Irving Cohen

Irving Cohen was a character that Martin Short used on SCTV, and brought with him to SNL. Known for his admiration of Al Jolson, Cohen was a caricature of old Tin Pan Alley songsmiths, and the running gag in any sketch where he appeared was that he would claim that he could "write a song about anyt'ing," at which point Irving would call to a pianist off camera, "Give me a 'C', a bouncy, 'C'", and then he would ad-lib lyrics, ending with, "Da-da-da-da-dee, da-da-da-da-dah, ah, whatever da hell else ya wanna put in da t'ing!" This off camera pianist seemed to follow Cohen everywhere, even bursting into song in the middle of a HUAC hearing. Cohen started his interviews by reminiscing about the old days, starting off with, "In the old days, we had a t'ing, called, 'Vau-de-ville'..." He also frequently name-dropped Al Jolson and Sophie Tucker and had a habit of punctuating sentences with the phrase "at this time."

Cohen's age could only be guessed at, but he appeared to be in his nineties, and Short wore heavy age makeup to portray the character. A recurring gag is that several sketches featuring Cohen are tributes to him on his 90th birthday, regardless of how many tributes there actually were.