Jeanne Robertson | Northern Tap Dancer

I've been talking about since I started about having a sense of humor and the interesting thing that I believe is that if we accept things we can't change and if we laugh at ourselves accept things about the people around us that we can't change even if we create a little humor like my daddy did that we program ourselves to see the humor in stressful situations whenever they occur and make the most of them and I'm going to give you a real good example of somebody that did that maybe one of the best stories I've ever seen of somebody that saw the humor in a stressful situation occurred in Alabama many years ago I was to MC a small town beauty pageant in Alabama I would like to say for the women in the room this was a Scholastic opportunity for career-minded young women no it wasn't it was a small town beauty pageant I did not know that in addition to all of the Southern young women there was a young woman who had just moved to this little town in Alabama with her family from I guess Long Island Manhattan somewhere way up there at that stage in my life growing up in North Carolina going to Auburn having Alabama Roots I'd never heard anybody with a thick big city Northern accent I just could never heard but I was interviewing the contestants I had interviewed four of them and a beautiful young woman walked up she had a big smile on her face and personality just written all over her and I was just sitting right there in Alabama so I was a little shocked CU I said hey and she said hi I'm number five my ears started just batting on my head I turned into Deputy dog I said what she said I'm number five number five and the the pageant director told me then she stopped She said how are you I said I'm fine how you she said I'm doing terrific the pageant director told me to talk to you the pageant director yeah the pageant director she slowed down and enunciated the guy with the clipboard told me to talk to you at that point I said what every one of you would have said if you had been standing there you're not from around here are you and that's when I learned that they had just moved down to Alabama and she was having as she said a blast with this terrific person personality she had become the pet of the pageant they loved her a lot of people wanted her to win but she had a concern her concern was this at the beginning of the pageant each contestant had to walk out on stage up to a microphone and tell the group about her hobbies and how she like to spend her time and her concern was that when she started talking these people in Alabama were going to burst out laughing because as she said I don't talk like these guys I said I hadn't noticed it then I told her sort of what I'm reminding everybody of here today I said look people good people are everywhere these people in Alabama you get out there you keep a smile on your face you do the best you can do they're going to love you I didn't realize how Southern I had become on the word love I scared her she backed up do what what to me I said they going to love you L UV they going to love you she went on to tell me that for her Talent she was going to tap dance like a Radio City Music Hall rocket to the tune baby face remember it baby face boom boom boom boom now I took dancing when I was growing up all little girls growing up in small Southern towns are exposed to dancing I took it all tap Jazz ballet but the handwriting was on the wall one day they came in gave everybody a two two and tossed me a 4 four I knew the whole thing but I know enough about dance to know two things when the rehearsal was over number one she was never going to be anything like a Radio City Music Hall rocket but number two she had all the talent she was going to need compared to the other contestants in this pageant that night the next night the community poured into the local school gy atorium been there sure you have right where you people are sitting right here they had a basketball court with a goal right here and a gold down there you could do a layup and run right into the stage and knock yourself out the stage was right here with a curtain over it and a curtain down the side since they weren't having a ball game they were having a pageant they had put steal cold gray folding chairs in the school on the basketball court going right back and stencl on the back of every chair was property of First Baptist Church do not remove the people who got there late and couldn't get in the chairs had to sit in the bleachers that pulled out from each side the sound system was nothing like what we have here at Renfro Valley the sound system was run up in a little Crows Nest up here by a guy named Elmo who just climbed straight up a ladder that went Elmo didn't even have the equipment they have here what Elmo had was a small record player with a stack of Records given to him by the contestants and a microphone each time he needed music he put that record on and he put the microphone down and the noise would come down the cords all the way to two football siiz fields loud speakers on either side facing the people in the folding chairs there had been some discussion at rehearsal about removing Elmo from his position he did all right on the 45 records cuz all he had to do was move the needle right to the front but on the 78s and the longer playing albums where he had to find the song we could hear him looking finally the committee in charge said oh let him keep his job how much can one man mess up a pageant at 7:30 the show started and what I would love to tell you is that when the northern tap dancer came out to tell about her Hobbies the people in Alabama didn't even notice her accent that's what I would like to tell you but of course they noticed it all around the gymatorium men swallowed their chewing tobacco a couple of women did too and when she stepped up to that microphone and announced to the crowd that she like to hang out at the mall and play with her dog in the yard woman down here named Maly May turned to her sister said what' she say she's got a pet mole she found it in the yard but did they burst out laughing would you have no now this is this is audience participation come on Bob Jean you got to it's not Bobby Eugene it's Bob Eugene is that it when I ask a question y'all chime is did they burst out laughing no very good but they wanted to but they held it back and they said to themselves we can hold back anything for 3 hours they just didn't know how far they were going to be pushed how far can you push a group of nice people for example contestant number one in the talent competition came out on the stage and she jumped on a trampoline that's it my words are precisely correct she just jumped on the trampoline she did not flip she did not twist in the air she didn't even seat drop children under the bleachers were saying I can do that she just jumped but on this stage as she got her momentum up going straight up so many times she begin to disappear behind the curtain and you could see people in the audience go bounce where'd she go bounce the curtain man anybody that has ever been in anything like this knows about this kind of guy the curtain man is standing over here with one hand on a curtain and a toothpick rolling around in his mouth I know y'all know about this cuz a bunch of you had them in your mouth when you got here last night he could talk he could chew he could drink milk he could eat he could roll that toothpick it never left his mouth but when he wanted to say something important he took that thing out and he pointed it at you and when she was out there jumping and then disappearing he he leaned over at me and took that toothpick out and says if she wants any points and talent she better spring herself through that basketball goal but they held it back and then out came contestant number two and for her Talent lifted weights to classical music Beethoven truly rolled over trust me muscles she had had muscles and she had something oily all over them I have since seen this on the weightlifters in the Olympics I don't know the name of it do any of you lift weights Bob Eugene you lift weights I knew you didn't I was trying to be nice she lifted those barbells around like they were Tiddly Winks and two and a half minutes into her Talent she put them down and came over in front of the judges and started doing this stuff one Old Judge broke his pencil but the curtain man he AED over at me and he said he ain't going to make it through swimsuit but I ask you you tell me did they burst out laughing no wonderful people but they were going to be pushed further out came contestant number three and for her talent in all my years of watching pageants before this and since I've never seen another contestant do this for her Talent she packed a suitcase that was it for three minutes she packed a suitcase she had little clothes she folded them she put them in shoes she put them in the corner she did all around and people sat mesmerized I remember standing at the Lector thinking if I had known this was talent I could have been Miss America and at exactly 3 minutes she closed that suitcase and walked off the stage waving curtain guy took that toothpick out again she said she may be packed but she ain't going nowhere but I ask you again even push this far did they laugh no good people I introduced contestant number four she came out to sing and I went backstage to find the northern tap dancer and encourage her I said said come on you get out there they like you I told you they wouldn't laugh when you told them about hanging out at the mall and playing with the dog see they sat right there you get out there and keep her smiling I promise you these people in Alabama she said hey they're going to love me I said yes they will she got out on the stage and got in her tap dance ready position and Elmo to his credit started her music right on time which was not tough he got it right at the absolute beginning because she had a 45 record all he had to do was just move the needle only problem was the singer's record had been on 78 speed and Elmo didn't change the button he changed a button but it was volume he turned it up so instead of baby face boom boom boom boom we had baby face you got the cutest little baby face and the noise came through these things and came like a tornado right at the people in the folding chairs they were falling over backwards grabbing their children one woman said later it shot her home permanent straight another woman said her water broke and she wasn't even pregnant [Applause] but a man said he didn't think anything about it she's from the north you know they talk faster up there they probably play the music a lot faster too now if that had been any of us here at our age we would have said please stop the music it's on the wrong speed but she was 17 in a new town she didn't even speak the language didn't know know the people but she was a trooper and she could see the humor in a stressful situation she did the only thing that she could think of to do she started tap dancing in 78 speed baby face you got the cutest little and her little arms will going around have you ever seen a humming bird man down here in the road says to his wife she's going up mama watch this she going to rise up like a helocopter her veins on her neck started standing out her face turned red I thought she was going to explode I went over and started pounding on the wall to get Elmo's attention it took forever by now her parents had fallen out into the aisle he finally looked over and all I had to do was say wrong speed and Point by now she had dug a little hole in the middle of the stay Elmo gulped and disappeared and she was still out there going like this but did the audience laugh even at this they didn't know what they were supposed to do was she doing comedy or what they did not know mercifully before she exploded Elmo got to the record player and turned that record off of 78 down to 45 where it ought to be and kept on going to 33 and the3 this meant that record went like this baby face you got the cutest little baby face no one could ever take [Music] your it was as though the whole group had been picked up and put into the Twilight Zone babies knew better than to even burp the contestant was frozen in the Heisman Trophy position on stage and I point this out because she had tried once and it just didn't work but you sometime have to try again we could hear the music going on my poor heart is jumping she looked out and around the audience and she made that snap decision to see the humor in it and she started tap dancing in 33 and a third oh the heart is jumping curtain man says to me you want me to put her out of her misery I realized now he meant pull the curtain but I wasn't real sure that night 17 years old now let's talk about the audience they had had it they had been pushed from a trampoline to playing with her dog in the yard to coming out lifting weights to packing a suitcase to the music going baby face and now we're going bab it could not get any worse but just when you say that it can in this hot Auditorium you know the line where it goes in her warm embrace when it got to the word warm in this hot Auditorium the record stuck and started going warm warm warm warm and about after the third one this contestant bless her heart went right into it and started going warm warm warm you remember trigger counting out warm warm and at this point that was all she wrote now I'm going to see how smart y'all are did the audience finally burst out laughing yes and they stood up and started going with her warm warm warm warm and she starting milking it warm warm warm I was over there and I just said this cannot keep going I've got to stop it but I had to come all the way across the stage by now she's flirting with people over here warm I got about two feet from her and she saw me coming she turned around and she said get off the stage these people love me

Channel: JeanneRobertson

Views: 416,607

Keywords: Clean comedy, christian comedy, christian comedian, jeanne robertson, jeff dunham, jeff foxworthy, john boy and billy, ron white, funny lady, don't send a man to the grocery store, humorist

Id: XH2kUaMogTI

Length: 19min 25sec (1165 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 12 2024