Hello Dummy! [PA]

Performer: Don Rickles
Engineer: Lowell Frank
Producer: Paul Tannen
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Recorded live at the Hotel Sahara, Las Vegas, Nevada. Originally released by Warner Brothers in 1968. Personnel: Don Rickles (spoken vocals). Recorded live in his natural habitat at the Sahara in Las Vegas, Hello Dummy! captures Don Rickles at the peak of his vicious powers -- even here in 1968, the most tumultuous flashpoint in the history of American racial relations, he steadfastly remains a true equal-opportunity offender, spitting out insults with the speed and force of a rivet gun and without regard to gender, race, creed, or sexuality. Opening with a surreal rant about wife Barbara's bedroom proclivities, Mr. Warmth proceeds to rip apart the audience, from Mexicans ("If it weren't for you people, we wouldn't have filth") to blacks ("What the hell do we need the Negroes for? Oh, yeah, to have cotton in the drugstore") to Arabs ("I hope you put on your turban tonight and a cobra bites you on the neck") and seemingly everyone in between. While certainly never a comedic revolutionary on par with Lenny Bruce, Rickles somehow transcends political correctness so completely that he whips the crowd into a communal fervor worthy of a preacher. ~ Jason Ankeny He may not have been the first "insult comic," but Don Rickles was undeniably the definitive one. This 1968 release captures the prince of the putdown in his element, lambasting helpless audience members (and any public figure on whom he might cast his sights) at the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas. Decades after the fact, Rickles' sarcastic barbs don't seem quite as vicious as they did at the time, but they've lost none of their humorous impact. Though he wasn't a political comedian, Rickles had no reservations about playing both sides against the middle on topics like race relations (an issue even more charged in the late '60s than it is now) and international conflicts. The biggest laughs come when Rickles lowers the boom on the Sahara crowd, thriving on spontaneous interplay with his willing victims.

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