Nichols and May water cooler talk 1/29/60

Mike Nichols and Elaine May in a sketch spoofing office water cooler talk about TV's quiz show scandals. From the CBS TV 2-hour spectacular, "The Fabulous Fifties" aired on Friday, Jan. 29,1960.

[@annbush1826]

I was in the third row to see this show! The timing--the spontaneity--the sheer brilliance of their act. "Politicians can't lie--after all they run our country."

[@saran.4001]

That is so amazing. This skit really got funny after a bit. The part where May says the government is going to take this seriously, not like when they fooled around with integration. This is how people are like, even today.

[@mosettastone]

This is the best thing I have ever seen. Do you know if they workshopped this bit prior to the show or if the Quiz Show stuff was too recent for them to have prepped it? I know most of their work was entirely improvised.

[@annmichaelis9984]

Their comedy is timeless. Each of their skits has a as current today as it was then

[@charlesveg]

"a moral issue is so much more interesting than a real issue..."

[@GoldieHoffmanComedian]

LOL, seriously could be one of *THE* best comedic lines ever.

[@thefutureofscience8365]

Yeah, that’s brilliant.

[@patrickbeck3285]

Mike Nichols and Elaine May were just incredible together. Then they became wonderful filmmakers. So wonderful.

[@christopherhelms7290]

They had extraordinary chemistry.

[@wmbrown6]

Ms. May seemed more successful as an actress than as a filmmaker. Remember "Ishtar"? But Mr. Nichols' batting average in that realm was nothing to sneeze at.

[@shazang0]

@@wmbrown6 Uhm bitch watch A New Leaf and then eat your words.

[@MrDinghus]

@@shazang0 For that matter, they should rewatch (or watch- as Ms. May herself says, "If everyone who hates Ishtar had seen Ishtar, I'd be a wealthy woman") Ishtar! But A New Leaf is fantastic. All her films are special.

[@ordinarypeople20]

@@MrDinghus Yes, A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid and Mikey and Nicky are all very well done. Underrated as a director.

[@xtvcwoxtca6558]

This skit still holds up today. We still have politicians that are good at bringing up moral issues and ignoring the real issues.

[@davegreene8588]

Politicians who ignore real issues, aren't really all that moral, are they?

[@jeffdawson2786]

Improv at its pinnacle. Their chemistry was unmatchable.

[@thefutureofscience8365]

I’ve heard Nichols and May thrown around for years. I’ve known everything about them, but I never actually watched them until now. This is what cutting edge comedy is today. This is Comedy Bang Bang in 1960. It makes sense. They started Compass Players with Del Close, which became Second City, which birthed SNL, SCTV, UCB, Kids in the Hall, Conan, Mr. Show, CBB. Arguably Seinfeld and The Simpsons as well, if you follow the writers. All of the cutting edge comedy goes back to these guys. I wish I had watched it sooner, this is really great.

[@cockeyedoptimista]

Yeah, I never heard them before, this is my second viewing of a skit of theirs. After about 40 years, I finally looked up this thing that my mom used to say to me about her hope being that I would have children just like me one day, lol. When I figured out that came from Elaine May, I finally Googled it when I was quoting it to my sister. And I saw the skit between her and Mike Nichols about "A Mother's Wish'. About how her son didn't call her enough, according to her. It was pretty funny. Their humor is a more subtle than I expected but it's great. Truly great. (May's mom-character's wish was more explicit..)

[@simplenough]

Martin and Lewis deserves more credit

[@transcendcapitalism]

del close started io, not the compass players compass players was paul sills

[@andpacker]

This is great, thanks for uploading😂😂

[@barbaraeffros4804]

Thanks Anthony. Nichols and May crack me up. Pure talent from comedy to film making.

[@adambredesen230]

My right ear really enjoyed this skit.

[@jakre10]

I wish we had this kind of comedy today. So very clever

[@lisasalmonn]

lol we do. they are the parents of modern satirical comedy.

[@subversivelysurreal3645]

@@lisasalmonn do we? what’s satirical? I’m not arguing, I find lots of good stuff, but I can’t think of anything being particularly satirical.

[@SquareNoggin]

@@subversivelysurreal3645 You look at popular sketch comedy these days, like SNL for instance, and it's super political but IMO lacking in all nuance and subtelty, and frankly lacking in comedy as well. It's not even just that it's so nakedly partisan, but rather that somewhere along the line making hamfisted political points became more important than finding absurd and comedic concepts to observe and explore. IMO Matt Besser, one of the founding members of the UCB, has been one of the main guys pushing the envelope on comedy for the past 6 or 7 years with his podcast Improv4Humans. I highly recommend getting a Stitcher premium subscription just to listen to the backlog of that podcast. It's criminally under appreciated, and there's so many hidden gem episodes. I have a hard time believing that anybody with a developed taste for comedy wouldn't like that show. It's improv that features a wide variety of guests (but with a handful of pros who feature frequently), so some episodes are better than others, but it's pretty consistently top shelf comedy performances. For all the crappy, lowest common denominator, overproduced garbage comedy we get shoved down our throats; Besser has been out there producing hundreds of hours of some of the best comedy recorded and I doubt any of if has even been that profitable for him (and it's a damned shame). Point is if we want to see good comedy these days, we gotts dig out and support the people that are actually doing it. I really think Besser, his podcast and the regulars he brings on is one of those ongoing projects that deserves (and needs) support. If anybody does check it out, I recommend starting with some of the older episodes (they really hit their stride in about 2014 onwards). They compile "best of" episodes which can be good starting points. I genuinely believe that as mainstream art gets worse, the underground niches have all gotten better and better acrosd the board. It's like this with music as well. You see people say "I wish we still had music/comedy this good in 202X" but the thing is we DO! It's just never going to be on network television or the radio. I can't take people seriously when they say that tbh. Because there's just exponentially more art being out out there these days, and it's so so much cheaper and easier for people to produce and for fans to access. The lowest common denominator mainstream stuff will continue to get worse as the niches get better and better. I genuinely believe that Besser has had improvisers as comedic, as brilliant, as intelligent and funny as Elaine May on his podcast - the tragedy is that they're almost completely unknown and rarely get an opportunity to really show off their talent to the world. Improv4humans is a show that gives unknown geniuses a chance to show off.

[@thefutureofscience8365]

@@subversivelysurreal3645 This is what cutting edge comedy is today. It’s not on TV or in movies all that much, it’s on podcasts. Listen to Comedy Bang Bang, or anything else that Scott Aukerman or Paul F Tompkins are involved with. This is it.

[@sbalman]

They were so amazing.

[@65g4]

Ive been looking for these for years thank you so much for posting. Ive been a big Mike Nichols fan for a long time

[@georgecherucheril9947]

I am only discovering Nichols and May. In my 54 years I never heard of Elaine May until a few days ago. What a crime! She is magnetically beautiful! I cannot take my eyes off of her. She aged gracefully and is still beautiful in old age.

[@stevenbosch429]

These people were fantastic. The comedy starts with characters, usually loopy characters but very real.

[@lauralunaazul]

Wow, this is AMAZING! She s so funny! Lol, and him too. And the dialogue, jajaja

[@EAST84100]

They make it look so easy.

[@KeenerThan]

A classic piece of social satire.

[@jimkreider9997]

Love these two and a lot of what they did was improvised.

[@JHarder1000]

Define genius. This is it.

[@robertbyrd4731]

There are a lot of good stories on these two and their early career on them in Tom Dyja’s wonderful book. “Third Coast”. About Chicago from late 1930’s into the sixties or so

[@dshuster091]

I've said it once, I'll say it again: the throughline from these briliant impovisors to kate berlant and john early's sketches are so apparent. Really cool

[@favmovieclassics2156]

I see Elaine May and immediately think of Anne Bancroft.

[@wmbrown6]

Well, given that Mr. Nichols would later direct Ms. Bancroft in "The Graduate" . . .

[@waimbuthia820]

Me too!!!

[@transcendcapitalism]

this was part of why mike nichols cast anne bancroft in the graduate!

[@beemini3374]

I'm seeing shades of Julia Louis-Dreyfuss in May! I can't believe I've never watched her before.

[@soapbxprod]

AHAHAHA! "If there was a war tomorrow, you wouldn't see it in the paper."

[@annyoungbluth654]

"Well, they can't fool around with this the way they did with integration."

[@AA-sn9lz]

What does it mean?? Can someone please explain

[@matthewgillies7509]

@@AA-sn9lz the Brown v. Board of Education ruling was several years before this was filmed, when schools were told to integrate and end the separation between Black and White students. However, full integration didn't begin until passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965--five years after this aired! And some schools still didn't integrate until 14-15 years after Brown ruling.

[@davidconnell1959]

they said “integration” and I haven’t laughed like that in fifty years...if only my parents had let us watch this!!

[@DBKTube]

Their beer commercials are legend, look up Jax Beer Talking Dog.

[@Gonzo6389]

THIS WAS "FREE FROM HARM" COMEDY.

[@sockmonkey22]

They remind me of the Smothers Brothers in their delivery and timing, and the political messages. The cynical banter and then a zinger.😂❤

[@marilynrichter9824]

Saw this at Magester Theater and I cracked up. Mike Nichols was the best Director and married to Dianna Sawyer.

[@LisaDefazio]

Brilliant dynamic

[@gracewenzel]

Amazing

[@rayannina]

The most shocking part of that clip was the last five seconds - they fade out Nichols & May, and the next segment is ROY CAMPANELLA IN HIS WHEELCHAIR?!? Who was the brilliant mind who produced this special and decided, "okay, we've got this really innovative comedy sketch, it's gonna get lots of laughs, and then we'll follow it with an All-Star ballplayer who's now a quadriplegic - that'll be a perfect segue"?

[@JHarder1000]

Usually considered the greatest two hours of American Television, ever. I have a DVD of it that leaves out about thirty minutes due to copyright problems, including, naturally, this.

[@crz1990]

Without sounding too political, I’d say they were the Will & Grace of their day.

[@tedlewis392]

Damn. Still funny and so smart after all this time. Brilliant.

[@lyndonjames8607]

Ouch! Brilliant.

[@impCaesarAvg]

Dwight Eisenhower's chief speech writer was Malcolm Moos.

[@glynnwadeson5605]

I see Pete and Dud..these two were years ahead of them..

[@ivanmay7890]

Now, Elaine May and Mike Nichols were back when comedy was talented and not obnoxious.

[@flannerymonaghan-morrs4740]

Mike Nichols is really cute here!

[@flanplan5903]

Why hasn’t anyone done a biopic about these two????

[@quebon2]

there is one on this very platform....

[@nottelling4408]

Thank you for posting this. Do you have -or anyone else reading this -and can you post Mysterioso from Improvisations to Music? Maybe the whole album. The Mike Nichols-Topic channel has pulled the album.

[@tarheelblue9245]

Classic entertainment. Real entertainment and funny.

[@theunwantedcritic]

Are they making this up as they go along?

[@milart12]

I was wondering the same thing-kinda seems like it.

[@1earflapping]

No, it's scripted. They are good actors. And Elaine May is a great comic writer.

[@charltor6]

They were legendary at improv . . . . so maybe.

[@JHarder1000]

The used a rudimentar script as a skeleton, and improvised o0n it, sort of like Jazz soloist.

[@lauralunaazul]

Dont think so.

[@Corporations8MyBaby]

I’m learning that MsMay doesn’t want to do comedy dialogue that isn’t mostly improvised! 🤯

[@robertcosta6967]

Elaine May.... quite the little dish back in the day....

[@davegreene8588]

She and Walter Matthau were GREAT, in "A New Leaf"!

[@Misterpiccolo93]

this is john early and kate berlant

[@sclogse1]

The past holds great wisdom.

[@tycojewel7979]

Audience or at least tv owners were so much more intelligent back then.

[@chriskelleher349]

Just like singing a comedic duo rises above the base. 🗽🏆.

[@majobr100]

where is the sound?

[@dougbright6913]

put your right earbud in

[@profquad]

I wish I knew what stories they were talking about. Anyone know?

[@howard5992]

There was a minor scandal with a TV quiz show where some contestants were given the answers in advance. Charles van Doren a young professor at Columbia University was a key participant. He came from a prominent family of writers (his father being Mark van Doren, a poet and essayist and educator). It was a big deal at the time. Robert Redford made a feature film about the event which was released in 1995 ( "Quiz Show"). Part of what made the skit work in the late 1950's was the "joke" of people being surprised that TV might be dishonest (actors playing dentists, misleading advertisers) yet not expecting politicians to be honest (or to have the integrity to speak their own thoughts).

[@johndalton3180]

Patty Duke.

[@transcendcapitalism]

why is the host henry fonda?

[@julianyc422]

Mondern Day, social media

[@slide4180]

Is this all improv?

[@howard5992]

It started as a skit that they worked out together through improv. Then it became a routine that was a little different each time. They knew where they were going but they changed it up a bit to keep it fresh.

[@alexandermatveev5744]

Это. Просто. Охуенно.

[@mikekellum6238]

This must have had them rolling in the aisles in 1960. Then again, there also was a prime time television show about a talking Palomino horse.

[@davegreene8588]

Moral issues are real issues, to people with morals.

[@thefutureofscience8365]

And to people without a sense of humor or irony.

[@richardhoff1626]

Only Barack Obama claimed to have all the answers.

[@davegreene8588]

Obama would never have made such a claim; only RePukes resort to that kind of dishonesty.

[@stevekru6518]

I much preferred the decisions taken by President Trump to the mistakes made by Obama, but to be fair, only Trump claimed to have all the answers.

[@Daniel-rp7nb]

They are so awkward- are they ad libbing ? I don’t understand the earlier comments - there’s no chemistry or timing... why is he looking at the camera? Why did she have to stop him touching her? So weird.

[@oldmanballs]

Didn't laugh once