BONUS: Milton Berle's Low Impact/High Comedy Workout

Disclaimer: The DVD I'm talking about today is not a horror movie, a drive-in movie, or a cult classic. It's pretty far out, though.

Some time ago, I was digging through the $1 DVD bin at Walmart in Marble Falls, Texas, when I came across something amazing: A Milton Berle exercise video. The cover of Milton Berle’s Low Impact High Comedy Workout had a PhotoShopped picture of Uncle Mitlie in a tracksuit, smoking a cigar and holding a martini and... wearing a cowboy hat???, and I think you’ll understand when I say I knew immediately that I had to own that DVD, no matter the cost, which fortunately was only one dollar.

How excited was I about this DVD? I was so excited that I took it home, put it on a shelf, and didn’t watch it for about four years. But on a recent Saturday, as my roommate Joe and I were looking for something to do, we realized the time had come to experience this workout once and for all.

First of all, I love that this thing even exists. I have to wonder how it came about… Were the producers looking to make a celebrity workout video for senior citizens and they asked Berle if he’d be interested? Or did Mr. Television himself take a look at all the various stars (and former stars) who were making big bucks for doing a few calisthenics and decide he wanted in? The video was released in 1995, and then, over a decade later and after Mr. Berle had gone on to that big Friar’s roast in the sky, somebody decided that it would be a good idea to release this thing on DVD. I love that even more.

The video opens with Laura Gladwin, of the Aerobics Something-Something of America. She warns us that, although this video will be really funny, Milton Berle takes exercise very seriously, so we should follow these tips to avoid any trouble. As she stumbles over the cue cards, I can’t help but get anxious… Where’s the comedy? Where’s Milton Berle? I can’t even imagine owning this video in the VHS age, when you’d have to fastforward past this stuff every single time you watched it.

Finally we get to the good stuff. The set is an aerobics room full of old people. Most of them are standing, but a few are sitting, which the video tells us is perfectly all right. Most of them are wearing Milton Berle Workout t-shirts or solid-colored sweats, except for one lady who’s wearing a Reebok sweatshirt. If this video were made today, they’d probably blur that out or make her wear it inside-out, unless Reebok was paying for it.

Hey, here he is. “Hi, this is Milton!” he greets us. Hi, Milton! Say something funny! “Our ideas about old age are changing,” he says, and then he tells us all the statistics of how many old people there are in America today. Huh. That’s not funny.

Now, I thought we were just going to do some leg lifts and stuff, but Milton explains that this video will make us feel good about ourselves and about aging. So it's a very ambitious comedy workout. “Then after the workout,” he says, “I’m gonna help plan a good, nutritional meal.” I can't wait.

So Milton introduces us to the class of seniors and the instructor, Merrily Smith. “Merrily, are you ready to roll?” asks Milton. When she says yes, he says, “Then Merrily we roll along!” And all the seniors crack up: HA HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHA HA! Oh, Uncle Miltie. You still got it!

And then… Well, then the rest of the video is pretty standard exercise video stuff, just geared for folks 60 and older. Milton doesn’t actually do the exercises; he just stands off to the side watching, and every once in a while he wanders in front of the camera and delivers a joke or talks to the exercisers. Here are some of his gems:

• “Oh God, I’d love to have the prune concession for this group!” (HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!)
• “This lady is on a liquid diet -- she only drinks what comes out of her blender. Last night she had two pot roasts and a chicken.” (HA HA HAHA HAHA HA!)
  
• “Have we met? Weren’t you a lifeguard at a water bed motel? (HA HA HA HA HA!) What are they laughing at? He saved me from drowning!”
• “I’ll show you how I can empty this whole studio in just one second… Watch this: BATHROOM BREAK!” (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

And then, during a break from the strenuous leg-lifting and arm-swinging, he comes out dressed as Richard Simmons, with shorts, a wig, and a ridiculous effeminate affectation. “Do you really like this outfit I’m wearing?” he asks the seniors, which is of course hilarious because Richard Simmons is always asking people if they like his outfit. “This really turns people’s heads,” he says, “and it doesn’t do much for their stomachs either!” And then: “It’s dangerous for me to look in the mirror in this outfit. I keep trying to jump on myself!” Man, that is Richad Simmons all over. Do you think the real Richard Simmons ever saw this video? Based on his appearances on David Letterman's show, it's always hard to tell whether he's in on the joke of himself or not.

If you thought that was the extent of Berle’s acting talent, think again: A few minutes later, he comes in as Jane Fonda. I guess nobody expected Milton Berle to go through an entire video without dressing in drag at least once. As Fonda, he notices that everyone is sweating and says, “Me, I never sweat. Ted pays someone to do it for me!” Aww, that joke is sad now because Jane Fonda and Ted Turner are divorced.

“I want you to know that I run a very slick workout class,” he/she says. “I do not allow my pupils to drink, smoke or have sex. Until the class is over.” Finally, to prove that the key to good aerobics is “no pain, no gain,” Milton Fonda punches himself in the stomach, then limps away… and it gets applause! How much were they paying these people anyway?

During these moments of outrageous comedy, the instructor stands there reacting with a sort of “Oh, you rascal!” expression on her face. She’s a regular person, not an actor, but she makes a pretty good straight man. Too bad they never made any more videos together. I would love to see Merrily as Milton's assistant for Milton Berle's Do-It-Yourself Catamaran Building.

By the way, I have a favorite senior of all the exercisers in the class. It's this lady:

She really gets into all the choreography, and adds a little something extra to every move. It's obvious she knows she's on camera, and she's wants to make sure she's noticed. Well, lady, I noticed you, and I say to you: You go, girl.

Hey, did you know that if you don’t have light weights to use in aerobics, you can just use water bottles? Well, you can! That’s pretty cool. And it leads to this exchange:

Milton: Sir, I noticed that they didn’t give you any bottles.
Man: No, they didn’t.
Milton: I guess they knew that you couldn’t hold your water!

Milton obviously knows his audience; the majority of the jokes are about old people stuff. Incontinence is funny! Oh, and then there’s this moment, which I still don’t understand:

Milton (to a guy sitting in a chair): Why aren’t you exercising?
Guy: I’m not here to exercise, I’m your brother Phil!
Milton: I know you’re my brother Phil! But why are you here?
Guy: You didn’t mail me my check, so I came to pick it up!
Milton: 93-year-old smartass…

Huh? What check is he talking about? Why does Milton Berle owe his
93-year-old brother money? Or was this something that was common knowledge in 1995? Maybe I’m just not remembering the front-page headlines telling the story of how Milton Berle asked his brother Phil to buy some stuff from him on eBay because he didn’t have an account, then forgot to pay him back.

Next up are some exercises that involve lying on a mat. (Or is that laying? I’m never sure about that one.) I should probably leave the jokes-at-old-people’s-expense to Milton, but I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the seniors wouldn’t be able to stand up once they were down on those mats. I’m pretty sure at least three of them fell asleep, anyway.

Merrily leads everyone in lifting themselves up off the mat, and back down again: “Up! Down! Up! Down!” And Milton says, “Up, down, up, down… Remember when those words had a whole different meaning?” Which I suppose is… a sex joke? Actually, I should point out the one joke that actually brought a smile to my face: Milton and a 91-year-old man compare their sex lives, and Milton says: "My wife and I make love almost every night! Almost on Monday, almost on Tuesday, almost on Wednesday..." Well, it seems funny compared to the other jokes, anyway.

Oh, and every once in a while Milton pops up in a little window in a corner of the screen to give us a helpful exercising tip. See, when he walks into the aerobics room, that’s when he’s going to tell a joke, but when he pops up in the little window, it means he’s going to give some serious advice. I’m glad they came up with that device, because otherwise I would still be trying to figure out why “Keep your stomach muscles tight” was supposed to be funny.

After a while, the exercisers have wiggled their limbs in just about every direction possible, so it’s time to cool down and wrap up. Milton comes in one more time, and tells everyone they did a sensational job. “Especially you, Merrily, you must be tired. Go to my dressing room and lie down.” So everyone shuffles out and says goodbye… and then, I’m sure, as soon as they were out of earshot, they all turned to each other and said, “Were any of those jokes funny?”

But there's still more Milton! As promised, we get Milton’s Healthful Hints for preparing a nutritious meal. Here’s a step-by-step summary of Milton Berle’s cooking process:

1. Stand there and watch as a professional chef does all the cooking.

The menu consists of herb-crusted salmon, Julienne vegetables, and garlic-roasted red potatoes. And the chef – Patricia Hill from 442 Restaurant in Los Angeles – is extremely uncomfortable on camera. She never once looks at the camera, and she barely looks at Milton. For the most part, he just narrates what she’s doing, explaining how much garlic to use or what to do with the leftover veggies. But when she’s chopping up red peppers, he can’t resist: “By the way, the knife she’s using was a gift from Lorena Bobbit.” My first instinct was to say, A-ha, that tells us exactly when this video was made… but then I remembered that it’s Milton Berle, and he was probably telling Lorena Bobbit jokes for 10 years after she was in the news. Yes, that would mean that he kept telling them after he died, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

When dinner’s ready, Milton says to Patricia, “It was a great pleasure watching you prepare this wonderful meal… and you can cook for me anytime,” and attempts to playfully pinch her cheek, but she doesn’t react at all. She cannot wait to get out of there. I bet she didn’t know what she was signing up for. She probably thought she was going to be cooking in the Milton Bradley workout video!*

And there you have it. We’ve learned to appreciate our aging bodies, we’ve gotten in shape, we’ve made some good food, and we’ve laughed our heads off at the cutting-edge comedy of Mr. Milton Berle. Good work, everyone.

So… Did Henny Youngman ever make a workout video?

*I struggled to find the name of another famous Milton here, but there are really no other Miltons out there. If you like, you can replace “Milton Bradley” in that sentence with “Berth Milton, Sr,” the noted Swedish pornographer.