The Bad Seed

You'd think your own brother wouldn't bust your watermelon.

courtesy of Evening Star

Melonhead: Does Gallagher do anything else during his act? Does it matter? Find out on March 20.

Details

Scheduled to perform on Sunday, March 20. Tickets cost $32.50. Call 480-784-4444

Dodge Theatre, 400 West Washington Street

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Produce-pulverizing comedian Gallagher didn't have a problem with his younger brother, Ron, touring as a Gallagher impersonator, as long as Ron didn't perform Gallagher's signature move: smashing watermelons with a sledgehammer at the end of the show.

But things got messy quickly. Ron smashed the watermelon. Ron advertised his shows as "Gallagher II" and used Gallagher I's trademarked logo. The public got confused, and the real (Glenn) Gallagher sued. He won in August 2000, and Ron is now prohibited from impersonating his brother in any of his performances.

And there won't be a seat for him at Thanksgiving dinner, either.

"I don't care to talk to him ever again," Gallagher says. "By attempting to defraud the general public, he was lying to the people who support me. He was threatening the income of my kids. And he took advantage of me trying to help him. So between those three betrayals -- hurting the public, hurting my family, and hurting me -- I see no reason to have any kind of relationship with him. He doesn't understand ethics. I have another brother, so I really don't need that one."

Gallagher tries to treat his fans that way, he says, holding meet-and-greet sessions with them before and after shows. And he's started inviting kids onstage to join in the smashing. A tip from the seminal sledge slinger: "It's not about the weight of the hammer, but the speed of the hit."

Gallagher says he still has a good relationship with the melons, too, despite bashing them to bits over the years. He even grew a million watermelons in Blythe, Arizona, once, only to have heavy rainfall ruin a lot of the crop. The farming might not have worked out, but at least Gallagher can take his frustrations out on somebody else's green thumb without audiences wondering if they're getting the real deal.