A Post on Pat McCormick

If you’re like me (and in most ways it’s more than likely that you’re not) you’ve always wondered who Pat McCormick (1927-2005) WAS.

McCormick began showing up in major films and on popular TV shows in the ’70s, seemingly from out of nowhere. Nothing’s ever random, but the ’70s was definitely the peak of unexplained celebrities. (Some would claim that NOW is the peak of unexplained celebrity, but now is actually the peak of UNEARNED celebrity. By definition, nothing is unexplained in the age of the internet, unless you’re a lazy ass who doesn’t bother to look things up). Anyway, McCormick was often employed as a sight gag: he was 6’7″ tall, weighed over 250 pounds and had a walrus mustache. He’d have been perfect in silent comedies — the Mack Swain type.

Originally from the Cleveland suburbs, McCormick started out as an ad man during the halcyon period depicted in Mad Men but slowly changed horses midstream to show business. He never dropped out of the ad game entirely though and continued to work as an announcer and commercial pitch-man for years, often writing his own copy. For a time he was in a comedy two-act with his Harvard classmate Marc London, who also went on to become an actor and writer.

Starting in the late ’50s McCormick was a Tonight Show writer for both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson. The latter association especially proved useful to him. McCormick was often on-camera on The Tonight Show, and notoriously once stripped naked and ran across the stage during the streaking craze (for real; you can watch it on Youtube). He wrote gags for both Phyllis Diller and Jonathan Winters, both of whom were fellow Buckeyes. In the early ’60s he was part of the staff of the game show I’ve Got a Secret. He wrote for variety shows and sit-coms alike, also cooking up funnies for major comedy figures like Lucille Ball,Danny Kaye, Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, Don Adams (Get Smart), Red Skelton, Danny Thomas,Zero Mostel, et al.

Throughout the ’60s McCormick gradually began appearing on camera more often. In 1968 he became the sidekick on Don Rickles’ short-lived variety show. He was in that strange all-star whatsit of a film The Phynx (1970) and episodes of The Bob Newhart Show, Sanford and Son, and Laverne and Shirley. I remember him well as a panelist on The Gong Show. He was in the weird Keefe Braselle film If You Don’t Stop It…You’ll Go Blind (1975) and its sequel Can I Do It…til I Need Glasses? (1977). He had a walk on in Disney’sThe Shaggy D.A. (1976). Then suddenly, from the late ’70s through the early ’80s, he was everywhere, very often cast as a sight gag. He played Grover Cleveland in Robert Altman’s Buffalo Bill and the Indians(1976), and was also cast by the director in A Wedding (1978). He was paired with tiny Paul Williams as Big Enos and Little Enos in Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and its sequels. He was in Mel Brooks‘ History of the World Part One (1981), and in that same year Under the Rainbow (1981) with Chevy Chase. In 1979 he was in the all-star comedies Hot Stuff and Scavenger Hunt. He was in the TV movie The Jerk, Too (1984) and in Doin’ Time (1985) starring Jeff Altman.

Through the early ’90s McCormick continued to appear on tv shows like Pryor’s Place and The Golden Girls and numerous celebrity roasts, and to take supporting roles in interesting movies like Robert Downey’sRented Lips (1988), Scrooged (1988) with Bill Murray (as the Ghost of Christmas Present — very good casting), Fred Olen Ray’s Beverly Hills Vamp (1989) with our good friend Mr. Eddie Deezen and the one and only Britt Ekland, and Bud Cort’s Ted and Venus (1991).

In 1998, at the of 71 McCormick suffered a crippling stroke, and this sadly ended both his writing and performing careers. He was an invalid until he passed away a few years later.

To learn more about show biz history, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, and for more on silent comedy, please read Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube. And stay tuned for my next book Vaudeville in Your Living Room: A Century of Radio and TV Variety, coming November 2023.