Victor Borge-  The Most Twoderful Showman

The year 2009 CE marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Danish-Jewish entertainer Victor Borge. While Borge passed in 2001, his wildly creative and inimitable conceptual comedy, combined with subversive piano virtuosity must be preserved for future generations and reinstituted into the comic’s cultural canon.

Victor Borge was born Borge Rosenbaum in Copenhagen, Denmark. He received a classical education in music at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and begun performing as a piano virtuoso. The stodginess of old-world Europe and the haughty culture surrounding classical music became too much for Borge to bear. He responded, naturally, with a series of jests that made him one of the world’s foremost piano comedians.

Fleeing the rise of Nazism in Europe, Borge escaped Copenhagen to Sweden, and then to the United States. He arrived in the 1940, not knowing a single word of English. In less than a year, Borge had not just learned English; he had mastered it. In less than a year in the states, Borge had earned a spot on Bing Crosby’s 1941 radio show. He performed so well, he was invited back for 56 straight weeks and earned the title ‘Best New Radio Performer of 1942.’

This linguistic genius of Victor Borge stems from his cool and eloquence in the articulating his multiple forms of mangled speech.’ Borges’ two greatest routines, “Inflationary Language” and “Verbal Punctuation,” are simple linguistic butcheries, where Borges’ applies laws that strictly govern his new twist on language. These bits would create the core of his one-man show ‘Comedy In Music.

Inflationary Language:

Phonetic Punctuation:

Inflationary Language is based on the concept that prices are constantly rising, and therefore, money must be adjusted for inflation. However, if prices and money rise in numeric value, hidden numbers in our language must be adjusted upwards as well. The essence of Borge’s theory is:

“A sentence like, “I ate a tenderloin with my fork, would be I nined an elevenderloin with my fivek…. And so on and so fifth.”

Borge’s genius for wordplay made him one of the most successful comedians and Broadway performers of all-time. He would appear alongside Dean Martin and his 849 consecutive solo performances on Broadway remains a record to this day. He was honored by the Kennedy Center for his life’s work, and has a star on the Hollywood walk of fame, yet he still remains an unknown to younger generations.

Victor Borge, remarkably, never told a dirty joke, said a foul word, or used any form of insult comedy. He operated in a realm that is entirely different from the whole of stand-up comedy. While some of George Carlin’s famed linguistic observations may have spun from the tradition of Borge, it’s hard to say that a ponytailed fellow without any qualms about snapping off a string of rape jokes was in a genre of comedy even remotely similar to Mister Victor.

While Victor Borge did not come out of the same Borcscht belt school of comic thought, his one-liners stand well on their own. Lines like, “the difference between a viola and violin is that a viola burns longer,” and, “when an opera singer sings her head off, she usually improves her appearance,” helped endear audiences while he bridged his music and comic riffs.

Despite the precision and inoffensive nature of Borge’s on stage persona, his comedy was still quite subversive. His piano performances featured boisterous fights with his page-turner. After that, he would fall off of his piano bench, intentionally lose his place, and see how long he could stall from playing the piano. Considering that the well-to do Manhattan audiences of the time had never seen such shenanigans mixed with Chopin, Dvorak and Debussy, the reactions to his work are analogous to that of an Andy Kaufman-esque performance art display.

Victor Borge performed well into his golden years, and passed at the age of 91. The sheer creativity and breadth of Victor Borge’s work make him an entertainer beyond classification. Steven Wright, Tom Lehrer, and George Carlin all have Borge’s influence clearly stamped on their work, there is no entertainer with a style or career arc that is remotely similar to his. Victor Borge is his own genre, and he was the damned finest at it.

Keep the spirit of Victor Borge alive. Tell your lover, “Fivegive me. I’m only young twice. And you are my two and only.”

For more Victor Borge fun, play around with the inflationary language tool, and take a listen to his works, which are now available in the public domain:

A Victor Borge Inflationary Language Translator:

http://www.kor.dk/borge/inflate.php

Archive of Victor Borge Recordings:

http://www.archive.org/details/OTRR_Victor_Borge_Collection_Singles

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