The American Comedy Network was a group of former radio deejays who formed a radio syndication service that provided parody and novelty songs to local U.S. and Canadian radio stations. They hired me to voice Madonna. Between takes I’d talk like Little Mrs. Goldfarb, (a character I did in my stand-up) to crack up Dale Reeves. Mrs. G’s rasp made Dale say “You could do Joan Rivers!” So I went to Tower Records, bought Joan’s LP, What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most, and played it over and over and over like in high school when I was preparing to try out for the musical. But this wasn’t about learning lyrics, where the orchestra came in and practicing my moves. I needed to make my voice be able to sound exactly like Joan Rivers’s voice. Maybe it’s my ears, but I can’t always hear the words to a song. My brain immediately picks out the tune and orchestration. When I listened to Joan the words hardly mattered. What I heard was the rhythm. Badada Badada —BUH! Her phrasing is a laugh trigger!— she taps the funny bone with a little rubber hammer. Like Little Mrs. Goldfarb, doing Joan’s voice means high level energy. The trick is to suck in my diaphragm while pushing my breath up out of my gut into the back of my throat and kind of retch out words. “Can we talk?” That was Joan’s signature line at that time. I voiced Joan on ACN’s parody Can We Talk, which was later released as a single on Rhino Records.
For more than twenty years Joan substitute host for Johnny Carson. Until Joan signed a deal to host her own late talk show on another network without getting Johnny’s blessing. The feud was big news.
Nothing was more fun than being hired to play Joan on TV and radio commercials! Once the tape started running it was like being possessed, —in a good way. Hilarity supreme! I just got her. She freed me. I’d just blurt shit out without thinking, knowing how I was using my voice would make people laugh. When I read Joan’s autobiography, Can We Talk, I discovered that what Joan Rosenberg from Larchmont had wanted more than anything was to be taken seriously as a legitimate stage actress. I could relate.
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- Dark of the Moon SUNY Fredonia
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- Company SUNY Cortland
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- Catch a Rising Star NYC
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- “Can We Talk” Rhino Record
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- Commercial shoot
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- Checking make up
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- Comedy Video
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- Industrial shoot
Soon I was a regular on the show playing “Celebrity Guests”; some derived from my original stand-up characters, like Miss America Pageant contestant Cammy-Jo-Anne-Marie Apple-Betty Anderson, who I morphed into Texas Super-Model /Mick Jagger wife, Jeri Hall who also showed up on Imus in the Morning when I joined
It was very cool to be broadcasting from the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center, where the real Johnny Carson had taped The Tonight Show when it was in New York. I loved the Deco building’s architecture, it’s golden glow and shiny floors, passing by excited ticket holders lined up in the lobby to be in the studio audience for that day’s Letterman taping. Knowing I was on my way to work as an actor in the WNBC studio! Howard Stern had recently been fired, and Soupy Sales, whose adult kids show I’d watched as a kid hosted his own radio show in the same studio.
Joey’s cast consisted of his wise-cracking sidekick Al Rosenberg, engineer; Jay “the Jock” Sorenson, and “trafficologist”, Jane Dornacker reporting from the N-Copter. Jane Dornaker was a witty fast-talker who had downtown nightclub act and she was brave. Jane had survived a helicopter crash earlier that year. Undaunted, she was back on the air reporting car crashes from the copter. I was impressed. Jane was tickled by my ”guest appearance” as Alison Snooze—who I loosely based on WNEW radio personality, Alison Steele, “The Nightbird.” Jane was also an actor and rock musician. She appeared with The Tubes and performed her own sophisticated sexy cabaret act downtown.
Reaganomics was in full swing, and New York Magazine readers were being bombarded by magazine advertisements featuring Real Estate Mogul and Queen of the Helmsley Palace, Leona Helmsley* ,And now, Leona could also be heard! On The Joey Reynolds Show! Leona’s ear splitting whine, staff of mistreated servants, and Lucy-like ambition to be a radio star barged out of me fully formed and chomping at the bit to steal the show. Headphones in place, Leona sat itching for the damn traffic report to be over so she could talk! “At least the chick in Chopper cuts to the chase. I’ll give her that.” she thought.
Jane Dornaker plowed through rubbernecking delays, overturned tractor trailers, and a disabled vehicle in the right-hand lane before the Kosciuszko blah blah blah at top speed, but the litany was endless!—An accident southbound on the Major Deegan at the Mosholu Parkway—Who cared? A car fire at Hudson and Canal Street — Shuuut Up! ” Leona wanted to scream. Jane Dornacker must have read Leona’s mind. She stopped talking mid-sentence. All you could hear was the helicopter engine. Then we all heard Jane Dornacker screaming “Hit the water!” Hit the water!” followed by static and five seconds of dead air.
Months later, WNBC’s program director Dale Parsons asked me to come to his office where he showed me a handful of fan letters for Leona and offered me Jane Dornaker’s job. It was surreal. Jane had survived one helicopter crash only to die in another. It was impossible to think of replacing her, and I certainly didn’t want to be a traffic reporter. I didn’t know how to drive, let alone have any idea where the boroughs were. Dale assured me I’d have an assistant to create the reports and I wouldn’t have to go up in a helicopter. “Think about it.” Unlike Al Rosenberg or the men who were paid to just be funny it seemed a woman comic had to do double duty as a traffic reporter to earn a regular salary. This was wrong. So wrong. My decision was made.
A week later, I put on a pale pink satin blouse, black leather mini skirt and my black leather trench coat and high heels and entered the office of WNBC’s Vice President and General Manager, John Hayes with a kind of ridiculous ballpark figure in mind. “Can We Talk?”
