Name: Dick Summer's Shrewsbury Sandwich Contest on WBZ, Boston, December 14, 1963
Uploaded: 2024-07-07T03:44:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dick Summer's Shrewsbury Sandwich Contest on WBZ, Boston, December 14, 1963' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-07-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dick Summer's Shrewsbury Sandwich Contest on WBZ, Boston, December 14, 1963' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-07-07. Transcript available.

Dick Summer's Shrewsbury Sandwich Contest on WBZ, Boston, December 14, 1963

So true to my word, here it is.
In the background, and maybe the foreground, you hear the processional sound of
the Harvard
group known as the Down with Sandwiches, Up with Shrewsbury's International.
And they stop the processional.
It's the bird with the trashman, and it's played at all kinds of different
speeds, and
flown in all kinds of territories.
And that bird is the only one that escaped a couple of hunks of bread, sliced
diagonally
around here.
It's beautiful to see.
There are a lot of different entries here already for the Shrewsbury contest.
In one of the rooms, they have the Shrewsbury's numbered, as far as the entries
are concerned.
This looks like a grape Shrewsbury, cut diagonally, of course, on white bread.
And I don't know, it looks like cheese in there, and some other concoctions,
maybe a little
egg and lettuce.
That's number ten.
Number nine is on round bread, and it looks like we've got a little confectionery
on top
of it.
And there are oranges and a couple of sliced apples, I guess.
Or is that onion?
I don't know.
But it's kind of interesting.
Oh, apples, oranges, and cream cheese.
Very good.
They're labeled.
Number eight.
Entry number eight has a bite out of it.
It's also on round bread.
And it's peanut butter, cherries, olives, and potato sticks.
And the potato sticks are set up between the two hunks of bread.
So it's like piles on a dock.
And they're through the olives and the cherries.
It's a very wild scene.
And number six are two pieces of French bread, two small French loaves.
And they have cutouts on the top.
And the title is Roast Eel Salad, Male and Female.
They have a couple of olives in there for eyes.
And I noticed the female has just a little bit of a smear of lipstick.
It's beautiful, really.
And over here is a black dot shrewsbury.
Edited, I think, by the black knight.
I'm not sure.
But it's a furry little thing.
It's rather black and has a couple of eyes.
And it's looking out on what looks like a couple of collar stays, perhaps, for
fangs.
And on white bread.
And it's just sitting, watching the proceedings.
And probably the pièce de résistance or something is entry number 12, which
is about 12 feet long.
That's what it looks like.
Not really.
It's about a yard, though, I would say.
And it's, I think, French bread.
We just had another entry put up next to it.
But in there, first of all, the title on it is,
The Original Shrewsbury International as Eaten First by Charles Talbert, the
Duke of Shrewsbury,
on December 14, 1663.
Exactly 300 years ago today.
And its ingredients are French bread, Danish ham, Italian provolone cheese,
Spanish onions, American lettuce, American tomatoes,
Portuguese anchovies, and capers, Jewish salami, Dutch gouda cheese.
Is that right?
Yeah.
All right.
That's a new one for me.
English mustard and international oils and seasonings, which is to make it go,
I think.
To be eaten, as did the Duke, the German lawn brau, which is other lubrication.
Shrewsbury number 13.
I don't know who's going to eat this one.
And I know one guy who isn't.
A couple of pink and blue sponges, bath sponges,
skewered with what looks like the axle part out of a door hinge.
And the ingredients are a couple of brillo pads.
I don't know if there's any lubrication in there with international oils or
seasonings or not.
Number 11 is on white bread, meatloaf and cheese, and tomato,
which may not seem too phantasmagorical at this point,
but it looks rather edible, which is a distinct advantage here in the Shrewsbury
International.
Everybody's remarkably quiet.
I think nobody wants to own up to these.
When is the judging going to start?
As you might imagine, anybody who can start in the international division of
down with sandwiches, up with Shrewsbury, you have to have a little imagination.
And I'm standing here looking at this, what exactly is this?
Well, why don't you explain it?
It's called a twetter.
It's a double-thweating knicker.
I should explain that a little bit, I think.
In fact, maybe quite a bit.
There are two people standing in front of me, one male and one female,
and they are involved in a, looks like, about three-quarters of a sweater each.
And it's knit, and it's red and black stripes.
It's either black with red stripes or red with black stripes.
Which is it, incidentally?
Well, I don't know.
It matters little.
It's big at Halloween parties, anyway, one or another.
And it has two sleeves and one aperture in the middle, which is very, very
interesting.
And this was your idea.
What's your name?
Beth Richardson.
Beth, and your name?
Steve Nelson.
Very good.
And you say that you started this?
Did you knit this for him or what?
No, I knit one, an original one for my brother, which is, then we patented it
and sold it
to DuPont, and the original has since been stolen from a knitting mill, and the
FBI is after
it and everything, but we can't get it back.
The FBI is looking for a Twitter?
And they have out a $500 reward.
No questions asked.
It'll be returned, but it's gone.
Can you imagine a 6'7", 500-pound FBI man coming in and saying,
Have you seen a Twitter?
That sounds very good.
Think of all the better things through better living with DuPont.
Like Twitters.
We're standing looking at the coat of arms of the Duke of Shrewsbury.
Who did this?
This was drawn by our artist that we commissioned for the occasion, Miss Marion
Hobbs.
She's here, too.
She did the portraits of the Duke of Shrewsbury and the Earl of Sandwich, and
also the coat
of arms.
And they're very nice portraits, isn't it?
The kind of thing that you might find in a slightly shrunken and wheezing
dollar bill.
The Earl of Sandwich, looking properly notorious, I might add.
And the Duke of Shrewsbury reminds one of perhaps a younger Alexander Hamilton
with a sort of a Liberace flair.
Very nice.
Very nice.
Would you care to describe the coat of arms, boys?
Well, those two things on either side are dogs.
They're Talbots.
They're Talbots.
They're Talbots.
The family name of the Duke of Shrewsbury was Charles Talbott.
And Talbott was a hunting dog, which is one of the supporters of the shield.
Well, we don't know what we're doing, really, either.
And this is before a rather lengthy party.
The coat of arms is a lion rampant, a field of ghoul, which is what they called
red in those
days for some reason.
And this is the ducal coronet, which was, I think I should point out, is at
least one rank
above the earldom in the order of nobility, which is significant in the Duke of
Shrewsbury and the Earl.
This is also the ducal helmet, which, again, is one rank higher than the Earl,
a lion standing on top of the ducal cap.
I don't know why they had a cap, but I'm not quite sure.
It looks just a little bit like a pull and a perhaps of a beanie cap, in a way,
with a propeller on it.
Very likely.
Very likely.
A pull and a cap out.
The cap out's very good.
And the motto down at the bottom is, "Pret de complier," which is the Duke's
personal motto, and that in English is, "prepared to accomplish," which the
Duke of Shrewsbury was always.
"That's very good. We should adopt that and make copies of it, and spread it
from coast to coast with a spreader."
Shrewsbury.
Right.
This is the beginning of the secret ceremonies of the, uh...
Down with Sandwiches, up with Shrewsbury's campaign.
They're in otherwise spayed Cambridge.
A hush descends and a gathered group.
I just kicked a young lady out of a chair, which, uh...
This is the guest of honor chair.
Oh, all right.
You are the beginning of this.
Thank you very kindly.
Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
There are about, um...
Maybe 20 people here.
Nineteen people in one Twitter.
And, uh...
It's very pretty girls, too, incidentally.
Which is not incidental at all.
I think it's very important, uh...
To the success of any movement.
They're beautiful women.
And they are in abundance.
Which is good.
I'm good.
The ceremonies are about to start.
Down with Sandwiches, up with Shrewsbury International.
First chapter.
Uh...
We feel they're on our way.
This is the beginning of a big thing.
And, uh...
To start the festivities, while I'm out narrowing down the...
Entries of Shrewsbury's in our contest to the five most eligible ones,
which will be tasted by our guests of honor.
Uh...
welcoming remarks by a co-founder of this organization,
Mr. Michael Hobbs.
I'm sure you'll be stirred by them.
And I hope you'll applaud them vigorously.
Hear, hear.
I...
Perhaps, uh...
Might depart from my prepared text at some time during the remarks,
but I hope you'll bear with me.
It is my very real pleasure and my solemn privilege
to welcome you to the installation ceremonies
of the Down with Sandwiches, up with Shrewsbury International.
I need not neighbor the point that this world of ours,
and perfect as are all human creations...
This world of ours is beset by the manifestations of greed and dishonesty.
But each of us, in his own small way,
each of us in his own sphere of influence,
however small that may be,
may dedicate himself to the search for truth,
the quest for honesty,
and the promotion of justice in dealings with his fellow man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And this is precisely what we are engaged in here tonight.
Some 200 years ago, Charles Talbot, the first Duke of Shrewsbury,
invented the party tree,
which is now the subject of the most horrendous misnomer of our time.
The Duke of Shrewsbury has become the victim of the foulest crime imaginable
against the decent respect for the opinions of mankind.
For that delicacy, conceived without thought for personal profit or prestige,
the product of the fortuitous coincidence of Shrewsbury's creative genius
and his selfless spirit of dedication to the commonweal was pirated.
By claiming the invention in Newground,
the Earl of Sandwich embarked on a...
Thank you.
Thank you.
...and embarked on a conscious, dedicated effort
to destroy the name of Shrewsbury,
to steal the product of another man's mind and soul,
and turn it to his own nefarious purposes of commercial exploitation.
The evil Earl of Sandwich has left our generation a heritage of deceit,
a precedent of...
...precedent...
...perpity...
...and I regret to say that there are those even today in a nation
which professes to place the product of men's labors high in its scale of
values,
which commends itself on giving credit where credit is due.
There are those even today who would prolong the effect
of this most dastardly and arrogant of treacheries.
But we of the Shrewsbury International shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in the countryside.
We shall fight on the highways and byways.
We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the cities.
We shall defend the name of Shrewsbury, whatever that its park may be.
We shall fight in the restaurants.
We shall fight in the cafeterias.
We shall fight in the drive-ins and the delicatessen.
We shall fight in the all-night diners.
We shall never surrender.
The world will little note nor long remember when we came back.
But it must never forget what our namesake has done.
It is for us of the present generation, rather, to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work
which they who have fought before us have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great past remaining before us.
That from our honored predecessors we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion.
That we here highly resolve that our spiritual forebears shall not have fought
in vain.
that this nation shall have a new birth of justice, and that the name of Shrewsbury
shall not perish from the earth.
Hooray!
Hooray!
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as we
are given to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in, and to that task let us pledge
our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Thank you very much.
The honor of speech as given by Mr. Cloud, the co-founder of the Downwood Sandwiches
Up With Shr