Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr., known mononymously as Gallagher, was an American comedian who became one of the most recognizable comedic performers of the 1980s for his prop and observational routine that included the signature act of smashing a watermelon on stage with a sledgehammer. For more than 30 years, he played between 100-200 shows a year, destroying tens of thousands of melons with the sledgehammer he called the “Sledge-O-Matic”. Gallagher’s 13 TV comedy specials is second most all-time, behind only George Carlin.
Sledge-O-Matic
Though it varied from performance to performance, Gallagher would usually end each of his shows with his signature “Sledge-O-Matic” routine.
It traditionally began with the following preamble:
“Ladies and gentlemen! I did not come here tonight just to make you laugh. I came here to sell you something and I want you to pay particular attention!
The amazing Master Tool Corporation, a subsidiary of Fly-By-Night Industries, has entrusted who? Me! To show you! The handiest and the dandiest kitchen tool you’ve ever seen. And don’t you wanna know how it works!?
Well, first you get out an ordinary apple. You place the apple between the patented pans. Then you reach for the tool that is not a slicer, is not a dicer, is not chopper in a hopper! What in the hell could it possibly be?! The Sledge-O-Matic!”
Gallagher would then produce a large, usually wooden, mallet, roughly the size of a sledgehammer, and smash it down onto the apples, hurling chunks of produce into the audience. People in the first several rows were usually prepared with tarps and raincoats, and many comedy clubs took great measures to cover up and protect their interiors with tarps and plastic sheeting.
Edit: I found my favorite one! With One and Two, and a “graphical” Bomb-Tomb-Comb..
