Then he'd tell a variety of jokes, many of which have become classics. According to vaudeville historian Joe Laurie Jr., "It was Joe's original story, which has been in about every joke book in the world, that went, "The other day I took mine son to a restaurant to get a bowl of zoop. Jakey commenced to eat and den grabt me by the arm and sed, 'Papeh, dere's a fly in my zoop.' I sed, 'Eat der zoop and vait till you come to the fly, den tell de vaiter and he'll bring you another bowl of zoop for nudding!'"

Also, according to Laurie, Welch "practically originated and started the Hebrew monologue...Nearly all the Jew comics patterned after his style and delivery but nobody touched him. He was in a class by himself, a great and original artist."

Reflecting a century of Jewish tradition, Welch often favored short, philosophical remarks: "If I would never been born, I'd be a happy man today..." He once declared on stage, "All my life I got in my mind the golden rule - do it to others like they'd to it to you. And I would, but I never get the chance. They always do it first."

Welch's woes were evidently real. He went bankrupt in 1908 and endured court fights over the rights to the comic plays he wrote and performed on Broadway. In 1918, while converting his hit "The Peddler" into a movie, he suffered a mental breakdown and wandered off the film set in full make-up. He was found hours later confused on the street.

His wife had him declared incompetent so that the family could get the insurance money necessary to treat him. He died six months later at a sanitarium in Green Farms, Connecticut. Variety reported, "The end was not unexpected for Welch had been suffering from a mental breakdown for some time and about a month ago was committed as a hopeless paretic."