By Peter Lindblad
It was the late 1970s, and George Wallace was looking for his big break. Along came an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Soon, Wallace was writing for a variety show on ABC starring legendary comic Redd Foxx, who’d left “Sanford and Son.” Wallace didn’t last that long with the show, as he got the itch to get back out and do stand-up comedy.
“It was after ‘Sanford and Son,’ ‘The Red Foxx Variety Hour’ on ABC, and I loved it,” said Wallace, the subject of Out & About Wisconsin’s November issue cover story
Wallace added, “It was my first job as a writer. I did not know that much about writing for TV. I was still new.”
Wallace, who will be performing at the Milwaukee Improv Dec. 2-4 with friends J. Anthony Brown and Myra J, remembers fellow comics getting snatched up to work for TV after being discovered onstage. He had moved out to West after years spent chasing his dream in New York City and caught the eye of a talent scout.
“That’s what happened back in the day,” said Wallace, a native of Atlanta. “People would come to a comedy show and watch you and Jimmy Walker, David Letterman and all those guys back in that era, Gary Shandling, and they would watch you for different reasons, and if they like you they liked your show, we really like you and we’d really like you to write for the show. And I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to do that.’ Back in the day, in the ‘70s, they would pay you $2,500/a week and I said, ‘Well, I think I can come up with something.’ (laughs) And I said, ‘Oh my God, are you kidding?’”
Ultimately, although he enjoyed it, the experience was less than satisfying – mostly because the jokes Wallace was writing weren’t getting the response he wanted.
“When Redd Foxx would do the joke – you know, you write the joke like a TV show – and when he would do my joke, it would get a laugh, but not as big a laugh as I thought it should get,” said Wallace. “Because nobody does your material like you can. And I did the show, and I lasted about a year, and I got back out on the road, doing my own jokes.”
Wallace still gets a kick out of going onstage and trying out new jokes, and he recently attended the 100th birthday of Norman Lear, the famed TV producer and writer who created iconic sitcoms like “All in the Family,” “One Day at a Time” and “Good Times,” as well as “Sanford and Son.”
Those were, indeed, good times for Wallace who traveled the world in the ‘80s, drinking in different cultures and meeting new people. He thinks the music was better back then, too, as Wallace is having a ball on Twitter. He’s one of Twitter’s funniest follows.
“I don’t even know what the hell they’re saying now I don’t know who the hell is singing now,” said Wallace, with a laugh. “They’ve got crazy names … Flocka, Flocka, Flame … and you’ve got a guy named the Future. We don’t know what the hell he’s talking about because he’s way out there. And then there’s a guy called The Weeknd, who’s got a song called ‘I Can’t Feel My Face When I’m With You.’ (edit – it’s actually titled ‘Can’t Feel My Face’). And I used to say, you are way up there in that P-Funk.”
Wallace will discuss just about anything onstage, including today’s music.
“Music from back then and music today, we talk about that, we talk about angels, we talk about that, we talk about filmmaking … I talk about everything. Life is good,” said Wallace.