Throughout the years I've heard the names Otto and George come up every now and then - mostly during conversations with comedians on various shows - but I never really got to fully appreciate who Otto and George were, until just recently, when Otto suddenly passed away in his sleep - and suddenly the internet was aflood with Otto and George YouTube clips. My brother Jeffrey was the first to tell me the news. He said he's been watching lots of Otto and George clips and laughing so hard he was crying. And so I did, and within seconds I was crying too.
In summary, Otto & George was an adult-themed ventriloquist comedy team
composed of comedian Otto Sol Petersen and his dummy George Dudley.
Petersen began performing with George as a street act in Manhattan and
Brooklyn in the early 1970s. In the late 70s the act moved into night clubs and began to evolve into an X-rated act. Most of the clips on YouTube that you'd find are Otto from this later period. If you're easily offended I'd suggest you stay away from them - but I found his act to be hilarious. Filthy... but very, very funny...
Anyway, for THOSE clips you can do your own searching - but here's a little something I came across (a safe, terrestrial radio clip)... in which it's revealed that a young Otto Peterson during his street performing days met up with John Lennon! ....JOHN LENNON!!!
Enjoy...
Jump to 8:53 |
| Otto back when he met John Lennon. It was the bowler hat that caught Lennon's eye. |
That video at the radio station was hilarious , Ha Ha !!!
ReplyDeleteHey Dan, I'm glad you finally got to see Otto and George - but I'll tell you something... while that may have been an okay appearance for Otto it was a HORRIBLE appearance for George! hah hah - He even says something like "I wanna curse so bad!" - doesn't he? Something similar happened to Otto when he appeared on The Howard Stern Show during the terrestrial radio days. Although I thought it was a good appearance poor Otto actually fell into a deep funk over it, and the entire tail-end of the interview took on a therapy session feel to it - as Howard and Robin spent time convincing him that it was, in fact, a good appearance. George kept interrupting "They're lying! You sucked! You should kill yourself!" It was weird - and I remember it because it was one of those rare times when I think he was leaving, and someone from Howard's staff reported to Howard that he was in the hall taking his appearance really hard - so Howard actually called him back in and then (in my opinion) it became GREAT radio because as Otto and George bickered back and forth about their own appearance you got to see into the neurosis behind their act. Or perhaps Otto had us fooled all along and he was actually using it divisively, I dunno. I tend to think it was all real... perhaps a bit TOO real...
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