"Hello, Toobworld? Colonna!"
JERRY COLONNA
AS SEEN IN:
'McHale's Navy'
["Hello, McHale? Colonna!"]
TV STATUS:
Played younger than his true age
TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time
From Wikipedia:
Gerardo Luigi "Jerry" Colonna (September 17, 1904 - November 21, 1986) was
an Italian-American comedian, singer, songwriter, and trombonist best remembered
as the zaniest of Bob Hope's sidekicks on Hope's popular radio shows and films
of the 1940s and 1950s.
With his pop-eyed facial expressions and walrus-sized handlebar mustache, Colonna was known for singing loudly "in a comic caterwaul," according to "Raised on Radio" author Gerald Nachman, and for his catchphrase, "Who's Yehudi?", uttered after many an old joke, although it usually had nothing to do with the joke. The line was believed to be named for violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin, and the search for Yehudi became a running gag on the Hope show.
Colonna played a range of nitwitted characters, the best-remembered of which was a moronic professor. Nachman wrote:
Colonna brought a whacked-out touch to Hope's show. In a typical exchange, Hope asks, "Professor, did you plant the bomb in the embassy like I told you?", to which Colonna replied, in that whooping five-alarm voice, "Embassy? Great Scott, I thought you said NBC!"
Jerry Colonna also appeared in a 1965 episode of
'McHale's Navy'. In the episode "Hello McHale?-Colonna" McHale's men meet the
famous WWII troubadour who promises to do a show for them at their Tarratupa
base. However, when the men learn that shows are limited to bases that have a
50-bed hospital, they take steps to correct the shortage. This disrupts Captain
Binghamton's base hospital inspection by the Admiral who is looking for
overcrowded hospitals and malingering patients, thereby putting Binghamton in
the hot seat again.
In 1999, Jeff MacKay portrayed Colonna in the 'JAG' episode "Ghosts of Christmas Past."
With his pop-eyed facial expressions and walrus-sized handlebar mustache, Colonna was known for singing loudly "in a comic caterwaul," according to "Raised on Radio" author Gerald Nachman, and for his catchphrase, "Who's Yehudi?", uttered after many an old joke, although it usually had nothing to do with the joke. The line was believed to be named for violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin, and the search for Yehudi became a running gag on the Hope show.
Colonna played a range of nitwitted characters, the best-remembered of which was a moronic professor. Nachman wrote:
Colonna brought a whacked-out touch to Hope's show. In a typical exchange, Hope asks, "Professor, did you plant the bomb in the embassy like I told you?", to which Colonna replied, in that whooping five-alarm voice, "Embassy? Great Scott, I thought you said NBC!"
In 1999, Jeff MacKay portrayed Colonna in the 'JAG' episode "Ghosts of Christmas Past."
O'BSERVATIONS:
We don't see this happen very often - a League of Themselves member not
appearing in the timeline contemporary to the broadcast. The 'McHale's Navy'
episode took place about twenty years before it aired on TV. But Colonna didn't
look too different from his earlier self.
As for the 'JAG' episode, Colonna was seen filtered through someone else's
memories, so the recastaway by MacKay is accepted.
BCnU!
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