K4YZ wrote:
the
scruffy character played by Arte Johnson who got clobbered by Ruth
Buzzy's "bag lady" character when he made inappropriate suggestions
to her.

Classic show, Laugh-In. Actually caused some phrases to enter the
language ("you bet your bippy"). Also introduced comedy greats such as
Lily Tomlin ("one ringy dingy...") and Flip Wilson, who would later
have his own show.

The characters you describe were named Gladys Ormphby (Ruth Buzzi) and
Tyrone F. Horneigh (Arte Johnson).

Typical routine:

[Gladys is sitting on bench, Tyrone sits down next to her and she
scoots over nervously to get away from him]

Tyrone: "Would you call my face ruggedly handsome?"

[Gladys bashes him over the head with purse]

Tyrone: "Would you call my body sensuously attractive?"

[Gladys hits him with her purse again]

Tyrone: "Would you call my next of kin?" [Tyrone falls off bench]

--

Of course the show had its roots in vaudeville and burlesque, and drew
on a variety of sources, such as "Pigmeat" Markham ("sock it to me" and
"here come da judge"). "Gladys" was developed by Ruth Buzzi, when she
was in an off-Broadway show with a minor part as a cleaning lady, and
was actually a cleaning lady offstage to make ends meet.

Flip Wilson's show, which was sort of descended from Laugh-In, gave us
the computer term "WYSIWYG". It was derived from a catchphrase used by
Wilson's character "Geraldine Jones", who would often declare "What you
see is what you get" and "when you're hot, you're hot".
73 de Jim, N2EY