The Great Jewish Comedians: Al Kelly Shows Off His Doubletalk on The Ernie Kovacs Show

Al Kelly (1896-1966) was known as the world's greatest double-talk comedian. Al Kelly was his stage name. He was born Abraham Kalish.

Kelly started in an act called Nine Crazy Kids, then started performing comic monologues. Early in his career, he performed largely in the Borscht Belt. 

When he was performing this stand-up comedy in the 1930s, he fluffed a joke so that it came out as nonsense: this got a good laugh so he made such double-talk the focus of his act and became especially known for this.


On TV, Kelly was featured among others in The Ed Sullivan Show (then Toast of the Town, in 1949, 1961, 1962) and the game show Back That Fact (1953). He was also an actor with supporting roles, such as in the film Singing in the Dark (1956) and in the TV series Mack & Myer for Hire (1963).

The only video clip we could find of Kelly doing his double-talk was in a guest appearance on The Ernie Kovacs Show.

Enjoy!

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