THE TIME I MADE AN ICONIC COMIC WRITER LAUGH

The projected sign above their heads, “If You’re Having A Good Time, Tell Your Face! Bill Scheft & Alan Zweibel,” marked the setting on a hot, humid day in the reinvented Catskills during the summer of 2023 for two of the most successful comic writers to reclaim their rise to fame before a packed auditorium.

The presentation started with Zweibel’s lingering declaration that he made $7.00 per joke back in the heyday of the Borscht Belt when he wrote for the hotel comedians. We had heard him tell that before. When I reported on a presentation by Zweibel at a center that helped his mother-in-law with aphasia, my husband was with me. Later, Zweibel was a guest on the radio show that my husband hosts, The World of Work, where Zweibel again told of his meager income back in his youth.

After the Q&A session with other attendees, I approached Zweibel as he stood at the front of the room and asked for a moment of his time. My friend Kevin inspired me to approach him, reminding me to "keep laughing" as he wrote in the memory book my children made for me on the occasion of my 70th birthday that month. I mentioned the book in my September 5, 2023 Tuesday blog post, Facebook Surprises, which can be found on my website at sharonmarkcohen.com. Zweibel confirmed his starting income per joke, and I disclosed my earnings as a staff writer for the newspaper where I wrote about his speech at the aphasia center in West Orange, New Jersey.

Thinking about my comment, he calculated our vastly different incomes and chuckled at my comparison with his $7.00 paycheck. Of course, that was in his days before making it big when he started writing for Saturday Night Live for its premiere show. Seeing Zweibel, the comic genius who helped skyrocket SNL to incomparable heights of fame laugh at my remark was luscious.

The good guy that he is, he acknowledged remembering meeting us and appearing on my husband’s radio show. When my husband reached out to shake hands and thank him, he responded, “No, no, thank you!” What a funny and good guy.

Zweibel meeting with audience members after his presentation July 2023 Ellenville, New York