Who’s The Top Banana?

The Top Banana might have the weirdest history of any term out there. Today it’s used to signify the head honcho of any business, but did you know that it was actually meant to establish the pecking order of professional comedians? 

Back in the days of Vaudeville and the Catskills, stand-up comedy was very different than it is today. Comics went on stage between acts such as big bands and cabaret dancers. They weren’t there to kill with jokes; they were there to kill time. These comedians were basically the Funnier Than You Are of their time. The only difference was that they weren’t performing on corporate comedy shows or corporate comedy events like our professional comedians do.

With the ruckus of a set breakdown behind them, combined with a huge banquet hall in front of them and a lack of a microphone, there wasn’t much room for nuanced delivery. 

The answer to this was physical comedy and lots of it. The Top Banana was the key player in a two- or three-man comedy team. There are actually two schools of thought as to where it comes from, within the Vaudeville world.

One school says that it comes from a sketch famous in the 1920’s, where 3 comedians try to share a banana. The one who comes out on top was the star of the show AKA the Top Banana.

The other school is way more fun. It traces back to when a strange fruit called the banana first arrived in North America from our southern neighbors. The 1876 World’s Fair made bananas all the rage; people were gobbling them up and throwing them on the sidewalk to rot and become quite slippery.

What ensued was what we can only call a banana panic. Some ne’er-do-wells were constantly suing businesses, claiming (falsely) to have injured themselves on a banana peel. Cities like St. Louis outlawed casting bananas onto public streets. It was feared that this slithery menace might even derail street cars. The threat of bananas was no joke.

And so, the banana found its way onto stage. The Top Banana was the emcee of the show, who would talk to the audience and set banana peel traps. The Second Banana was NOT the Vice President. He was the guy whose job it was to slip on banana peels. Show after show, night after night, the Second Banana went out there and did prat falls to the glee of our drunken great grandparents.

The Top Banana set up the jokes and the Second Banana WAS the joke. If there was a rake on stage, he stepped on it. If there was a bottle of seltzer, he took it to the face. There’s a pie on stage? You guessed it: right in the face.  If comedy was a fraternity, then Second Banana was the pledge and he got hazed for years, to the delight of our forebears.

If you’ve made it this far, you probably know that Funnier Than You Are offers Safe For Work comedy shows for corporate events with white glove service. Corporate Comedy is probably the hardest thing to pull off and requires decades of experience. If you have a corporate comedy event that would benefit from a comedian emcee, give us a shout.

Please note that if you booby trap the stage with fruit peels of any kind, you will be held financially responsible. We only work with Top Bananas.