Comedians Harry Steppe, Joey Faye,[1] and Samuel Goldman[2] each laid claim to this routine, also referred to as "The Stranger with a Kind Face" by clowns, "Niagara Falls" by fans of The Three Stooges[3] and Abbott and Costello, "Martha" by fans of I Love Lucy,[4] "Pokomoko", and "Bagel Street".
The routine features a man recounting the day he took his revenge on his enemy – and becoming so engrossed in his own tale that he attacks the innocent listener to whom he is speaking.
Names and cities (such as Niagara Falls) have been used as the trigger, which then sends the unbalanced person into a dissociative state; the implication is that the words have an unpleasant association in the character's past.
Reacting as if this stranger is the object of his rage, the angry character begins hitting or strangling him, until the screams of the victim shake him out of his dissociative state.
The January 1952 episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour included the sketch, once again with Abbott and Costello, but with Errol Flynn playing the delusional man.
Milton Berle's 1956 Coral Records single release, "Buffalo," replaced Niagara Falls with 'Buffalo' as the trigger word.
[4] Lucille Ball later performed the "Martha" version on CBS Opening Night in 1963, now playing the vagabond storyteller herself, with Phil Silvers as the stranger with the kind face.