50 Years of Flying Karamazovs

The Flying Karamazov Brothers’ website informs me that April 23, 1973 was the date of their first official performance, at a Ren Fest in Northern California. I’ve had the good fortune to interview one of their founders and co-founders Howard Patterson many times, and he’s talked about the early dates, and I think it’s probably true that prior to that official first show the early members were already entertaining friends in and around college campuses, but this date will serve nicely. And it’s also Shakespeare’s birthday. How convenient is that? (I’ll be adding more from those interviews here anon, once I sort through them; portions of it are being saved for my upcoming book on variety television. They’re also glowingly mentioned in my 2005 book No Applause).

I can’t tell you how much I loved these guys when they came on the national scene circa 1980. Among the so-called “New Vaudeville” performers (a tag ALL of them hated and still hate) they were probably my favorites, combining the Marx Brothers’ propensity for punning and wordplay (with one of them silent like Harpo) with high end juggling, the chosen vaud skill of W.C. Fields. For a gag, they would put on Groucho glasses — which didn’t change the appearance of their mustached, Ashkenazi-lookin’ faces in the slightest. Plus they were all hippies with all of this San Francisco energy. They performed on bills with The Who and The Grateful Dead. And they were literate, obviously (it’s baked into their name). I discovered Dostoevsky when I was 19, probably around the very age I first saw the FKB. The classic line-up was “Ivan” (Howard Jay Patterson), “Dmitri” (Paul David Magid), “Alyosha” (Randy Nelson), “Fyodor” (Tim Furst), and “Smerdyakov” (Samuel Ross Williams).

I would have first seen them in the ’80s, on shows like Letterman, Leno,Arsenio,The Muppet Show obviously (see above), and specials starring The Smothers Brothers, Dolly Parton,Kenny Rogers, and others. They were in the 1985 movie The Jewel of the Nile. In 1987 they starred in a hysterical and inspired version of The Comedy of Errors at Lincoln Center with Avner the Eccentricand Ethyl Eichelberger; it was televised on PBS, which is how I saw it. In 1996 they guest starred on Seinfeld!

In addition to my many interviews with Patterson, I got to meet and talk with Tim Furst, when I performed and presented at the Moisture Festival in Seattle in 2006. I want very much to go back there!

The Karamazovs are very much still going, btw. Co-founder Paul Magid is the only one of the classic line-up to remain, and he heads it up. I caught them when they played New York in 2010; that review is here.

Here’s to another 50 years of The Flying Karamazov Brothers! I don’t care how ya do it, just do it!

To find out more about vaudeville and music hall,consultNo Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.