THE HOOK AND THE HAM

“Get the hook!” was a cry from the audience to get a bad performer off the stage. Someone in the wings would get a hooked pole and hook the performer away. “The hook” was reportedly introduced in 1903 at Harry Miner’s Bowery Theatre on ‘amateur nights’ when novice performers took to the stage. Ambitious wannabes who had been stung by the ‘stage struck’ bee were permitted to try out their ability in any line of entertainment before a ‘regular audience.’ Approval of the audience, indicated by applause or money thrown upon the stage, frequently led to permanent engagements. Disapproval in the form of laughter, cat calls or loud criticisms meant Get Off the Stage and squelched any further histrionic ambition. This tradition harkens back to the ‘thumbs down’ in the Roman arena which meant death.

On a Friday night in October, 1903 at Miner’s Bowery Theater, a very bad amateur was torturing a patient audience with an impossible ‘near tenor’ voice. Despite the howls, groans and hisses, the ‘artist’ persisted when Tom Miner chanced to see a large old-fashioned crook handled cane in the corner previously used by a Negro impersonator.

Quickly picking it up, he called the prop man, had him lash it securely to the wings and out of sight of the audience, swiftly slipped the hook around the neck of the would-be singer and yanked him off the stage before he realized what had happened.

The next amateur was giving imitations of well-known actors. After giving the worst one of Edwin Booth, he announced his next impression would be of matinee idol Richard Mansfield. A small boy in the gallery yelled “Get the hook!” The audience roared in approval and the amateur fled.  

From that time on the “hook”, a long pole topped with a strong wire loop, was kept in a convenient corner off stage and few novices escaped its merciless pressure, used especially when thrown vegetables failed to clear the stage. Often management knew that some of the acts were terrible, and booked them for no other purpose than to bring the “hook” into play and get a laugh from the audience.

Resource:  Internet  

9-24-1908  Milford Iowa Mail

“GET THE HOOK!’ WAS COINED BY A NEW YORK GALLERY GOD

Booklet, “Get The Hook”” by H. Clay Miner to prove claim by Tom Miner of Bowery Theater to Instrument Feared by Amateurs

THE ORIGIN OF HAM OR HAM ACTOR

Have you ever wondered why actors have been referred to as “Hams”? 

I knew that the epithet had been hurled at those in the profession who overacted or were accused of ‘hogging’ the show.  Then I discovered the amazing book “The Language of Show Biz, A Dictionary”, edited by Sherman Louis Sergel for the Dramatic Publishing Company (1973).

 
“Perhaps a clue of the origin of this unflattering term can be found in an old poster for Tony Pastor’s Opera House in New York. It announces ‘60 hams distributed on Monday evening’. Possibly the offer of free hams to the public began to reflect poorly on the actors who were supposed to be the main draw, causing them to be known as ham actors’.”

Or it may refer to self-indulgent actors who like to take center stage.

Hamlet advised the players how offensive it was to tear a passion to tatters and would not allow them  to ‘out Herod Herod’.

Other accounts about the origin refer to an act in Mr. Pastor’s downtown cafe called “The Hamtown Students”, a blackface quartet. He noted the exaggerated movements and scenery-chewing antics of the act. Thus whenever he saw an actor who was overplaying he described him as a ‘ham’. Oldtime actors and minstrel men used to remove makeup with lard (derived from pork and ham)  which was as effective as cold cream and cheaper. The term could have been coined  by Hamish McCullough (1834-1885) who toured the “pig-sticking” towns of Illinois with a portable company. He was nicknamed Ham; the troupe became Ham’s actors. 

But the most applicable definition is still a disparaging label for impetuous performers who exaggerate emotion to the point where they become unbelievable.