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The watermelon-smashing comedian has died.

NPR: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/12/1136263017/gallagher-comedian-watermelon-sledgehammer-dies

The Life and Times of Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr. (Brill) died Friday, January 10, 2012 at his home in Palm Springs, California

Craig Marquardo, in a statement identifying himself as Gallagher’s “longtime former manager,” said that he died Friday at his home in Palm Springs, California, after a brief illness. A heart attack before a show in Texas in 2012 is one of the many heart attacks that Gallagher has had.

According to the statement provided to CNN by Marquardo, the comedian died after a health battle and was surrounded by his family.

The first comedy stand up special ever to air on cable television was titled “AnUncensored Evening” and was written by the man himself.

With a beret on his head and a few simple props, from a can of oil to a bull whip, the man born Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr. built a nationwide following in the 1970s and ’80s, appearing on the “Tonight” show with Johnny Carson and starring in numerous Showtime specials. observational humor about Easter. Whose idea was it to give eggs to an animal that hops”), political commentary (“They don’t call a tax a tax. They call it a revenue enhancer”), invented sports (synchronized Ping-Pong) and his trademark Sledge-O-Matic destruction.

According to his biography on the website for Selak Entertainment, a booking agency, Gallagher moved to Los Angeles and formed his comedy act at The Comedy Store, which is on the Sunset Strip, after earning a chemical engineering degree from the University of South Florida.

A Conversation With Sam Gallagher About His Comedy Specials on TV Networks: From the 1980s to the Present: On The Road a Century Later

His comedy specials on the pay TV network in the 1980’s solidified him as a comedian, and led to more than a dozen show for the network over 27 years.

While his counterparts were doing sitcoms, host talkshows and star in movies, he remained on the road touring America for decades. “He was pretty sure he held a record for the most stand up dates, by attrition alone.”

Gallagher toured steadily until the Covid-19 pandemic hit and used the break to spend time with his son, Barnaby, and daughter Aimee, the latter of whom had appeared with him on his specials when she was a child.

The Master Tool Corporation – What Do You Need When You’re Dead? An Example of A Late-Night Robust Pitchman, Revisited by Gallagher

“Ladies and gentlemen! I came here tonight to make you laugh and not just to entertain you. I want you to pay particular attention, because I came here to sell you something. he would call out in his best rapid-fire impersonation of a late-night television pitchman. “The amazing Master Tool Corporation, a subsidiary of Fly-By-Night Industries, has entrusted who? Me! To show you! The kitchen tool you’ve never seen is the handiest and dandiest.

Sledgehammer in hand, he would then apply his full muscle to apples, grapes, lettuce and other produce, most famously the inevitable watermelon, with audience members in front showered in food bits.

The elder Gallagher became increasingly controversial in recent years, chastised for racist and homophobic remarks. Gallagher even cut short an interview in 2011 with Marc Maron after the WTF podcast host confronted him about his statements.

“I’m the problem?!” At one point, the man said something. Do you believe that gays in America will have an opportunity when I’m dead? Do I have been holding them down?

In 2003, Gallagher was among more than 100 candidates running in the recall election for California governor, won by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over the last decade, he appeared in two movies and a commercial.

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