Source:The Dick Cavett Show– Comedian Carl Reiner, guess hosting for Dick Cavett in 1971.

“With comedy legend Carl Reiner passing this week here’s a compilation of best moments from when he guest hosted the show back in 1971!”

From The Dick Cavett Show

I gotta be honest (not for a change) that I was underwhelmed by this video. Silly me thinking that this would be about Carl Reiner who just happens to be one of the best comedians, as well as comedic writers not just from his generation, but ever and I’m thinking they would show some of his best lines and standup on Dick Cavett, but it’s not my show.

The clips of these so-called interviews were either too short or they just weren’t very good. They show him talking (not interviewing Ralph Nader) and gets to the point where Reiner is telling Nader to run for President, not about what’s going in the world with the economy and consumer protection, things that Nader is knowledgeable about.

They show Reiner talking to Gloria Steinem (the Queen of the Radical Feminists) and Reiner says: “Women’s liberation has come a long way in the last few years” as if he’s the only one who knows that. I mean, this show was shot in 1971. And he calls Gloria beautiful (which she is) and he could get into trouble for calling a radical feminist beautiful, which he did. (Talk about political correctness)

And then they show Carl Reiner talking to an African-American actor or filmmaker from I guess the Blaxploitation genre from the 1970s, but they don’t bother to give out the man’s name (I guess introducing the man would’ve been too expensive) or bother to mention what movie he was on the show to talk about. (Because that would’ve been helpful and informative) And Reiner goes into the story about he was able to get into the movie theater and watch the film for free, because he’s a celebrity. But they don’t really talk about the film itself.

There was one thing early on in this video that caught my attention when Carl Reiner was doing his monologue: New York City really for the entire 1970s was going through an economic and crime crisis, as well as well as law enforcement corruption crisis in the early 1970s. And there was talk about how city of 7 million (of whatever the population was back then) was simply too big to govern.

Carl Reiner took suggestions from the audience essentially about how to help New York get through this. And the guy that they showed to give a suggestion suggested legal prostitution to help NYC with its economic and fiscal crisis. And he made a pretty good case about the extra tax revenue that would come in, as well as the money that it would save NYPD because they would no longer have to bust prostitutes, pimps or johns.

And I don’t have Reiner’s exact response, but he said something like: “We should all love sex, but not that much.” Which I thought was a clever response. I guess my response to that would’ve been: “This just in: New York City cleans up its streets with prostitutes. More breaking news from The Onion, as it breaks.”

But overall especially since this was from The Dick Cavett Show and it was about Carl Reiner guess hosting the show, I thought these clips were very underwhelming.

You can also see this post at FRS FreeState, on WordPress.