(This is the 10th Day of our “12 Days of the Ball 2008” series)

At the first Ball in 1995, I wanted to try to do something different, so we took over the upstairs “Michael Todd” VIP Room of the Palladium (which, if I recall correctly, held 800 people) and tried to turn it into a comedy club for the night with small round tables, spotlight, the whole deal.

Stand Up NY, with whom I had a good relationship, helped us get comedians for the night and they did a great job.  We had Scott Blakeman, who is kind enough to still give us a shout out,  Elon Gold who later starred in the wonderfully-named TV series Stacked with Pamela Anderson:

Elon Gold interviewing Elon Gold as Jeff Goldbum

Jeffrey Ross, now the “Roastmaster General” at the Comedy Central / New York Friar’s Club Roasts, truly one of the funniest comedians this side of Chris Rock, and who, by being less well-known that Dane Cook, helps disprove the notion of an essential fairness in life:

Jeff Ross roasting William Shatner
(Not Safe for Work)

And Susie Essman who, as Susie Greene on Curb your Enthusiasm, was the first to make “You fat fuck” a term of endearment:

Warning:  NSFW again

No one was more surprised than me when it actually worked.  The Michael Todd Room actually looked and felt exactly like a comedy club and there were no glitches at all.  People loved hanging out in the huge Palladium club for a while and then being escorted to their private tables in our comedy club upstairs.

Nervous in my first foray with the press, I tried to explain to a New York Magazine writer I thought these comedy shows came off really well.  Unfortunately, I was quoted as saying as something to the effect that “it was the best thing that ever happened on Christmas Eve.”  Although I may have struggled with my words, I certainly didn’t say that.   Two billion Christians have a fatwa out on me to this day.

The following year, I tried to expand the concept by bringing in a Jewish comic with an even bigger name and was pumped up when I reached an agreement with an agent at the William Morris Agency to have Jon Stewart perform at The Ball for $10,000.  Now, we were big-time!

Big-time for about ten minutes, that is. Because when I called my friends to report my coup,  they all greeted me with these three words:  Who’s Jon Stewart?   I had failed to realize that this was 1996 and that Jon Stewart was only well known to the pop culture obsessed.

This left me with Indecision 1996:  Should I book this relatively unknown comedian who I knew would be great but who apparently had little promotional value?  Or should I go back on the oral agreement I had with the agent at William Morris.

Ultimately, I didn’t believe I had any real choice but to do the latter.  Our new company couldn’t afford to pay $10,000 for talent unless we would likely get some of that back by attracting additional attendees to The Ball. The William Morris agent was pissed, as he should have been.  I felt terrible and it was both the first and last time I ever backed out of a deal (wish I could say the same for the many club managers with whom we’ve dealt).

So now when you see Jon Stewart, pointing forlornly to that “Oscar-hosting” thing as his career highlight, perhaps you will can spare some empathy for a sad clown left forever to lament “What could have been.”

Coming tomorrow: The One Where We Blow Off a Bunch of Irish Rockers Calling Themselves “U2″

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 8:47 pm and is filed under 12 Days of The Ball 2008, The Ball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.