldn't afford the Catskill Mountains.

[ Horns blaring ] >> Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, you'd come into this lush palace, filled with your own kind of people, escaping the city in the summer heat.

>> When I first saw the Catskill Mountains and the hotels and the trees and the greens, it was quite impressive.

>> The heat wasn't up here.

I'd see things that I really hardly ever saw in a city.

The only time I'd seen grass is the once or twice I was in Yankee Stadium.

>> ♪ In the Borscht Belt in days gone by ♪ ♪ Where the Catskill Mountains kiss the sky ♪ >> It was the Borscht Belt, the sour-cream Sierras, the right stuffing, the end of the Duruma Road.

The highest peak in the Jewish Alps was Grossinger's Hotel under the reign of her royal highness, Queen Jennie Grossinger.

Tania Grossinger grew up there.

>> In April of 1945, this 8-year-old kid started on a life adventure that at the time she would never have any idea where it would lead her.

♪ This was the most exciting thing in the world.

Grossinger's had 850 acres, its own airport, two golf courses.

[ Man screams ] A fully stocked lake with rowboats, 12 tennis courts, an outdoor Olympic swimming pool.

It had an indoor swimming pool.

At its heyday, catered to 1,100 guests and an almost equal number of staff.

I walk into the dining room for the first time, and I could have anything I want.

I saw men running around in uniforms yelling, "Front!"

All looking as if they didn't know there they were going.

>> There's an awful lot of kooks in this hotel.

>> The people that we know were not just the maître d' or the bell clerk or the concierge person, but they're Tom and they're Lenny and they're Barry and they're, you know -- It's people that you got to know.

It's very friendly.

It's what Yiddishkeit call the "haimishtic" feeling.

Very haimish.

>> There's a feeling that you got in the Catskills that you never got anywhere else.

>> Women would wear dresses and fur stoles.

Men in suits and ties.

>> The Catskills was almost like the Champs-Elysées.

It was like the French Riviera.

To them, it was the ultimate vacation of all time.

No Jew at that time ever went back there, because they just came from Europe.

So no Jew would say, "Let's go to Europe for a vacation."

That's where everybody got killed and that's where everybody was escaping from.

So they didn't think of going there.

They just thought of thanking God I got out of there!

>> ♪ All year long, they'd slave and slave and slave ♪ ♪ For that two-weeks holiday they'd save ♪ So, now the Catskills became the haven for Jews in the summertime.

>> ♪ In the Borscht Belt in the days gone by ♪ >> I learned that the first thing is you go over to say hello to the guests.

The second thing is you try to feed them.

>> ♪ All those great meals fit for a king ♪ ♪ And they'd double-order everything ♪ >> When Europeans like my mother came to America, food, which had been so scarce in the old country, became a kind of affirmation.

>> I mean, where'd you get three meals a day plus whatever the people wanted to stuff in their handbags?

The guests would say, "Give me a little of this on the side."

>> Well, it was a good place to eat because you could eat 25 times a day.

>> The Catskills specialized in lots of food.

There was a great song Mickey Katz made once called "Essen," which means "eat."

It was called "Essen."

[ Speaking Yiddish ] >> ♪ Essen ♪ >> And everybody was eating and drinking, and they had tea room 2:00 in the morning where Jews were still eating.

>> ♪ Essen ♪ [ Man belches ] Jews never finish eating.

>> Let me put a word in your vocabulary -- yogurt.

How about this word.

"No."

"I couldn't eat more marble cake."

>> You're serving three meals a day, seven days a week, in a 110-Fahrenheit kitchen with alcohol and tattooed jerks behind the counter going, "Pick up!

I kill you, you son of bitch!"

And they never learned your name, so they called you by what your order is.

"French Toast!

Pick up!

You can go, you son of a bitch!"

"Hey, you, too, Potato Pancake!

I kick your ass, too, eh?!"

>> Busboys lived for tips and developed mini acts, routines to gain favor with the guests.

They were the dining-room entertainers.

>> I performed while I worked.

And I was a good busboy, trust me.

[ People cheering ] And I made a ton of money as a busboy, and my Aunt Lil of Browns kept saying to me, "Don't tell the waiters.

Jesus, don't tell them what you're making."

"Well, Aunt Lil, I made $700 this week!"

"The waiters are making $150.

Will you shut your hole?"

>> Vacation staff lived in bunk houses.

Lenny Bruce and Buddy Hackett were busboys and roomed together.

They later shared an apartment in New York.

>> They didn't have any furniture, so they had a one- room apartment that they went and bought sand and put it all in the apartment, and they invited broads over to the beach and put an umbrella and a bulb and sit there and smoke joints.

♪ >> Most of the comedians that I knew began out there as bellhops.

♪ >> That included Buddy Hackett and Alan King and Red Buttons.

Alan King was asked when he applied as a kid, "Are you a good dancer?"

Because he had to dance with the women.

That was his job.

>> And side, together, straight.

>> The staff was allowed to mingle with the guests, so all of the meeting of the sexes really took place on the dance floor, much more so than the pool, because you could snuggle up close on the dance floor.

♪ >> And many times, the owner would say, "So-and-so is not being danced with.

Go dance with them."

We also were not allowed to dance with a person more than once.

>> People came up there for three reasons -- food, relaxation, and entertainment.

That was what they went there for.

Now, there were a couple of other reasons that they don't really advertise... but there was four.

[ Laughs ] >> The Catskills hotels were quite well known for their elaborate catered affairs.

Romantic affairs were not so well-publicized.

>> Sex, according to my mother, is a very fine department store on Fifth Avenue.

♪ The Bungalow Bunnies were available housewives -- I'm not speaking from experience -- who would engage in, um, affection with younger men.

>> When I was 18, I worked as a busboy at the Fieldstone Hotel.

Available women?

It was a kosher candy store.

For other guys.

Unfortunately not for me.

>> First summer out of high school in 1948, I was a busboy.

My first sexual experience was at the baseball field and was with a woman, a married woman, because her husband would come up on weekends.

We made love at home plate.

As I like to tell people, I scored.

[ Thunder rumbling ] [ Laughs ] And the tough part I had was when her husband came up.

We only did it once.

When her husband came up on the weekend...

I was so nervous that he knew something from the way she looked at me.

I would serve the soup, and I was like this with the ladle of soup, and when I had to give him his soup, all over him.

I had to apologize.

And I was scared to death.

And I remember once the head of the kitchen saying, "Leibel, you'll never amount to anything.

And my suggestion, Leibel, is do not go into the food business."

That was a wise suggestion.

>> ♪ If a girl was single she would go ♪ ♪ To the mountains for her Romeo ♪ ♪ How her ma would wail and cry ♪ ♪ If she didn't get a guy ♪ ♪ In the Borscht Belt in the days gone by ♪ >> The singles scene became a major part of the Catskills' clientele.

Lots of girls were looking for husbands.

[ Indistinct conversations ] [ "Wedding March" plays ] >> I did meet my future wife at Arrowhead Lodge in the Catskills, but other than that, I didn't have many conquests.

>> My wife can tell you, we learned how to dance here, we learned how to live here.

>> [ Laughs ] Yeah.

>> We had wonderful experience.

Many babies were born here in these Catskill Mountains through our courtships and relationships.

>> Well, I met my wife in high school.

Finally met her.

I met my Miss Right.

I didn't know her first name was "Always," but still, we're very happy.

>> This is the news that electrified the world -- unconditional surrender.

>> When the post-war era started and things began to change all over the country, economically, politically, demographically... the Catskills changed with them.

And with that change came the change in comedy.

♪ >> The era of the social staffs was over.

Modern stand-up comedy was born.

>> I said to my wife, "Where do you want to go for your anniversary?"

She said, "I want to go somewhere I've never been before."

I said, "Try the kitchen."

[ Laughter ] >> The comedians would often, shall we say, "borrow" material.

Most times they'd forget to mention it.

♪ >> And my brother Moe and I would go to the famous Palace Theater, and all of the well-known comedians of that time would be billed at the Palace.

And we would sit in the balcony and make notes of the jokes.

Then I would pass the jokes around the following summer in the Catskills.

>> They would sometimes see comics over and over again and sometimes the same comics over and over again.

And when they got to the punchlines, the guests would speak in mass and repeat the punchlines with the comics, so they already heard it.

And I said, I'll tell you what, though.

I will make notes on every comics' routine from the previous week, and then when you come, you'll give me a little thank-you, and I'll tell you what their routines were, so you make sure you don't repeat it in your show.

And that's what I did.

And that's what they did.

>> After the main show, there was a show in the Night Owl Lounge at the Concord.

So there was a show after the show.

>> I remember the first time a big star was Jerry Lewis.

We were here and we enjoyed him.

We were friends of his parents.

And we enjoyed the entertainment most of the time.

>> The audiences in the Catskill Mountains were seeing a performer on a Wednesday night that they didn't have to pay to see.

That came on the dinner.

They just watched it, and they'd like it.

A nice man with a dog, gave him a pretzel.

Nice.

Good.

"Harold, did you see the man with the dog?

Gave him a pretzel!

Why don't you do that, Harold?"

>> "You know, where I first saw you, I didn't like you.

My wife, ah, she's not that crazy about you either, but you give me your autograph anyway."

The greatest pleasure a Jew has is to tell you which show stunk.

"You think he stunk?

I saw a show that really stunk!"

"Did you walk out?"

I didn't even go in.

I didn't go in."

>> They were the toughest audiences in the world.

You had to bang 'em, or they walked.

>> [ Laughing ] >> If you want to speak about comedians, I think there was -- They started from here and went to Hollywood, to Las Vegas... >> Yes.

>> ...to Atlantic City.

>> A lot of the hotels didn't survive because they didn't have what the public wanted as the years went by.

There were other reasons which brought down the hotels.

Escaping the summer heat was no longer necessary.

♪ >> And RCA air conditioners are backed by the research and engineering skill of RCA.

>> You could now go to London and to Puerto Rico and to the French Riviera.

One of the attractions of Grossinger's and many of the hotels in the Catskills was the daughter could meet a nice Jewish boy, the son could meet a nice Jewish girl.

Well, the daughters and the sons didn't want to travel with families anymore.

>> Now many former guests could afford homes with pools, join country clubs, send their children to summer camps.

Even the legendary Catskill menu changed.

Seven choices of herring for breakfast were replaced by... granola.

[ Indistinct conversations ] >> When I got married, we had 456 hotels.

That's a long time ago.

And now you gotta token us.

♪ >> It was a very sad picture.

It was a very sad moment for people who worked at the Catskills.

In fact, at the Concord, I tell people, I came on, I was a comedian, I walked off.

A guy said, "Congratulations.

You're a partner."

They went bankrupt in the middle of my act!

>> The Borscht Belt season was Memorial Day to Labor Day, late May to early September.

Hotels would shut down and prepare for the winter.

Guests would go home.

This time, most would not be coming back.

>> Of course they say, "Were you here all the time?"

A few years, I was away.

I enjoy when I go out to check in or greet people.

They didn't feel like they were coming to a hotel.

It was like coming to a family.

Just ask anyone on I've been coming 30, 40 years.

They're proud to say that because they had so many good years here.

You go back to places you were happy and saw your children grow up.

They now bring their children and their grandchildren.

I love the Catskills.

No, I don't expect to leave.

♪ >> The Catskills were an enormously important historical moment, but I'd think we'd miss their value if we think of them as just history.

They continue resonating with us today.

>> They created the path down the road to make it possible for these guys to stand up on a stage and make you laugh.

>> This is your story, Al Duncy.

[ Laughter ] This is going to be the story of your life.

We're going to tell the intimate, inside story... >> To make people laugh is the biggest thing that you can do.

It helps you get through life.

How are you going to get through it?

Make a little fun of it.

>> Yes, sir, Al Duncy.

This is a night you will long remember because... >> The Catskills helped me in my comedy.

It helped me in my real life.

And it helped me in my love life.

It made my life.

It truly did.

>> It gives me a little twang in the heart to hear about where it all began and where we all learned from.

I have to call on the kid -- the kid in me.

Why would we want to get old?

But it's okay as long as you don't have to give up young.

>> On behalf of all the comics of today, the comics of yesterday, the comics of tomorrow... Don't stop laughing.

Keep on laughing.

>> ♪ Don't you love farce?

♪ ♪ My fault, I fear ♪ ♪ I thought that you'd want what I want ♪ ♪ Sorry, my dear ♪ ♪ But where are the clowns?

♪ ♪ There ought to be clowns ♪ ♪ Quick, send in the clowns ♪ ♪ >> The way the world is today, we should always be asking, where are the clowns?

Rest easy, Mr. Sondheim.

As long as laughter continues to reflect and illuminate what fools we mortals be... the clowns will always be here.

They've just changed, because we've changed.

The best of them offering the sweet respite of comfort.

You see, the clowns never really left.

>> ♪ Don't bother, they're ♪ ♪ Here ♪ [ Applause ] [ "Make 'Em Laugh" plays ] >> ♪ Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh ♪ ♪ Don't you know everyone wants to laugh?

♪ ♪ Your dad said, "Be an actor, my son ♪ ♪ But be a comical one" ♪ ♪ They'll be standing in lines ♪ ♪ For those old honky-tonk monkey shines ♪ ♪ Now, you could study Shakespeare and be quite elite ♪ ♪ And you can charm the critics and have nothing to eat ♪ ♪ Just slip on a banana peel ♪ ♪ The world's at your feet ♪ ♪ Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh ♪ ♪ Make 'em laugh ♪ [ Laughter ] >> Ready?

>> Yeah.

>> One, two, three.

>> ♪ Your grandpa said, "Go out and tell 'em a joke, ha ♪ But give it plenty of hoke" ♪ >> Are we in good shape?

>> Take one.

Marker.

>> ♪ Take a fall, butt a wall, split a seam ♪ ♪ You start off by pretending you're a dancer with grace ♪ >> When Bush said he sees a light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq, it was the perfect opportunity to say that's a train coming the other way!

♪ >> It was an incredible... [ Jet engine roars overhead ] I hope it's one of ours!

Get 'im!

♪ >> Professor Backwards.

>> Professor Backwards came on the stage and he wrote everything backwards.

Today they would say, The guy's sick.

Take him away.

He can't write straight."

>> You know he died in a fire and he was yelling, "Pelh, Pelh!"

[ Laughter ] ♪ >> They made me do this, folks.

>> What?

>> My God.

[ Laughs ] [ Singing indistinctly ] [ Laughter ] ♪ >> You got to be good.

You got to be funny.

>> This woman goes to a palm reader to have her palm read.

The palm reader says, "Your husband will die a violent death."

The woman says, "Will I be acquitted?"

>> The first thing that goes when you get to be 80 are these.

>> Right.

>> So I would appreciate it -- I will not consider you unkind and that you're yelling at me, but I would like to hear you.

>> That kind of segues into my next question.

>> Why are you yelling?

We're sitting together.

>> Here.

>> ♪ Make 'em laugh ♪ >> The only thing I'd like there is that I never worked so cheap in my life, and I'm happy I got the opportunity to express myself, because to hear my own voice is my only pleasure in life.

♪ Make 'em laugh ♪ ♪ Make 'em laugh ♪ ♪ Make 'em l-a-a-augh ♪