I've been trying to do these blogs in kind of a chronological order, but there are times when I may move back and forth in time. Sometimes, I can't remember when certain events took place in my life, partly due to age and partly due to...the FALL. I will be talking about the FALL in later blogs and you will see why I use caps to describe...the FALL. Suffice it to say, the FALL changed my life forever.
But this blog is not about the...you know. It's about my first 15 minutes of fame. Almost everyone has it. That one moment in time where more than just a few people know your name. Or at least they know that they know you from somewhere. I've had several of these moments. My first happened in the early 90's while I was doing stand up on a regular basis. One night, while waiting to go on at the Cabaret a bunch of us were hanging outside when a couple of a guys came up to us and introduced themselves as representatives of the video show "America's funniest people." This was a show hosted by Dave Cooliere that came out soon after "America's funniest Videos" hosted by Bob Sagett but before the completely failed "America's funniest serial killers" hosted by John Stamos that never really made it to air.
 They were looking to tape comedians doing anything funny and asked if any of us wanted to try out right then and there. All of us being comedy whores, we jumped at the chance. My bit was what I call a throw away bit where its funny then you move on. In my act I would ask if anyone liked  impressions. They usually do so I do the one impression I know, I took a mic stand and raised it to its fullest height, I had it on my left and I would say,. "My impression of the number 10. I would grab the mic stand plop it down next to me and kind of turn myself into a zero next to the one. most people would get the joke. It was ok and got a laugh but I never intended for it to go any further, They taped me doing it that night and I found out later that they added a sound affect of a bouncing ball as I lowered my self to make the O.
A week goes by and I have stopped thinking about it when I get a call from the network. "Is this Mr. Dorfman? "Yes". "Mr Dorfman, your video has been selected as one of the top 3 and could you come in today for the taping." I told him I would and started to get nervous. 1st prize was $10,000! 2nd was $5000 and 3rd was a measly $1500. I show up in the green room where they keep the talent until its time to put us in the audience so we can looked shocked when they announce us. I was there with the other 2 in the contest. a 9 yo skinny kid that did impressions of hulk hogan by jutting out his sharp, porcine shoulder blades and doing various muscle poses. The other guy was someone who did some decent impressions. They announce each of us and show our respective videos. then the audience judges. It should have gone guy impressions first, me second and kid third.
But nooooo. They announce the runner up first and it happened to be the guy impressionist. That left me and the kid as first or third. Problem with these shows is any kid that is up against anyone else automatically has the "awwwww" factor and this was no different. They announced a no talent kid the winner of 10 grand and I got a check for $1500.I threw a little viewing party with most of it and paid a bill or 2. That was the extent of the money. But then weird stuff started happening. The morning after the episode aired I got several calls from people wanting me to do projects for them. One guy asked me if I ever though about Sumo wrestling. Turn out he was just some creep that got off talking to fat guys about wearing a diaper.
But I started to get recognized by people and they were yelling "do the number 10!" I had started my Oregon tour and one night, after I had finished my set 2 attractive young women came running up to me and asked me for my autograph. I was surprised. I knew my act did well but an autograph? Then one of the girls says, "I can't believe I'm meeting the number 10!"  I thought the whole thing was strange but I did sign her book "from one 10 to another", Scott. She gave me a big hug and they ran down the hall squealing.
They re-run that show to this day and I still get recognized every once in a while. Its a strange feeling. I wonder if I ever lose enough weight if I could do the number 11? Or I could get a spinal disease and do the #12!