Pulling a Sammy

The showbiz art of upstaging someone. It began when it was Sammy Davis, Jr.'s turn to move down on Johnny Carson's couch to make room for the next guest. WHen that guest said something funny, Sammy would react by laughing loudly, slapping his knee and falling to the floor. The audience would then begin laughing at Sammy and not the guest.

Next to the Candy Man, no one was better at "pulling a Sammy" than Milton Berle.

by creedmoor August 15, 2006

pull a Sammy

When you screw up in a very public way, and it was entirely unavoidable

Wow, he really managed to pull a Sammy this week! They had to shut down the whole website to fix it!

by Barry Cigars June 17, 2024

Pulling a Sammi

when your are slow at responding to a joke or comment because of lack there of understanding of topic being joked or commented about.

i was pulling a sammi while listening to a story from my friends. i was so lost

by JewWords February 29, 2016