Bob Bryan of Bert and I comedy fame dies at 87

PORTLAND, Maine — Bob Bryan, one half of the comedy duo Bert and I, which had fun at the expense of Maine Yankees and popularized the immortal punchline: “You can’t get there from here,” has died at his home in Quebec. He was 87.

Bryan and the late Marshall Dodge created punch lines in a dormitory room at Yale University, and their 1958 album was the first of several that shaped the state’s humour and image.

Uttered in exaggerated Down East accents, the jokes have withstood the test of time, including the one about the tourist who befuddled a Mainer by asking for directions. The native concludes with the famous punchline: “Come to think of it, you can’t get there from here.”

Bryan, who died on Wednesday in Sherbrooke, Que., was a native of Long Island, New York, who spsent summers on a lake near Ellsworth, Maine.

The stories, often involving a fancy-pants tourist and a laconic Mainer who gets the last word, set the stage for regional humorists who followed.

“They didn’t write from scratch all of these stories. They adapted them. A lot of them were off colour, from lumber camps or fishing wharfs. They’d rewrite them. They took them to the next level,” said Dean Lunt from Islandport Press, which sells the Bert and I albums.

Humorist and storyteller Garrison Keillor recalled playing cuts of the Bert and I albums during his early stints as a morning disc jockey. And the original Bert and I album made comedianmagician Penn Jillette’s list of the top 12 comedy albums of all time.

The pair set off in different directions after selling hundreds of thousands of albums.

Dodge toured the country as a comedian before his death in 1982 in Hawaii, where he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while cycling.

Bryan, a divinity student who went on to be ordained as an Episcopal priest, used some of his Bert and I earnings to buy a float plane. As a bush pilot, he flew to fishing villages in northern Quebec to minister to residents.

He created the QuebecLabrador Foundation with a goal of supporting rural communities and the environment of eastern Canada and New England.

Bryan leaves behind a wife, three daughters and several grandchildren.