Tiny Tim
January 10, 1971
The perks of owning a night club is meeting the performers! Here are Allan and Sharron Fingerhut with Miss Vicki and Tiny Tim.
By all accounts this show was poorly attended, probably because Tiny was also in town for the International Auto Show at the Minneapolis Auditorium all weekend where anyone who really wanted to seem him could probably do so for $2. He also appeared on KSTP-TV’s “Dial 5” program. Tiny didn’t care, telling Star reviewer Scott Bartell that “even if there’s only one person – the tables and chairs are listening.” Tiny was interviewed by local TV columnist Forrest Powers, where it was revealed that Miss Vicki was pregnant and that Mr. Tim had not been asked back to “Laugh-In,” the show that launched his career. But according to Bartell, it wasn’t necessarily a bad show – in fact, he called it “funny and engrossing.”
He began with “The Waltz of the Bells” and “The Good Ship Lollipop.” Then he brought the band in for a super-long medley beginning with a World War I tune asking war critics, “What kind of American are you?”, switching to “Bad Moon Rising,” and proceeding through a very mixed bag of perhaps a dozen more fragments of songs. … He gives different treatment to all his songs — relative reserve on older tunes; writhing on the floor and throwing his necktie away on “Great Balls of Fire,” singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy ” through a bullhorn to get the old Victrola effect – yet he stamps each song with his own identity and people can’t help laughing and enjoying themselves.
At the same time he commands a strange respect – perhaps for sheer guts, but also because he does some things very well. For instance, he manages a duet with himself, imitating Sonny and Cher on “I’ve Got You Babe.” I guess it is that ambiguity that makes his work so captivating.
Bartell characterized the Sorry Muthas as a “good-time country and jug band.” “Numbers such as ‘Okie From Muskogee’ created the same kind of humorous tension between song and singer as Tiny did. The rest was just good, happy listening.”