The Comedy of Regurgitation

"...and I see people getting up at seven in the morning to go to work at the drugstore to sell Flair pens - but the most amazing thing to me is: I get paid for doing this." (insert banjo flourish)
Oh, there are vast regions of my brain that are crammed full with comedy bits for regurgitation. In the fall of 1977, I was one of the first in my high school to buy "Let's Get Small" by then up and coming comic Steve Martin. I memorized the whole thing. The happy part about this for me was that it cemented my reputation for being a funny (later "wild and crazy") guy. It took another three or four months for the rest of the planet to latch on to the record and make most - if not all - of it a series of catch phrases. But for those three months, I was the funniest guy in school. Thanks, Steve.
Later on I digested a series of National Lampoon records. The challenge with most of these bits is that they are generally dialogues and don't lend themselves to one-man shows. I didn't let that deter me. Probably the chief amusement gained from these records was the creative and very giddy use of profanity. Brian-Doyle and his brother Bill, better known as Bill Murray and that old guy, did an extraordinarily profane piece about confession. National Lampoon's "That's Not Funny, That's Sick" still plays in a loop somewhere in the back of my mind - I have to be careful not to turn on the external speakers.
Before that, in junior high it was all about Monty Python. I was "one of those guys" who knew (knows) every syllable of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Finding this just a bit mainstream, I devoured their other records as well as the TV show to give myself an excuse to go spouting off in a high-pitched cockney accent. The Dead Parrot, The Penguin on Top of the Telly, The Cheese Shop - these were all staples of my personal geek show. I tried at times to enlist the help of my friends to do skits in repertory, but I could never get the same kind of enthusiasm from them as I had - go figure.
Winding the clock back still further, we find the genius of Bill Cosby. It occurred to me that Bill comes by his Jello cred honestly. He was flogging Jello as a means to keep monsters away and a staple of suburban dessert long before he started getting a check from Kraft Foods. He was also the voice of my childhood. I would do the Chicken Heart for my parents' friends, but I was never sure if they were truly amused or just patronizing me and my poor parents. Long before Kelsey Grammer was warbling his own scat theme song, Bill was jamming with Quincy Jones before each episode of Chet Kincaid, Physical Education instructor: "Got some ragginz, and some rollz, and some reezenfryzen - ah ha ha ha."
The joy of all this? My brain is generally a pretty funny place to be - though it gets a little crowded sometimes, since I'm still storing all of this stuff in analog form.