Watermelon-smashing comic Gallagher dies at 76

Craig Marquardo, in a press release figuring out himself as Gallagher’s “longtime former supervisor,” stated that he died Friday at his dwelling in Palm Springs, California, after a quick sickness. Gallagher had quite a few coronary heart assaults through the years, together with one proper earlier than a scheduled present in Texas in 2012.

With a beret on his head and some easy props, from a can of oil to a bull whip, the person born Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr. constructed a nationwide following within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s, showing on the “Tonight” present with Johnny Carson and starring in quite a few Showtime specials. His act included observational humor (“What about Easter? Whose concept was it to provide eggs to an animal that hops”), political commentary (“They don’t name a tax a tax. They name it a income enhancer”), invented sports activities (synchronized Ping-Pong) and his trademark Sledge-O-Matic destruction.

“Women and gents! I didn’t come right here tonight simply to make you chortle. I got here right here to promote you one thing, and I would like you to pay explicit consideration!” he would name out in his greatest rapid-fire impersonation of a late-night tv pitchman. “The superb Grasp Device Company, a subsidiary of Fly-By-Night time Industries, has entrusted who? Me! To indicate you! The best and the dandiest kitchen instrument you’ve ever seen.”

Sledgehammer in hand, he would then apply his full muscle to apples, grapes, lettuce and different produce, most famously the inevitable watermelon, with viewers members in entrance showered in meals bits.

Gallagher was a Fort Bragg, North Carolina, native who began out in 1960 as street supervisor for the comic/musician Jim Stafford and shortly started performing himself, honing his act on the Comedy Retailer and different golf equipment. He was not the one funnyman within the household: His youthful brother Ron grew to become a comic, obtained Leo’s preliminary blessing and appeared and acted sufficient like his better-known sibling that some audiences had been uncertain who they’d come to see. Leo Gallagher ultimately secured a court docket injunction barring his brother from utilizing his routines.

The elder Gallagher grew to become more and more controversial in recent times, chastised for racist and homophobic remarks. Gallagher even minimize brief an interview in 2011 with Marc Maron after the WTF podcast host confronted him about his statements.

“I’m the issue?!” Gallagher stated at one level. “Do you assume once I’m useless, gays will lastly have a chance in America? Have I actually been holding them down?”

In 2003, Gallagher was amongst greater than 100 candidates operating within the recall election for California governor, gained by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over the previous decade, Gallagher appeared in a Geico industrial and within the film “The Ebook Of Daniel.”