Do you know the meaning of this Yiddish word that entered the English language in the 1940s as the Jewish comedians worked the Catskills? Boy, to many of you that last sentence makes no sense. The Catskills had fabulous hotels which were called Dude Ranches because they offered all kinds of things like horseback riding but tamed down so “city kids” were able to do them.
I grew up in that world dominated by the simple fact that we New York City dwellers didn’t have air conditioning yet (it wasn’t invented for mere mortals until Carrier did it in the 1950s). My parents tried to escape the heat (and remember the buildings in New York are densely packed so when they heated up in the sun they reradiated that heat all night) by traveling just a few miles north into the hills of New York just outside of the city, called Catskills.
But I digress … let’s get back to the meaning of schtick. Comedians and other performers developed characteristics that made them unique. They were often funny things they did or said repeatedly that became synonymous with them.
“I don’t get no respect” was the phrase used all the time by Jack Roy (born Jacob Cohen) better known by his pseudonym Rodney Dangerfield. He was known for his self-deprecating one-liner humor. Today’s clinically and emotionally sterile consumers would point out that this phrase is a double negative meaning that he does indeed get respect. What endeared him to most listeners is that he sounded like them the way they spoke!
Give me a break. Can’t you hear him in your mind now that I triggered that with his catch phrase? Don’t you smile remembering how endearing he was as he confessed all the things that went wrong in his life, and mostly because he bumbled this or that?
George Burns’ (born Nathan Birnbaum) cigar smoking routines we all saw on TV ended with him asking his wife Gracie Allen to “say goodnight, Gracie.” My wife and I were in Las Vegas doing consulting work for Nevada Power and I heard he was performing there and bought tickets so she could see him in person while he was still alive. She thought the price was way too high, but I reminded her that included a drink.
George performed standup without an intermission for two hours always puffing on that cigar. It was his part of his schtick. He never cursed or demeaned anyone. He always made fun of himself in life’s journey. When he was in his late-90s, I remember watching a TV interview with him. He was asked if he planned to perform at the MGM Grand on his 100th birthday. He said yes, he did. The interviewer questioned his confidence in that, to which George replied “Yeah … they may be out of business by then.”
This video summarizing his life’s work played on at the end of the ABC Evening News on his 100th birthday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=encJXmTe_Bg&t=167s
That my friends is the definition and personification of schtick. Have we lost our sense of humor? Are we so concerned about offending someone who might in some way be hypersensitive to any implication they are not perfectly normal? Is it no longer acceptable to listen to Alice’s Restaurant as a social commentary?
Perhaps President Truman summarized it perfectly in response to General MacArthur’s question to him, “What does the term politically correct mean?” Truman responded that “political correctness was a doctrine, recently fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and promoted by a sick mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end!”