Irving Cohen

个人简介

Irving Cohen was a character played by Martin Short on SCTV, and brought with him to SNL. Cohen was a caricature of old Tin Pan Alley songsmiths from the early 1900s , with a particular admiration for Al Jolson. The running gag in any sketch where Cohen appeared was that he would claim that he could "write a song about anyt'ing," at which point Irving would call to a pianist off camera, "Give me a 'C', a bouncy 'C'", and then he would ad-lib lyrics, ending with, "Da-da-da-da-dee, da-da-da-da-dah, ah, whatever da hell else ya wanna put in da t'ing!" This off camera pianist seemed to follow Cohen everywhere, even bursting into song in the middle of a HUAC hearing. Cohen started his interviews by reminiscing about the old days, starting off with, "In the old days, we had a t'ing, called, 'Vau-de-ville'..." He also frequently name-dropped Al Jolson and Sophie Tucker and had a habit of punctuating sentences with the phrase "at this time." Cohen is loosely based on Irving Caesar, the author of numerous song standards, including "Swanee" and "Tea for Two”, who lived to the age of 101.