Steve Martin (left) and Martin Short
Laughter is the best medicine. This maxim couldn’t get any truer than the undiluted pleasure you’ll get out of watching “Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life.”
Steve and Martin met on the set of “Three Amigos” (costarring Chevy Chase) 32 years ago. In their 74-minute show, which will be shown on Netflix on May 25, the comedy stalwarts team up for musical sketches and conversations about their stellar lives in show biz.
Needless to say, they’re thrilled at the chance to work with each other: As Martin describes their collaboration, “We’re like Donny and Marie (Osmond) without the sexual tension.”
These days, most comedy programs rely on catty, caustic insults to generate hearty laugher from viewers. But while Steve and Martin devote a good chunk of their introductory routine putting each other down, they quickly disprove the notion that poking derisive fun at people is the only way to create funny ha-ha moments that audiences can gleefully lap up.
The feel-good gags the duo conjures up are just as potent as their witty irreverence, lighthearted banter and sophisticated sense of humor.
When Martin pays Steve a fussy and florid compliment as he introduces his partner to the audience, he beams, “What an honor it is for me to be standing next to a man who’s a novelist, a playwright, a musician, a composer and a legendary comedian.”
With mock pride, Steve’s self-satisfied, left-handed reply leaves Martin dumbfounded: “And let me just say what an honor it is for me to be standing next to the man who is standing next to that man.”
But, Steve gets his well-deserved comeuppance when Martin talks about how pale his 72-year-old pal is: “He is like a page in a coloring book that hasn’t been colored yet. Do you know he once got a sunburn from his Kindle reader?”
Steve later explains, “That’s the way we pay compliments in Hollywood—they’re like regular compliments, but with a slight passive-aggressive dig at the end.”
The personal jokes take a more intimate albeit wackier tone when the actors take a trip down memory lane—by flashing photos of them in their young-adult and struggling years.
When Steve sees a picture of a doe-eyed Martin in college, he couldn’t resist saying, “That’s what it would look like if cocaine had a face.” And when he sees Martin kneeling in front of a desk at the White House, he asks his friend, “Did Bill Clinton take you up on your offer?”
Steve’s story of his 91-year-old mother is poignant and funny.
Martin and Steve also treat the show as a rare opportunity to demonstrate their little-heard musicality: The latter has been playing the banjo for 50 years, while Martin can sing circles around other more established singers.
Steve’s story of his 91-year-old mother is poignant and funny: “She was a little senile toward the end [of her life]. She once asked me, ‘Where’s Glen (my father)?’ When I gently reminded her that he died three years ago, she said, ‘Well that explains a lot!’”
The actor’s anecdotes about meeting Cary Grant and
crossing paths with a gun-toting, bullet-peddling Elvis Presley backstage after he opened for Ann-Margret’s cabaret show in Vegas in 1970 are also comedically priceless.
For his part, Martin, now 68 years old, aces his spot-on musical impressions of his idols, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.
But, he’s even more laugh-out-loud hilarious when he starts impersonating 85-year-old Katharine Hepburn talking to Paul Newman, whom he both met at a party in 1992.
His aptitude for self-deprecation is sublime, which he proves when he talks about plastic surgery (“Cosmetic surgery doesn’t look good on men”) and his Canadian citizenship (“We’re the aliens you don’t deport”).
So, when asked for tips to stay youthful and good-looking in Hollywood’s perpetual rat race, Martin enumerates “time-tested” rules every actor must abide by: Take penicillin after a Leonardo DiCaprio pool party; never sneak up on Gwyneth Paltrow during a “cleanse”; don’t embark on a conversation with Matthew McConaughey without an exit strategy; and never ask Bill Cosby to fix your wife a drink! Ouch.