MOD, WC and NSFW

Hey, it's Michael O'Donoghue's birthday.  He died fairly young--he'd be in his 70s today.

He's best known perhaps for his work on Saturday Night Live, as a writer and performer. (He was in the first sketch SNL ever aired, and was famous for his impression of celebrities if you drove steel needles into their eyes.) But he rose to (slight) fame earlier for his dark comic vision, especially in the work he did for National Lampoon.

Among his well-known pieces were "The Vietnamese Baby Book" and "Children's Letters To The Gestapo." But maybe my favorite was "The Churchill Wit," where he relates a number of famous anecdotes about the great man.

Here are a few selections:

When the noted playwright George Bernard Shaw sent him two tickets to the opening night of his new play with a note that read: "Bring a friend, if you have one," Churchill, not to be outdone, promptly wired back: "You and your play can go fuck yourselves."


At an elegant dinner party, Lady Astor once leaned across the table to remark, "If you were my husband, Winston, I'd poison your coffee."

"And if you were my wife, I'd beat the shit out of you," came Churchill's unhesitating retort.


Churchill was given to reading in the bathtub and, while staying at the White House, he became so engrossed in an account of the Battle of Fonteney that he forgot President Roosevelt was due to drop by to discuss the upcoming conference in Yalta. At the appointed hour, the president was wheeled into Churchill's quarters only to be informed that the prime minister had not finished bathing.  Roosevelt was about to apologize for the intrusion and depart when Churchill, puffing his customary cigar, strode into the room stark naked and greeted the nonplussed world leader with a terse, "What are you staring at, homo?"