As much as I wish Melissa had more talent, it ain’t easy being Joan’s daughter. She tried to segue Melissa into the jewelry collection, but Melissa just wasn’t very good at it.

I turn to Joan and say, “My word, Joan. I’m so impressed. Melissa knows Yiddish?” Joan goes, “No. She doesn’t know Yiddish and I don’t know Yiddish. But anybody who’s speaking to you in Yiddish is telling you a joke so you laugh at the end of it. I’ve taught her that much so nobody will think she’s stupid.” That was Joan in her 50s. She’s almost 80 now and she still treats her daughter the same way.

Instead, Rivers is donating the extensive collection to the National Comedy Center, the high-tech museum in Jamestown, N.Y., joining the archives of A-list comics like George Carlin and Carl Reiner. The fact that the jokes will be accessible is only one of the reasons for Melissa Rivers’s decision.