of that phrase "blue material." say good night. good night. so you had vaudeville comedy, which was accessible to all. but at the same time, concurrently, you had another style of comedy that was a little bit different. burlesque houses were often like going to a a strip club. those guys were there with their trench coats to watch girls. they had different styles of comedy, different people performing within them. i see you lying there. my anger is aroused. i pull out my dirk. uh-oh, now we're going to the point. nesteroff: because burlesque, the primary attraction was scantily clad ladies, in order to compete for attention, a comedian had to do something that was going to upstage a naked woman. so they would do this sort of dirty-ish comedy. -your wife's on television? -indeed, she is. -i didn't know that. -a magician. -what does she do? -well, she does one trick that's really amazing, mystifying. she takes a little rubber ball. yeah, yeah, yeah.