SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – Comedy comes in threes, that’s the rule. When telling a story – or a joke – they are better when they contain three elements or characters or actually anything. Three elements, like three bears or three little pigs, are more interesting for the audience. In the case of Warren Debenham, his American comedy collection, some 40,000 records and CDs, tchotchkes, board games and other novelties, is entering its third transition.
The Warren Debenham Comedy Recording Collection will soon be moved from the San Francisco Public Library to Emerson College in Boston, where it will join the rest of the Debenham collection. Covering a period of approximately 60 years, the collection spans the 1930s to 2006 and includes recordings of the comedic performances of some of the genre’s biggest names from Abbot and Costello to Lenny Bruce, recorded on LPs, 45s, 78s and CDs.
The collection includes a still-in-the-box arrow through the head, a schtick Boomers and Gen Xers might recognize from Steve Martin’s performances in the late 1970s. It includes helpful instructions: “1. Unpacking; 2. Can only be used between 10:04 p.m. and 3:47 a.m.; 3. Not to be taken internally; 4. To be used only for degradation and humiliation; 5. Can be used as handcuffs for cats if necessary (big cats only); 6. Do not use on unauthorized parts of the body.”
And there are compilations of numerous old radio shows such as “Our Miss Brooks”, “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show”, “Duffy’s Tavern” and “The Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show” which originally aired from the 1930s to 1950s.
From 1955 to 2006, Debenham, then a minister at the Episcopal Church ministering throughout the Bay Area, built his collection, which over time has been spread across three locations (See? Comedy comes in three). In 1994, the minister donated 8,908 records and 10,664 45s to the San Francisco Library, totaling $96,745 at the time. In 2007 he donated more material to Emerson College while the third part of his collection remained at his home in Berkeley.
Pieces from the Debenham Collection, including recordings by Israeli and Japanese comedians and Danny Kaye. (Eric Burkett/Court News)
Debenham, 90, is donating the rest of his collection at home to Emerson, while the San Francisco Public Library prepares to donate its portion to Eastern College as well. Debenham did not respond to interview requests.
It’s a good fit, according to Jenn Williams, 38, associate director of archives and collections at Emerson.
Emerson, unlike the San Francisco Public Library, offers an emphasis in comedy. It also already houses an extensive collection of 19th-century humor and comedy in the form of vaudeville recordings and a collection of material from Variety magazine, which also covered in its early days before becoming known for its coverage of the film industry Theater and Variety.
The Emerson Collection includes more than 70 oral histories by figures such as comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory and the recently deceased – and much loved – Betty White. Emerson also houses the personal collections of other figures such as Dom DeLuise and Bill Dana, a stalwart of The Steve Allen Show in the 1950s and a key contributor to Emerson’s American Comedy Archives, audiovisual interviews with figures such as Phyllis Diller, Norman Lear and Dick Van Dyke and Bob Newhart.
“You really get a comprehensive look at comedy over several decades. It’s a collection used by the comedy community,” Williams said.
Her personal favorite is the Debenham novelty collection. “We have doll houses, action figures and board games. It’s so much fun to work with,” Williams said. Your particular favourite?
“There is a Casper the Friendly Ghost board game. I loved watching the show as a kid, so there’s a bit of nostalgia there,” she said.
Cast members drop by to see what their peers have been up to, she said, but the collection draws everyone from curious high school students to graduate students, including a student who traveled from New Zealand to peruse the video collections.
Left to right: “Lotus Land,” a musical comedy about life in Southern California by Ian Whitcomb (1995); “Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo”, sung by Sophia Loren (date unknown); and the Loose Nuts, a punk/ska/country band (1995).
Emerson is particularly well suited for housing the collection. “There’s a lot of different things that go into conservation and care,” Williams said, from special binders to an appropriate HVAC system. Many of the films stored at Emerson are also preserved by freezing, which helps prevent film degradation. When the time comes to show a film, it is slowly thawed by placing it in a cool box or refrigerator, a process that takes eight to 10 hours.
“You have to be careful because condensation can cause damage,” Williams said.
It’s not that San Francisco was a bad place to keep Debenham’s collection, but, as Susan Goldstein noted, it was also “a bit of an outlier.”
An archivist, Goldstein, 64, directs the library’s San Francisco History and Book Arts Special Collections, which, as the name suggests, focuses on San Francisco.
“We’re doing what a number of institutions are doing and looking at what we have,” she said. And like these other institutions, they find more suitable homes for collections that don’t particularly fit into their bailiwick.
“It’s a good thing for organizations to stop and take stock of what they have and what best serves the public,” said Goldstein, who will be stepping down and retiring in a few months.
Stored in acid-free boxes in a temperature-controlled environment, the collection isn’t as accessible to San Francisco viewers as it is at Emerson’s. And in these increasingly costly times, maintaining a collection that doesn’t truly fit the library’s goals means it takes up resources that are increasingly scarce. The transfer of the Debenham collection will provide additional space for materials with a stronger local focus, Goldstein said.
“It’s expensive to properly take care of a collection,” she said. Personnel, labour, supplies – it all adds up.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has adopted a proposed resolution approving the donation of the collection to Emerson. Once final approval is obtained, the collection is expected to be shipped to Boston in May.
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