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Happy Saturday.

Coming up this week, we have an episode on somebody who is going to get a name drop in today's classic.

We will leave that upcoming episode, Who It's About as a Surprise, but today's classic is on Moms Mabley.

This originally came out on February 9th, 2022. Enjoy!

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And I'm Holly Fry. I really enjoy the TV

show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. If you are not familiar with this show, it is about a Jewish

woman named Midge Maisel who tries to build a career as a comedian starting at the end of the 1950s.

There are various performers who appear as characters on this show.

Some of them have real-world inspirations, but they are fictional characters.

And there are other ones like Lenny Bruce, who are fictionalized representations of a real person.

In an episode from the show's third season, Mrs. Maisel performs at the Apollo Theater in Harlem,

and ahead of her on stage is Mabley, who is played wonderfully by

Wanda Sykes. If my own age and background were a little different, or maybe if I had grown up

watching reruns of old variety shows, I would have already known who this was, but I did not,

so I did what I always do when a new

performer shows up on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I googled. So, Mom's Mabley, yes, was a real

person, but I had some doubts about being able to do this episode because her career lasted more

than six decades. She was hugely influential.

She inspired so many comedians and other performers who came after her.

...