Tummler: "tell stories, plan hikes, kibbitz with the fat old women"
We were passing through the Catskills during the 4th weekend and we stopped at the Liberty NY museum.Tummler was a full-on regular job at these resorts and it helped launch the career of many great performers including Mel Brooks, Sid Ceasar and Joey Adams.
The people who stayed at these resorts were immigrants or children of immigrants and this was their time out of the city to spend some time in a pool, eat some good food they didn’t have to cook themselves and socialize. People often went back at the same time every year and community and participation was a big part of the experience. Lower costs of more exotic consumer vacation destinations like the Caribbean led to the closing of these resorts but they led to a loss of connection and community. ((tags:: tummler, tummeling, TummelVision, Catskills, Joey Adams, comedian, Liberty NY museum))
[…] Heather Gold, a comedian and speaker, caught my attention soon into my reading on crowd-related innovations. Gold gives us the term tummler, a term that comes from Jewish tradition and means a “noisemaker hired to entertain and make sure everyone had a good time.â€Â Adapting this term to new media, Gold argues for a new way of engaging in critical conversations guided by a tummler, someone who helps make sense out of the vast amount of information now available. The tummler moves the conversation forward, providing multiple points of entry and acknowledging diverse expertise based on experience and point of view. […]