Carl Reiner’s comedic instincts, appreciation for collective talent and abilities in a writers’ room made him a legend, says Gene Seymour, and Reiner never stopped showing up to live what he described as the « best life possible. »
Come on, now. You know that’s funny. Carl Reiner would have known that was funny. He’d back me up on it — except that he’s the one who died at age 98.
He’d also know why it’s funny. « The absolute truth, » Reiner said, « is the thing that makes people laugh. »
And Reiner, even though he was at the age when, to paraphrase Casey Stengel, most other people are dead, was still an active, sharp-witted presence on the pop-cultural scene along with his lifelong pal and frequent foil Mel Brooks. Both of them, just this past weekend, were photographed celebrating Brooks’ 94th (!) birthday wearing « Black Lives Matter » shirts.
And now he’s dead? Already? The way Reiner was going, we all thought he’d have 98 more years. At least.
It’s also funny, just as an aside, because Reiner appreciated funny numbers. And 98 happens to be one of those numbers that, for whatever mysterious reason, is a funny number. Like 32. or 63. Or 2,000, which was the number of years assigned to Brooks’ alter ego, « The 2,000-year-old man, » to whom Reiner played straight man and interlocutor on several comedy albums and hundreds of TV and stage shows.
Maybe the first place to start assessing Carl Reiner is as a second banana, which is how he achieved nationwide attention as part of the unparalleled ensemble of comic actors backing up the explosively versatile Sid Caesar on the groundbreaking « Your Show of Shows » TV comedy-variety series (1950-54).
