GAGGLE OF COMICS BANDS TOGETHER FOR PAL.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

Comedian Pat McCormick had a heck of a 78th birthday party on Thursday when many of his buddies stopped by the Motion Picture & Television Fund home to do five minutes in his honor.

They paid their old pal the highest compliment comedians can pay one another. They stole his best material.

Pat was too ill to make the show, but it went on anyway for the volunteers and staff because that's what their buddy wanted, the members of Yarmy's Army said.

A stroke in 1998 may have paralyzed the 6-foot-6 comedian - best known for his role as Big Enos in the movie ``Smokey And The Bandit'' - but it never touched his crazy sense of humor.

That still came through strong in his eyes last year when actor Kevin Spacey showed up on Pat's birthday to do a spot-on impression of Johnny Carson, Pat's former boss.

Pat couldn't laugh out loud with his pals anymore, but his smiling eyes told them he was still laughing inside.

Ironically, it was a moment like this - a moment of sadness giving way to laughs - that led McCormick and his pals to start Yarmy's Army in 1993. Comedian Don Adams' brother, actor Dick Yarmy, had died of cancer, and his memorial service was packed with comedians.

There's no way that many comedians could get together and not crack a joke - even at a funeral.

``We blew right through the tragedy straight to the laughs,'' said comedian Ronnie Schell, the honorary mayor of Encino for the past 14 years because no one else wants the job.

``After the service we were all standing around outside trading funny stories about Dick. No one wanted to leave.''

Before long, Schell and McCormick, with comedians Shelley Berman, Don Knotts, Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Buddy Hackett, Louis Nye, Tom Poston, Jack Riley, Jim MacGeorge, Pat Harrington and Chuck McCann; comedy writer Bob Mills; and director Howard Storm were meeting once a month in a local deli to stay in touch and bounce new material off each other.

After a few months, they decided to bounce some of it off the public, as well - performing skits at charity events to raise money for actors and comedians who had fallen on hard times.

No one imagined that in a few years, one of those comedians would be big, burly Pat McCormick.

After his stroke, the comic who wrote gags for Johnny Carson's ``Tonight Show'' for 12 years - and for just about every other comic in America - required around-the-clock medical care that rapidly depleted his savings, his friends say.

Yarmy's Army chipped in to help pay his medical bills. But if it wasn't for the Motion Picture & Television Fund giving him a home and care, they don't know how they would have managed to keep caring for their pal, said Poston.

So Yarmy's Army went onstage again at the Woodland Hills retirement complex, but it wasn't for charity this time.

It was to wish a happy birthday to one of their own, and give a thank-you to the volunteers and staff taking good care of their buddy.

Actress Jane Harvey and actor Peter Marshall sang, and comedian Steve Landesberg joined Yarmy's Army for some very funny skits and one-liners.

The laughter from the Louis B. Mayer Theater spread throughout the complex, and you just knew that in one of those rooms, there was a crazy, zany Irish comic named McCormick laughing inside.

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Yarmy's Army includes, from left front: Jim MacGeorge, Ronnie Schell and Pat Harrington; and, in back, Tom Poston, Bob Mills, Jack Riley, Steve Landesberg, Howard Storm and Peter Marshall.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(2) McCORMICK