Wednesday, December 21, 2016

JERRY LEWIS SCHOOLS AN AMATEUR

No, Huffity-Puffington, it was NOT a trainwreck.

No, Decider and Gawker, and Stealer, and Re-Writer, and all the other silly websites run by Millennial morons making ad money by directing people to YOUTUBE links. This was not "BAD" at all.

In your own idiot language, I'll tell you what it was: WICKED SICK. OK?

Above, you see what Huffity-Puffington wrote. Oooh, TRAINWRECK. What, "Hot Mess" was already taken? How about "AWKWARD?" That's always a good wimpy word to use.

It has to be TRAINWRECK or AWKWARD or HOT MESS parroted by mealy-mouthed Millinial morons who live for "PayPal tip jar" money, podcast nickels and Google-ad dimes. PS, does Huffity-Puffington give more than a dime for a thousand hits on a piece of junk like this, on a page festooned with "please turn off your ad blocker" ads??

If you do bother to go to YouTube and watch, you'll see clear-eyed and coherent Mr. Lewis school a stuttering fool who was obviously reading from questions on paper and being unprofessional.

UNPROFESSIONAL was obvious to Jerry Lewis from the moment this interview began. The interviewer even admitted that he knew things were going badly when Lewis became increasingly annoyed with the long time it was taking to set up the cameras at his Las Vegas home.

You bet. First off, it doesn’t take an hour to set up a shoot. It took them AN HOUR.

Let's note that news cameras INSTANTLY go out on the fly and get the pictures and the sound. Ordinary idiots pointing their phones at you can come up with results pro enough to be upped to YouTube or even picked up by a network.

Speaking of networks, NBC had a crew come over to visit me for an interview. They were set up in under 10 minutes. What did they need? To put a camera on a tripod, plug stuff in, attach a microphone to my lapel...and GET ON WITH IT.

After an hour of delay (and when you're 90, time DOES become even more precious) what happened?

This silly Millennial dweeb began reciting from his sheet of paper, ticking off the questions like it’s a quiz.

No, it's NOT a quiz, Little Boy. It's supposed to be an INTERVIEW. You're supposed to know your subject, and by your demeanor and how you frame the questions, you're supposed to show your subject that you CARE ABOUT THE ANSWERS, and that you're not just crossing questions off your list as part of a parasitic chore.

Which it was. The interviewer here wasn't that interested in Jerry Lewis. Lewis was only a part of the project, which was to interview as many famous older celebrities as possible (including Norman Lear, Dick Van Dyke and Betty White). Lewis was rightly feeling that he was not being respected and his time wasn't valued. He was just one of many being asked a lot of rote, boring questions.

Dick Van Dyke and Betty White are almost professionally "nice." They suffer fools gladly. Jerry Lewis has never been one of those. He's glowered and glared on talk shows. He's given snappy answers to stupid questions. His Q&A when he makes live appearances is almost guaranteed to include big laughs from insulting some boob in the audience for a time-wasting question.

Twerp, understand: Jerry didn't NEED this interview, he granted it because he expected you to be professional and act like you actually cared about his answers. He didn't like getting the impression you were quickly crossing off questions so you could go spend the rest of the budget at the Bunny Ranch getting beaten on the ass with a stalk of celery.

A lot of the questions lent themselves to YES and NO answers, so that’s what happened. Jerry wanted this fool out of his face, as quick as possible.

If the point is to let people know that people over 90 can still be coherent, go film a minute of Jerry on stage. If you want him to go into detail, act like he's special, and that you're grateful he's spending time with you. Apologize if you've delayed him. Understand his mood. Be flexible enough to either deviate from the prepared questions, or find a way of framing them so they're worth answering.

What this confirms is today’s interviewers are abominably amateurish.

The only positive thing I can say about THIS particular puppy, is that he didn’t simply do what so many do these days: toss out a non-question and demand a response. Like: “You’re over 90. Talk about that.” “You worked with Dean Martin. What do you remember?” “You made movies. What was that like?”

It also confirms that Jerry Lewis at 90 isn't much different from Jerry Lewis at 80 or 70 or 60. What you get from this interview is not a "train wreck" but proof that Lewis is still on track, and can be booked for a new movie, a lecture tour, or even a documentary interview.

Is HE going to do all the work for you and give you something memorable even if you're unprofessional? Yes and no!

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