Los Angeles herald., 1907-08-10
EZRA KENDALL, THE PREMIER
PRoVokER OF MIRTH
EZRA KENDALL MAKES
TIME FLY BACKWARD
is THE ONLY GENUINE, ORIGINAL
FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
The Lounger Keeps Tab on Laughs
That Greet His Sa!Iies Until
His Pencil Wears
Out

Did you ever stop to think just how
many laughs a real comedian can create
in a two hours entertainment?
No? Well, it would surprise you.
Being something of a statistician I
decided to figure this out the other night
while occupying a seat at the Mason
opera house to enjoy for the third time
in one week the wittiful witticisms of
that quaint comedian, Ezra Kendall, in
his new play, Swell Elegant Jones'"
With his first appearance 1 began to
count, not the little filters, quiet chuck
lings or audible ndkerchief-smothered
hilarity, but good, healthy, hearty, spon-
taneous outbursts of unreStrained, whole
souled merriment.
During the first act of thirty-eight min
utes, of which time Kendall occupied the
stage eighteen and a half minutes, l
had jotted down twenty-one separate and
distinct laughs to his credit, an average
of better than one to each minute that he
occupied the stage.
Taking into consideration that the first
act is mostly consumed in the unraveling
of the plot this seemed to be a pretty
fair start so 1 waited somewhat impa-
tiently for the second act.
Hard on Score Keeper
When Kendall made his appearance
shortly after the rise of the curtain I
looked around for an assistant, for 1
could already feel there was much work
ahead for the score keeper, and there
was.
1 started right off the reel, so to speak;
and the rapid-flre conversation that this
dispenser of the elixir of youth handed
out compelled me to change pencils to
keep the lead from melting.
The ta1IieS Were running I'm bV the
score till he sprung" one that had not
caught at the other performances, and
went down and out for the count, but
recovered in time to credit him with
two for the one that put me hors du COM
bat, and continued working overtime till
the curtain dropped.
AS he took a call I had no time to
check up. for he started in with the ia
nous monologue that has sent many a
misanthrope into convulsions.
I secured another pencil and put both
hands to work. When he disappeared
into the set house with that high hat
in his hand I added up the amount and
found that with one hundred and sixty
two spasmodic double-you-up laughs on
the sheet in fifty-six minutes he must
have left all other records at the half
mile post and come in alone.
l did not expect much in the third and
last act, for l did not think a man could
keep up such a pace, but he came back
fresh for the last round, and the funny
sayings that he had concealed some
where about him would make a prestidi-
gitator take to the secluded pines, and
they must have been all his own, for no
could have written such excru-
ciatingly funny speeches without dying
from Mysteries before he completed the
manuscript.
The came so fast that you had to hold
out both hands to grasp them as they
went by, and at that some escaped tenn
porarily; for a fat man sitting on the
aisle fell out of his seat during the
most pathetic scene in the piece, and he
had to be led to the foyer to recover.
When he came to he explained that he
had just tumbled to that joke about the
wash room on the sleeper. When the
finale came and all was over l made up
my books and was astonished at the re-
suit, for in two hours Kendall had dished
out his good gravy" as he once termed
his quaint humor, and the figures showed
two hundred and twenty-three side-split-
ting, button-bursting laughs.
His Fountain of Youth
Think YOU what this means when we
are told that a good laugh makes us five
years Younger! Old maids who have for
gotten their recent birthdays would be-
come prattling infants. 1t would bring
back happy days of youth to gray-haired
men and women who have become bowed
down with the cares and trials of three
score years.
Do you realize what a world of good
this man is doing? He has discovered
that tabled fountain of immortal youth
which so many have sought in vain. He
is spreading sunshine and gladness
broadcast throughout the land, lifting up
the sad of heart and sending them on
their way with the joyous knowledge that
life is still worth living. In one year this
man produces sixty-six thousand nine
hundred outbursts of unalloyed JOY and
this is his twentieth year, which means
millions of laughs for ten millions of
people. Now, IL we all did our share as
this man is doing what happy and
contented old world this would be!
THE IOIJNGER