Men behind the scenes;

              THE MEN BEHIND
THE
Alan King (second from 1.) and
Rupert Hitzig (standing) listen as
partner Frank Borelli (r.) and
manager Peter Hoffman review-balloting
procedures. The
"Georgie" Award, designed by
Al Hirschfeld, sits between
pasteups of the final ballots.
New York partner Frank Borelli and manager Peter
Hoffman had a special reason for watching television
late last January when the "First Annual Comedy
Award Special!' hosted by Alan King, was aired on
ABC network. They knew they had been the men
behind the scenes^H&S was selected by King-Hitzig
Productions of New York to verify the final results of
the balloting for the show, a ninety-minute special in
I which the Academy of Humor presented seventeen
9 awards. According to Alan King, 'Awards are given for
just about everything these days. Even dogs get them,
so why not honor comedians who are really the mainstay
V of most award shows! The Academy of Humor was orga­nized
by King to document comedy as an art form. There were
over 100 nominees in all, chosen from the theater, movies, television r and nightclubs. There was also one category for humor in print —
f jr newspapers, magazines and books.^rln addition to our primary purpose
f m y" of validating the ballots, Haskins &i Sells was called on to set up nominating
Viwgpr and balloting procedures. Our formal proposal was followed by two months
of hard work on Peter Hoffman's part as he offered informal advice to the King-Hitzig
people, based largely on his experience with the annual Grammy awards. Peter said, "We dis­cussed
the format for the nominating ballots; reviewed the materials to be sent out inviting other comedians,
writers and directors to join the Academy of Humor; and generally tried to answer any questions that came up!'
iVOnce the engagement was taken, much hard work remained to be done. First, the Academy, which has approxi­mately
200 charter members, was surveyed to select the nominees. "The ballot was approximately fifty pages long
and included over one thousand names of people for performances between Labor Day 1973 and Labor Day 1974!'
Peter commented. When these results were in, a new question arose—how to handle the ballots for the final voting.
Would we use optical scanning or a keypunch method? How long should the ballot be—one page or two? At this
point, Peter and Keith Schrupp, senior on the engagement, enlisted the aid of New York MAS director Donald
Morchower, who helped design the ballot and lined up the computer time and keypunch operators. Additional assist­ance
was obtained from the EO Composer Services Department, which made the mechanicals or "pasteups" for
the ballot, and hired a company to do the printing. i% About 50,000 ballots were sent out to four entertainment guilds.
"Each has its own mailing requirements!' Peter said, "so we had to proceed carefully" Then the returns started to
pour in. As the completed ballots began piling up (more than 7,000 were finally received) a special room was set
aside for them in the New York office. The Auditape System was used to tabulate the results^January finally
arrived, and Peter and Frank flew to the Coast for the taping of the television show. Both attended the rehearsal
during the afternoon of the taping and were impressed by the set, which featured show-biz caricatures by Al
Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld's work has chronicled the Broadway scene in The New York Times and elsewhere for years.
^During the evening H&S was plugged several times, initially by Alan King and later by Dan Rowan and Dick Martin,
and George Burns and Carol Channing. Among the old-timers
who received standing ovations from the assembled comedians
were Milton Berle, Phil Silvers and one of the original Ritz Broth­ers.
Bob Hope was given the first Will Rogers Award, presented
by the son of the famous humorist. It was announced that next
year there will be an award given in Jack Benny's namer&Frank
Borelli felt that Alan King and his production associates were a
real pleasure to work with and should be applauded for their
unique approach to an awards show. He said, "It was a very
rewarding experience to have the opportunity for close contact
with some of the nicest people in the entertainment field, like
Don Rickles (a super guy), Steve Allen, Dom DeLuise and, last
but not least, Howard CoselL'frAnd so the First Annual Comedy
Awards concluded successfully, to a large extent thanks to the
hard work of Messrs. Borelli and Hoffman, assisted by many
others in the New York and Executive Offices.
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