2022 has now taken Gallagher from us:
Comedian Gallagher, best known for his watermelon-smashing comedy routine and many popular specials in the 1980s, died Friday morning, according his manager Craig Marquardo. He was 76.
According to a statement provided to CNN by Marquardo, the comedian died “after a short health battle” and “passed away surrounded by his family in Palm Springs, California.”
Gallagher, born Leo Gallagher, became a household name in the early ’80s with a comedy special titled “An Uncensored Evening,” the first comedy stand up special ever to air on cable television, according to an obituary shared by Marquardo.
Gallagher’s most famous bit involved a hand-made sledgehammer he called the “Sledge-O-Matic,” which he would use to smash food on stage, spraying the audience.
Gallagher was the first stand-up comedian I ever really was aware of. And it was all thanks to VH-1.
Before the MTV family of networks became obsessed with reality shows, the few offerings that VH-1 offered outside of music were Gallagher specials from the Showtime era. In the late 1980’s and early 1990s’, they would often air as a block on Friday nights or, often, on Christmas Eve.1
And, to a kid who was 10-13 years old during this time, it was funny. But to me, the jokes were funny too. The jokes were often funnier than the famous Sledge-o-Matic bits in my opinion. Was the comedy cutting edge? Absolutely not, but it was funny and it was an integral part of me learning what funny actually was.
He drifted off into cultural obscurity at some point, still using his Sledge-o-Matic. Probably for the best as he descended into the type of edgy humor that makes normal people blush but would probably have played well at The Gateway Pundit.
Either way, Gallagher was an important pillar of comedy upon which modern comedy was built upon. Without him, we would not have comedy specials, comedy on network TV, and basically the stand-up comedy industry as we know it today. So I will remember Gallagher as I remember him, from his 1980’s special, and not the again boomer comedian he ended as.
It was a wild time. VH-1 always would show Gallagher on Christmas Eve and ESPN would always show old NFL Follies clips. This was before ESPN realized they could just monetize every football game and run SportsCenter for 17 hours a day.