NH Notebook: Buddy Hackett’s Convertible

I had maybe a dozen stand-up performances under my belt — none longer than 10 minutes —and I was ready to be discovered. I was destined for stardom. I just needed a break.

At the time, I was working as a parking valet at the Ashworth by the Sea, the marquee hotel on Hampton Beach. Over the years, I worked the entire beach — the restaurants, the arcades, the carnival games, the slot car track, the mini golf course — but the most coveted gig on the beach was parking cars at the Ashworth. You could make some great money, and you could drive some pretty cool cars.

To pass the time on slow nights, we valets had a game we would play: Who could take a customer’s car on the longest unauthorized drive? If a customer said they were grabbing drinks and dinner, and then tossed you the keys to a Corvette, what’s a 21-year-old kid, whose daily ride is a VW Rabbit, to do?

To win the bet, you had to prove your travels to the other valets, and this was before the days of cellphones, so a Slurpee verified a trip uptown to the 7-Eleven. A Whopper wrapper meant you made it to
the Seabrook Burger King. One day, my brother returned in an overheated Porsche with a receipt from the Maine Turnpike tollbooth, and that pretty much ended the game.

On the south end of Hampton Beach sits the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom. In the early 1900s, it was an actual casino, but in the 1980s, it was strictly a showroom, a 2,000-seat venue that hosted nightly concerts. U2, The Beach Boys, The Ramones, Willie Nelson, Led Zeppelin, Little Richard, Ray Charles and Jimi Hendrix had all played the ballroom.

And comedy has always been a big part of the Casino Ballroom. Some of the all-time greats, like George Carlin, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Sam Kinison and eventually Jimmy Dunn — yes, Jimmy Dunn (keep reading) — have all performed at the Casino.

Buddy Hackett was a Casino Ballroom regular. Every summer, he’d do a show in Hampton, and nearly everyone who performed at the ballroom would stay at the Ashworth. So, I hatched a plan to meet the legendary Buddy Hackett.

He traveled the East Coast, not in a tour bus, but in a big convertible — I think it was a Lincoln. I remember it was red. My plan: Be at the door of the Ashworth when the legendary comic arrived and talk to Buddy — you know, comic to comic.

And so I got to work first thing in the morning, told the other valets of my plan, and waited patiently. From the north, a big red convertible lumbered down the coast.

Is that … Buddy Hackett?!

As the car pulled into the valet lane at the hotel, you can imagine my disappointment to see that it was not being driven by Buddy Hackett, but instead by a kid who looked a lot like him. I found out later that Buddy’s son Sandy would travel with him and open his shows.

“Welcome to the Ashworth. Staying with us?”

“Yes. Hackett. Sandy.”

“Ahhhh. Are you …”

“Buddy’s son. Yes.”

“Nice to meet you, Sandy. My name is Jimmy Dunn. I’m also a comedian. Like your dad. Well, not famous, like your dad. Is he coming by? I was really hoping to meet him. He’s one of my favorites. I love watching him on ‘The Tonight Show!’ ”

“He’s staying with some friends down the road. Nice to meet you, Jimmy.”

He tossed me the keys and a 10, and Sandy was into the hotel and gone.

OK, I thought, I’m not going to meet Buddy Hackett. But I am going to park his car. That’s pretty cool.

So, I drove it around the strip and parked it in the hotel’s VIP section. Since I’m not going to meet him and hand-deliver this cassette tape of my best seven minutes, you know what? I’ll just stick it into his deck.

I’m not kidding. I put a tape of me performing stand-up at the Blackburn Tavern in Gloucester, Mass., in Buddy Hackett’s car stereo.

“I had a blind date. It didn’t go well. She kept walking into things.”

In Buddy Hackett’s Car Stereo!

That night, I went and sat on the stairs and listened to the master at work.

“Keep the duck!” he said, as the punchline of one of his signature stories ignited the ballroom in laughter.

Then I ran back to the hotel, just in case he came by.

He never did.

The following morning, I went into the hotel early. Sandy came down to get the car.

“Where’s Buddy?” I asked again.

“He’s with friends having breakfast. I have to go get him.”

I considered telling him about the tape. But Sandy rushed away.

That’s OK, I thought. They’ll turn that stereo on at some point, and Buddy Hackett will discover my genius.

Ten Years Later. Yes, Ten Years Later!

Now an established comedian in Boston, I got a call from my agent about performing in Sandy Hackett’s Comedy All-Star Show that was traveling through Boston.

Of course! I’m in.

In the green room that night, I met Sandy. I told him about the tape that I slipped into his stereo, and he actually remembered it. And our interaction. He said that a few miles up the road, the Hacketts listened to about three minutes of my set before Sandy realized it was that pesky valet kids’ recording.

“What did your dad think?” I asked.

“Kid’s got a lot of balls. He’s not very funny. But a lot of balls.”

On a warm summer night on Hampton Beach, three decades after parking Buddy Hackett’s convertible, I headlined the Casino Ballroom!

I parked my own car that night. I don’t trust valets.

Jimmy Dunn’s “Sitcom Star for 13 Weeks” includes his early adventures on Hampton Beach and his latest ones starring on TV, including his recent role as “Moose” on the sitcom reboot “Frasier.”