My Dad's Sammy Davis Jr. Joke

Sometimes when people discover my exciting writerly background, they feel compelled to share some great story they think would make a great movie. As if I have the power to get a movie made. I tend to roll with it, anyway, mainly for the pure entertainment value. Yet I keep my dad's policy in mind at all times. Whenever someone wanted to share a "great idea" with him, he held up his hand and said, "Stop, don't tell me." He knew all too well that ideas burrow into one's psyche and wind up in Hollywood pitch meetings and no one remembers who "owns" the idea until the "originator" sues.  Cue the lawsuits. "The Shape of Water," up for numerous Academy Awards, is tangled up in plagiarism charges right now.

Yesterday, I'm at the gym, not feeling terribly litigious, when a gal, a self-described shrink, corners me. "I have the best story," she says, launching into something she once heard from a studio exec/patient at least 10 years ago. "You can use it," she offers, "for one of your Hallmark movies." Well, now I'm hooked. "There's this magical talking stork," she says, and from that point, logic goes out the window. The magical stork gets shot down on a hunting trip. "But don't worry, it's only a flesh wound," she says. The magical stork forgives the accidental shooter, a grieving widower who didn't even want to go on this stupid hunting trip in the first place. The talking bird hands him a package. "Deliver this to the hospital." And wouldn't you know, inside the package is... a baby and... "Hang on there a minute, Missy," I say. "Are there holes in the box so the baby can breathe?" "I don't know." "Is this an anti-NRA story?" "Stop interrupting me." "I'm not seeing the Hallmark angle." "I didn't get to that yet." "Did this movie ever get made?" "No, he passed on it." The crazy way she tells me her version of this story reminds me of an old show biz joke my dad loved to tell, and it goes something like this:

Right after a big meeting at Harrah's, Sammy Davis Jr.'s agent calls him up. Sammy's all excited. He's been dying to headline there and he figures, here's the news he's been waiting for.
"So come on, tell me, how'd it go?"
"Not great," his agent says.
"What do you mean, not great? What happened?"
"I don't know. I did your entire act. They weren't that impressed."