Red Skelton: Old Jokes Never Die By Frank Lovece WO SEAGLILLS, Gertrude and Heath- eliff. "They're down on the beach," Red Skelton begins, mussing up his silver wisps of hair and miming a pair of stubby wittgs. "And she says, 'You been drinkin' that beer again.' "He says, 'No, I haven't.' "She says, 'Well, you're drunk now.' "He says, 'I'm not drunk, you're dnrnk.' "She says, 'I am not.' 'TIe says, 'You see a lot of red, blue, pink pelicans running around on the beach?' "She says,'No.' 'TIe says, 'I told you you was drunk - the beach is lousy with 'em'!" An enchanted crowd of reporters - some as old that joke - laughed appreciatively. They couldn't not. Because at the congenial, practi- cally huggable press conference last week an- nouncing Skelton's Carnegie Hall concert to- night, it was clear that in the venerability stakes, the comedian and Carnegie run neck and neck. The 77-year-old clown of vaudeville, radio, television, burlesque, the circus and minstrel and medicine shows still performs about 75 concerts a.year. Many of his jokes seem as quaint as a country quilt, and his pantomime isn't exactly Mummenshanz, and, other per- formers with this material wouldn't even get booked these days at county fairs. But Skel- people will laugh - or he might pull off p4 artistic coup," suggests sociologist David Marc, author of "Corhic Visions: Television Comedy and American Culture." Unlike fellow TV comedy-variet! icon Milton Berle,. "who ap- pealed to urban audiences and had Yiddish- isms and drag and all that stuff," says Marc, "Skelton's a real heartland product, doing midwestern carnival humor that was very much appreciated by the first wave of TV audi- ences ouiside the major cities." Indeed, "The Red Skelton Show," was a blockbuster the year it began, 1951, pulling in more than half the total TV audience each week (rare even in those days offew channels). The series then remained solid, if unspectacu- lar, until 1958, when it began a l2-year reign as a major ratings hit. NUSUALLY FINISHING in the sea- son's Top 10, twice reaching No. 2, it suddenly slumped in 1971 and was cbnceled after 20 years - the longest run of any variety show but Ed Sullivan's, and the longest for any TV per- former-host. According to the statistical rank- ing in the authoritative "Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows 1946-Pre- sent," it is the second most popular series of all time (after "Gunsmoke"), based on audience size and longevity. "He missed the boat age-wise on the cinema count, in that he-was very much like Chaplin, a mime who mixed slapstick with pathos," says Erous, an(I anJrway, f,ms ts tt€(l DKeltron, wnose television image accompanied the wonder years of every journalist in the room. And as Skelton put it himself, "I've never seen a birth certificate on ajoke." "He might just be a nostalgia act - just put- ting on his Clem Kadiddlehopper hat knowing Television actually becarne an opportunity for hiin to go back to the vaudeville trunk." Carnegie Hall seems a similar opportumty, if the routines he did off-the-cuff for reporters is z m € a o € m t, z m U) o -@ m ! I m E' aa Pleaqe see SKELTON on Page 11