Richard Roffman asks his first question off an index card, which would seem to suggest that some type of preparation for the interview has been performed. Upon hearing the question, however, there can be no doubt: the question was was written by the woman who answers it, Roffman’s guest and co-host, Florence Morrison, a “very famous” opera singer. Although magnificently decked out in a Good Humor uniform-inspired outfit topped with a minimally modified cowboy hat, she has not been granted one of the usual talk show courtesies: a microphone.
It hardly matters, though, because Richard Roffman isn’t listening to her answer anyway. He’s killing time, shuffling through papers, reading a magazine. When the annoying buzz to his left stops, he knows it’s time to plug the record, which is available “wherever good recordings of opera music are sold.”
Having heard Madame Morrison’s voice during the program’s opening title (helpfully extended for slow readers and those who’d like to leave the room for a beer without missing anything) you wonder how, precisely, this record could get into those stores.
Easily explained: “Madame Morrison herself would bring copies of this privately-produced disc… around to local New York stores, which would purchase a few to resell to the cognoscenti and fans of vocal sincerity and dedication,” according to someone who knows.
And that made her just perfect for Richard Roffman, the original Broadway Danny Rose.
According to the March 9, 1985 edition of The New York Times:
… Richard Roffman – the agent extraordinaire of West End Avenue – manages to make his clientele of lesser luminaries feel like giants of the entertainment industry.
”I would not be where I am today – period – without Richard Roffman,” said Bambi Vaughn, whom [Roffman] describes in news releases as ”The Pocket-Sized Venus,” a combination stripper-investment counselor. Most of his clients are hyphenated to one degree or another to broaden their base of appeal: ”Joseph Gabrielle, equinologist-investment counselor- former professional wrestler.”
Miss Vaughn sat in the green room next to a dentist whom the grandiloquent Mr. Roffman describes as the ”brilliant dental implantologist and inventor of the Bionic Tooth!” He was next to a man who may not have looked it but was ”Hollywood’s Newest Singing Sex Symbol,” who sat next to a limousine owner-operator from Brooklyn who sounds – ”exactly!” – like Frank Sinatra; and so on down the line, from the belly dancer ”Born in Ankara!” to the man who was ”The Scientist of The Year and Educator of the Decade” (Or was it the other way around?).
All of them are part of Richard Roffman’s World, not just the [Manhattan Cable Television public access] television show of that name, but the somewhat surrealistic subculture that has been operating out of his cluttered office-apartment, where he has lived alone, at West End Avenue and 94th Street, for decades.
I don’t want to provide any additional spoilers for the lone clip compilation available on YouTube, which has under 100 views at the moment. It is likely to go viral if the cognoscenti and fans of world-class television entertainment get hold of the link to which you’ll travel by clicking the screen-grab below.
If you are drinking a beverage, please put it down. I will not be responsible for its travel through your nose. And strange things can travel through your nose, as you will learn when you click the nose of the gentleman pictured below.
Thank you, Timid Video, whoever and wherever you are.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s no exaggeration: The Best TV Episode of All Time.
P.S. You can hear two legends for the price of one by listening to The Richard Roffman Radio Show featuring an appearance by the amazing Judson Fountain, the Ed Wood Jr. of Radio Drama. Keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming CD release of the second volume of Fountain’s radio work, Dark Dark, Dark Tales and Other Dark Tales on Innova.
