Krazy Tyrone is the last of a dying breed of in-house court jester in New York's Catskills known as a tummler.

Read about him. It's a fascinating story.

An excerpt from the NYT yarn:

For the last two decades, Krazy Tyrone's life has been an unending cascade of ribald one-liners, sexually loaded Yiddishisms and of course, a daily Simon Sez tournament where the come-on is $1,000 in moist prize money that's kept wadded up in his sock. "I'm so good, no one has ever won," he said pulling out a harmonica and playing "Oh Susannah" with his right nostril.

A startlingly flamboyant man who moves like Pee-wee Herman on amphetamines, Krazy Tyrone, né Paul Krohn, is the last of the Catskills "tummlers," the in-house jesters whose sole job is to keep hotel guests amused before, during and after the all-you-can eat meals. When he is not playing host to trivia contests or demonstrating his jump-rope prowess by the pool, Mr. Krohn can be found at one of the hotel's Ping-Pong tables playing with the skillet or rubber hand he keeps stowed in his duffel bag of tricks. When bored, he'll have other staff members take photos of him hamming it up next to guests who have fallen asleep on one of the hotel's many sofas. "Hey lady," he'll shout across the cavernous lobby. "How did Captain Hook die? He had jock itch and scratched himself with the wrong hand." Many of his favorite quips, most of them unprintable, involve breasts.

Mr. Krohn's occupation is unique to the borscht belt, where hundreds of hotels and bungalow colonies competed for the affections of the millions of New York City Jews who made the Catskills their summer refuge before air-conditioning, cheap airfare and changing tastes drained the region of its lifeblood.

The hotel tummler (pronounced TOOM-ler, with the oo as in look) was often a steppingstone to bigger careers in comedy. Alan King, Danny Kaye, Billy Crystal, Jerry Lewis and Jackie Mason all got their start as tummlers. Others, like Mr. Krohn, 49, never left the mountains, although he makes frequent freelance appearances at nearby Hasidic bungalow colonies or at lavish bar mitzvahs in New Jersey, where his Simon Sez challenge is a big draw. "I like to frustrate spoiled Jewish kids," he said grinning. "They all think they're so smart but no one ever lasts a minute."

Before he was hired at Kutsher's in 1986, he worked at Grossinger's, until that hotel went the way of countless other borscht belt landmarks. Although a handful of big hotels survive, none of the others have a full-time entertainer. "I'm the last of the great tummlers," Mr. Krohn said as he slipped a whoopee cushion beneath the bottom of an unsuspecting guest. "After I go, that's it." ...

Home is a small room at the hotel, its walls covered with lime green shag carpeting, its closets stuffed with tools of the trade: a screechy violin, a battery-powered dancing rabbi and a dog-eared ventriloquist's dummy named T. J. Justin Sinclair. There is also a Hershey's Kiss outfit, 42 pairs of running shoes and a photo of him urinating behind the Hollywood home of Joan Collins. "I'm not normal," he said, deadpan.

He is, by his own description, a melancholy man, albeit a good actor who can shine on cue. "I think about suicide a lot," he said, sitting in his room during a break in his funnyman routine. "My final quest is to get on the Letterman show and then I'll have nothing to live for."

There was not much time for self-pity, however. A busload of elderly women had just arrived and Mr. Krohn was expected at a 3:45 p.m. event headlined "Trivia Time With Krazy Tyrone, the Master of Memory." Realizing he was late again, he dropped the dummy, pulled on a red, white and blue spangled outfit and headed out the door dragging his duffel bag. "Hey lady," he shouted at the first person he saw, "You got a Danish in that purse?"