He would frequently end his routines before the payoff of the story, allowing the audience to complete it for themselves, and exited with the phrase "My father thanks you, my mother thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you," which was co-opted by the young George M.

[3] Tannen made his Broadway debut at the Aerial Gardens in 1905 in Jean Schwartz, William Jerome, and John J. McNally's musical Lifting the Lid.

He appeared again on Broadway in 1916, and returned again in 1920, in a comic play with music, Her Family Tree, for which he received credit for writing his own scenes.

[2] The advent of talking pictures created a need in Hollywood for performers with stage experience, and Tannen appeared in his first film in 1935, when he did an uncredited bit in Stranded.

[8] Undoubtedly, Tannen's most memorable and prominent performance came at the age of 72, when he portrayed a man demonstrating the technology of talking pictures in a film-within-the-film in Singin' in the Rain in 1952.