“Fert! Honk! Laaaa Yaaaa Laaa!” (Happy Birthday, Charlie)

To this day, my best friend Jeff and I will leave each other voice mail messages with a variety of wacky noises and such. For years, we’ve been channeling our inner “Charlie Callas.” That has gotten us both in trouble on occasion (especially with substitute teachers).

Charlie Callas was one of a kind. The thing about Charlie is I don’t know that there is a way to accurately describe what he does. Sure, he tells jokes, but they are punctuated and enhanced by sounds and noises that can make a bad joke funnier than it is.

Charlie was born on this day in 1927. He fought in the US Army during World War II and spent much of his service in Germany. Prior to becoming a comedian, he was a musician.

Originally a drummer, he played with Tommy Dorsey, Claude Thornhill and Buddy Rich. When he wasn’t playing, he was always clowning around and would drive the band members crazy on the bus as they traveled. So much so, they suggested he should be a comedian. “He was just messing around with the guys and it worked, I guess” his son Mark said. Charlie was a natural comic, and it wasn’t long before he gave up drumming for stand-up routines. He dropped a vowel from his legal name, Callias, when he took to the stage in his first television appearance in 1963 on the “Hollywood Palace” variety show. (source IMDB)

In 1967, he appeared on The Merv Griffin Show. Jerry Lewis was on that same show. Charlie had Jerry in hysterics. He laughed so much that he told Merv that he had to use Charlie in his upcoming film “The Big Mouth”. Charlie appeared as Rex. Some of his vocalizations can be heard in scenes from the movie.

Charlie and Jerry had a long friendship and you could count on Charlie helping out on Jerry’s MDA Telethon.

He also made many appearances on the Dean Martin Roasts.

One of Charlie’s funniest jokes, which was done many times on talk shows was about two guys hunting…

His Girlie Magazine joke on the Tonight Show

Charlie Drumming

Charlie made appearances in many of Mel Brooks’ films. Here he is in High Anxiety:

Callas’s only known dramatic role was that of a restaurant owner, Malcolm Argos, in the 1970s show Switch.

Charlie made millions of people laugh. He passed away in January of 2011.

Tony Belmont, executive director of the National Comedy Hall of Fame said of Callas upon his death: “There were two things he did that made his career. He could think very fast on his feet, and he had an unbelievable number of sounds that he made with his voice. He would tell a joke about two guys hunting. If you or I told it, the joke wasn’t so funny. But Charlie made it hysterical by sticking in these sounds; so you would hear the gun cocking, the duck flying overhead, the explosion of the shotgun, and then the duck falling and screaming all the way to the ground.”

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Charlie!