{"id":43797,"date":"2022-09-21T15:52:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T15:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/?p=43797"},"modified":"2022-09-21T15:52:25","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T15:52:25","slug":"pigmeat-markham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/pigmeat-markham\/","title":{"rendered":"Pigmeat Markham"},"content":{"rendered":"

A burly burlesque comedian, raucous Pigmeat Markham starred in dozens of classic sketches including \u201cHere Come De Judge.\u201d He played the world\u2019s funkiest judge: \u201cThe judge is high as a Georgia pine! Everybody\u2019s goin\u2019 to jail today! And to show you I don\u2019t mean nobody no good this morning, I\u2019m givin\u2019 myself six months! And if I\u2019m gonna do six months, Mr. District Attorney, you can imagine what you\u2019re gonna do!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Born in Durham, North Carolina, Markham began his show biz career as a tap dancer before breaking into the \u201cT.O.B.A.\u201d circuit of black vaudeville. He was in the \u201cSugar Cane Review\u201d in 1925 and through the late 20\u2019s and the 30\u2019s played in many more variety shows perfecting his tried-and-true sketches. In 1935 he journeyed to The Apollo Theater in New York, sometimes appearing on the bill every week for an entire year. His nickname came from a character in an old vaudeville routine: \u201cSweet Papa Pigmeat, with the River Jordan at my hips, and all the women is just run up to be baptized!\u201d<\/p>\n

Pigmeat played \u201cAlamo the Cook\u201d on the brief run of the Andrews Sisters\u2019 radio show, and made films that circulated mostly to black movie houses. In the 40\u2019s, a time when \u201cAmos and Andy\u201d was popular on radio and snappy burlesque sketches were being adapted to film by Abbott & Costello, audiences enjoyed hearty belly laughs at Pigmeat\u2019s \u201clow\u201d comedy and didn\u2019t worry about any possible \u201cstereotype\u201d behavior in his renditions of \u201cOpen the Door, Richard\u201d and the rest of his classics. Into the TV era, Pigmeat guest-starred on \u201cThe Ed Sullivan Show\u201d bringing his lively humor to a new generation. He issued many record albums, though they could only hint at the kind of broad gestures and costumes that were making the audiences crack up even on the straight lines.<\/p>\n

Markham\u2019s national fame took hold after Sammy Davis Jr. popularized the old \u201cHere Come De Judge\u201d catch-phrase on \u201cRowan and Martin\u2019s Laugh-In.\u201d Davis brought Pigmeat to Vegas with him for a $5,000 a week taste of big-time success. A novelty tune version of \u201cHere Come De Judge\u201d became a Top Ten hit for Shorty Long and was then covered by Pigmeat for a Top Twenty success. He went on to issue more albums that revelled in the funky black dialect though now there were more and more people in the audience feeling some embarrassment about his brand of broad ethnic comedy.<\/p>\n

George Kirby wrote the notes for Markham\u2019s \u201cHere Come the Judge\u201d album and praised the old veteran: \u201cThis comic was one of the few greats who walked in the back door so that we young comics of today could walk in the front, and thank God he has a chance to walk in the front with us\u2026Pigmeat Markham is the greatest.\u201d<\/p>\n

New generations enjoyed Markham\u2019s classic routines, including his variation on \u201cWho\u2019s on First,\u201d with Pigmeat explaining the game to an old deaf man: \u201cBall one!\u201d \u201cHuh?\u201d \u201cThe man said I got one ball!\u201d \u201cOhh, the man said you got one ball. Too bad.\u201d \u201cBall two!\u201d What\u2019s that?\u201d \u201cThe man said I got two balls!\u201d \u201cOh\u2026ain\u2019t nothin\u2019 news about that\u2026\u201d \u201cWhee! I knocked up a fly!\u201d \u201cSay what?\u201d \u201cI knocked up a fly!\u201d \u201cOh, you knocked up a fly. Uh-uh. It can\u2019t be done!\u201d<\/p>\n

Markham appeared on TV variety shows but was most popular in live concert dates for predominantly black audiences. \u201cHere Come De Judge\u201d had brought him fame\u2014now he could enjoy some of the fortune, collecting star billing and star payments when he toured. Living in semi-retirement at home in New York, he was even called upon to lecture on comedy and the golden era of vaudeville.<\/p>\n

Dewey Markham, a comedian who performed on both the black and white vaudeville circuits and was best known for his skit called ”Here comes the judge,” died Sunday in Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx after suffering a massive stroke. He was 77 years old and lived in the Bronx.<\/p>\n

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Pigmeat Markham, as he was known, was cited by Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer in their book, ”Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the Negro in American Entertainment,” as one of the ”golden dozen” black comics.<\/p>\n

Born in Durham, N.C., Mr. Markham started performing in the South, working in carnivals and medcine shows as a dancer and comedian. In the mid- and late 1920’s he came to New York, performing at the Alhambra Theater and then the Apollo Theater with his straight man, the late George Wilshire. In Minstrel Tradition<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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His comedy stemmed from the minstrel tradition. In the ”Black American Reference Book,” edited by Mabel Smythe, Langston Hughes wrote: ”For a long time most black comedians felt that in order to be funny, they had to work under cork. The strangest paradox of them all was Pigmeat Markham, one of the funniest and most popular of black comedians. For years on stage his makeup was burnt cork. When changing times after the second World War caused him to stop blacking himself up, his audiences were amazed to discover that in reality Pigmeat was himself darker that the burnt cork he had been using.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Markham believed that comedy was important to black people and his specialty was making fun of everyday situations. In later years he traveled worldwide and appeared on television as a guest of Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin and on the ”Laugh-In” shows. He made 16 record albums.<\/p>\n

Mr. Markham is survived by his wife, Bernice; a son, Dewey, and a daughter, Cathy. The funeral service will be held today at 7:30 P.M. at Benta’s Funeral Chapel, St. Nicholas Avenue and 141st Street<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A burly burlesque comedian, raucous Pigmeat Markham starred in dozens of classic sketches including \u201cHere Come De Judge.\u201d He played the world\u2019s funkiest judge: \u201cThe judge is high as a Georgia pine! Everybody\u2019s goin\u2019 to jail today! And to show you I don\u2019t mean nobody no good this morning, I\u2019m givin\u2019 myself six months! And Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[54,133,1],"tags":[1065],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43799,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43797\/revisions\/43799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}