I was interested to read in Daily Variety, the show business newspaper, that Madison native Kevin Farley is making a new movie with David Zucker.

The short Variety item last month noted that Farley will play the lead in "An American Carol," a satiric comedy directed and co-written by Zucker, the UW-Madison graduate who with his brother Jerry and their friend Jim Abrahams made earlier comedy hits like "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun" series. The new movie, which spins off "A Christmas Carol," is due out for the holidays in December.

Kevin Farley, of course, is the brother of the late Chris Farley. But it was Zucker's name that got my attention, because of a note I received from a reader a year or so ago when I mentioned the Zucker brothers and Abrahams in a column.

That column was in response to a cover story in On Wisconsin, the magazine of the Wisconsin Alumni Association, about the Madison days of the Zuckers and Abrahams, when, along with Dick Chudnow, they launched a comedy troupe called Kentucky Fried Theater (KFT).

The magazine article, written by Rich Markey, was excellent. It detailed how the foursome, long on talent but short on funds, was almost derailed on opening night.

KFT 's first performance, in May 1971, at Union South, was hampered by technical difficulties. They had also seriously underestimated the amount of material needed to fill 90 minutes. Afterward, they thought they had blown it, but then a young reviewer for the Badger Herald student newspaper named George Hesselberg wrote that the KFT show "was the funniest evening I've spent in a long time."

David Zucker told Markey that the review by Hesselberg, today with the Wisconsin State Journal, remains the single most important review they 've ever received. The Zuckers and Abrahams went on to great Hollywood success, while Chudnow, the fourth member, co-founded the ComedySportz franchise.

My only problem with the On Wisconsin article was that it neglected to mention one of the funniest things KFT ever did in Madison. In some circles the bit is known as the "lost masterpiece." It was crude, tasteless and hilarious.

Naturally, I had to mention it in my column, and that brought a letter from a reader in California, who said she had once approached David Zucker at a public event and said how much she enjoyed his work, especially the "lost masterpiece" bit back in Madison in the early 1970s.

But Zucker, she said, seemed a little embarrassed by that particular recognition.

At this point, for those who weren't around Madison in the early 1970s -- or for those who were and have repressed the memory -- I should probably reveal the content of the "lost masterpiece."

Around the time of that first Union South show, Kentucky Fried Theater set up a recording machine on a local Madison phone number. When you dialed the number, a voice said: "Welcome to Kentucky Fried Theater's Dial-a-Fart." What followed was 30 seconds of spectacular flatulence.

I believe I mentioned it was tasteless.

But it was also a huge, perhaps unprecedented, word-of-mouth hit. Everyone I knew (I was a teenager) was calling it constantly. Pretty soon it became nearly impossible to get through because the line was always busy. Then, too soon, it was gone. Years later, Jim Abrahams told me "the phone company shut it down" because the volume of calls was overwhelming the system.

It was Abrahams who told me the credit -- blame? -- for the "lost masterpiece" belonged with Dick Chudnow, the least-well-known of the four KFT co-conspirators.

I once had a chance to ask Chudnow to reflect on his achievement. "You heard it?" he said.

"Sure I heard it," I said. "I am honored beyond mere words to speak to the mind responsible."

"After a while people couldn't get through," Chudnow said, adding that he handled the special effects himself with his mouth and arm.

As for David Zucker, I only have my California correspondent's word that he is not altogether pleased to be reminded of KFT's lost masterpiece, but it seems plausible. He is a respected Hollywood high roller, with many accomplishments beyond, well, you know.

Time will tell what Zucker and Kevin Farley come up with in the new film -- Kelsey Grammer also stars -- but if we're still talking about it 30 years down the line, I guess we can say they created a masterpiece.