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Getting stabbed in the neck is only the third-closest Steve Buscemi has ever come to dying.

14 Richard Pryor

Despite obscenity laws having been relaxed by then, Pryor was arrested for breaking a “foul language” ordinance directly after a show in what many have seen as a clearly racist act. It was the same year Blazing Saddles came out, and as comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff put it, “All the words that are in Blazing Saddles are the same words that he got arrested for saying onstage.”

13 Robert Downey Jr.

Downey was brought on to Ally McBeal after a stint in rehab and prison, because the show needed a bad boy for a ratings boost. It worked, but their bad boy got badder, and was arrested for drug-related offenses two more times before the show finally parted ways with him.

12 Janis Joplin

When cops tried to enforce the seating chart at one of her gigs,...

With a slew of fading celebrities boarding the Pacific Princess week after week, it was inevitable that there would be some jerks floating around on The Love Boat. Two of the show’s cast members — Jill “Vicki Stubing” Whelan and Ted “Isaac Your Bartender” Lange — recently told the Still Here Hollywood podcast which passengers were the worst.

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First up, according to Whelan? That’s comedian Buddy Hackett. “He was just difficult,” she said in naming him one of her least favorite guests. She didn’t go into details but Hackett’s “difficult” reputation precedes him. During the filming of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, for example, actor Marvin Kaplan feared for his life. “I was leaning on a couch, and he threw a knife at me. Threw a knife at me!” he said in Kliph Nesteroff’s The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy.

While Betty White became a sitcom superstar thanks to The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Golden Girls, she also helped pioneer the genre in the 1950s.

It started when White found herself co-hosting — then solo hosting — a daytime talk show in Los Angeles called Hollywood on Television, according to comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff writing for Wfmu. Because the medium was so new, White would ad-lib for hours until an enterprising producer began writing short husband-and-wife sketches for White (Elizabeth in the scripted bits) and her dullard partner Alvin. “They worked — above and beyond anyone’s expectations,” White explained.

The sketches eventually evolved into a locally produced situation comedy called Life With Elizabeth. It was a low-rent affair, with White and producer/writer George Tibbles making up names to list in the credits so it would seem like a more robust production. Klac’s station manager got ambitious after a month...

The ventriloquist act that opens for Adam Sandler in his new special Love You is working hard to win over the crowd. “How’s he doing?” Sandler asks a world-weary guy operating the theater audio board.

“He’s doing good,” the guy croaks in unconvincing fashion.

A stray dog passes through the worn-down theater halls. Sandler looks to his entourage: “Who booked this place?”

As Sandler prepares to take the stage, he crosses paths with the ventriloquist and his dummy, wearing a cap with “Lester” bedazzled across the front. “Great audience,” says the puppetmaster.

“They made me feel real,” agrees Lester, the bespectacled puppet.

“Willie and Lester, you guys,” says Sandler. “This means a lot to me. The crowd loves you.”

While Willie Tyler and Lester might be unknowns to younger viewers of Sandler’s special, his admiration for the comic duo is genuine. The veteran ventriloquist act has been...

For those of a certain age, Pat Carroll will forever be synonymous with her voice role as the fabulous sea witch Ursula in Disney's animated "The Little Mermaid." However, for those of another certain age, their memories of Carroll will forever be entwined with her career as a mainstay of 20th-century television comedy thanks to her appearances on variety shows like "The Carol Burnett Show" and her stint as Shirley Feeney's ever-critical mother on "Laverne & Shirley." 

Or maybe you're a weirdo who was reared on animated "Garfield" holiday specials and associate her with Jon Arbuckle's piano-pounding, chainsaw-swinging grandmother with the abs of steel. I wouldn't know anything about that.

As fate would have it, Carroll nearly voiced Jane Jetson on Hanna-Barbera's futuristic cartoon sitcom "The Jetsons," a role that would've existed at the nexus between her animated ventures and her run as a linchpin of live-action TV burlesque...

The Russell brothers had barely finished the signature routine of the act — a bit involving the boys dressed as immigrant servant girls that had traditionally left audiences in hysterics — before a soundtrack of boos filled the theater. They had crossed a line with their material, and now they were going to pay the price. The duo would essentially be banned from performing anywhere. They received death threats. Offers for gigs around the country were rescinded. Anti-defamation groups began organizing protests and threatening not just the Russells, but anyone who considered booking the brothers at all.

Pat Cooper, the brash Italian-American stand-up from Brooklyn whose anger real and imagined provided fuel for a long career in comedy, has died. He was 93.

Cooper died Tuesday night at his home in Las Vegas, his wife, Emily Conner, announced.

A mainstay in nightclubs from Atlantic City to Las Vegas, Cooper opened for Ginger Rogers at the Desert Inn and Frank Sinatra at the Sands. He said he once refused to take out a joke about an upside-down St. Anthony statue that Sinatra wanted excised and never worked with the singer again.

Also known for his nonstop, rapid-fire delivery, Cooper appeared as himself on the 1996 Seinfeld episode “The Friars Club” — he participated in many a roast at that famed comedic establishment in midtown Manhattan — and made regular appearances on late-night talk shows, for Ed Sullivan and, starting in the 1980s, on Howard Stern’s radio program.

The bespectacled comic played...

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Pat Carroll, the gregarious Emmy-winning comedienne who was a television mainstay for decades before segueing to a voiceover career that included portraying the villainous sea witch Ursula in The Little Mermaid, has died. She was 95.

Carroll died Saturday of pneumonia at her home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, her daughter Kerry Karsian told The Hollywood Reporter.

Carroll’s perky personality, screwball wit and impeccable timing made her a great second banana, and Red Buttons, Jimmy Durante, Mickey Rooney, Steve Allen and Charley Weaver were among those who called upon her to make their programs funnier. Her antics on Caesar’s Hour earned her an Emmy in 1957, and she was nominated for her work on the classic variety show the following year.

In a 2013 interview with Kliph Nesteroff, Carroll compared Howard Morris, Carl Reiner and Sid Caesar on Caesar’s Hour to the Chicago Cubs’ legendary double-play...

“Laughter is so important to our communities, but you would never know from the way we’ve been portrayed,” says Seminole Nation filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, one of the voices in comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff’s new book, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem (Simon & Schuster, $27), titled after a reliable punchline by late Oneida Nation comic Charlie Hill about the loss of homelands. THR spoke with Nesteroff about his deeply reported account of Native Americans in stand-up as well as wider representation in Hollywood.

Harjo, one of the contemporary Native talents who’s very present in your book, talks ...

“Laughter is so important to our communities, but you would never know from the way we’ve been portrayed,” says Seminole Nation filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, one of the voices in comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff’s new book, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem (Simon & Schuster, $27), titled after a reliable punchline by late Oneida Nation comic Charlie Hill about the loss of homelands. THR spoke with Nesteroff about his deeply reported account of Native Americans in stand-up as well as wider representation in Hollywood.

Harjo, one of the contemporary Native talents who’s very present in your book, talks ...