We know them by their names: Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis, Wheeler & Woolsey, Olsen & Johnson, Burns & Allen and more. As well as the bigger groups: The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, The Ritz Brothers, and that huge aggregate variously known as The Dead End Kids, The Little Tough Guys, The East Side Kids, and The Bowery Boys. (That last bunch requires a flow chart.) But sadly, with a few exceptions (conspicuously the Stooges, arguably more popular now than in their heyday, if they ever actually had a heyday), most people born after Woodstock would not know them on sight.
(One night, Jay Leno was doing “Jaywalking” and asking
pedestrians to identify famous movie stars of the past. One identified Laurel
& Hardy as The Three Stooges. Even after Leno pointed out that there were
only two people in the photo, she still insisted they were The Three Stooges. I
still cringe at the thought of this.)
So what happened? Why did the comedy team die out? Hard
to say with any certainty, but one very real possibility is that America simply
grew up, and so did its entertainment. More often than not, the comic part of
the team was a man-child: Laurel, Costello, Wheeler, Lewis, Curly Howard, and
Huntz Hall all seemed like eight-year-old boys in the bodies of 40-year-old men.
By the 1950s, they were getting older, and that juvenile shtick didn’t seem so
funny anymore. Moreover, television had become the new vaudeville, and more
adult, romantic comedies were filling the big screen. The funny hats and baggy
pants were being replaced by more sophisticated fare starring the likes of Rock
Hudson, Jack Lemmon, Paul Newman, and James Garner, as well as older but still
sexy men such as Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, and David Niven. (Jerry Lewis
continued to have a successful solo film career, but he was an anomaly, while
Groucho moved to TV and assumed a new persona as a waggish quiz show host.) The
great comedies of the past found a new home on the tube, but as The Late Show
or on weekend afternoons. A few newer teams kept fairly busy in night clubs and
on variety shows, like Rowan & Martin, Wayne & Shuster, and Allen &
Rossi, but the tradition had well and truly passed. (No, I haven’t forgotten
Cheech & Chong, but they had an entirely different appeal and an entirely
different audience.)
Yet despite their obvious similarities, all the great
teams were unique. Their looks, their voices, their body language were
distinctive to each, and even when they performed identical material (e.g.
“Slowly I Turn”), they put their own spin on it. Laurel & Hardy were slow
and methodical, allowing situations to incrementally increase past the point of
no return; sometimes just the merest glance was hysterical. Abbott &
Costello didn’t sing or dance, but performed elaborate duologues that kept
audiences gasping, while the latter took tremendous falls at the drop of a
derby. Olsen & Johnson didn’t even pay attention to the plot: just gags,
gags and more gags. The Stooges used the plot as a starting point: they just
did anything that was funny—the rules be damned—and it worked. The Marx
Brothers were a three-ring circus: a fast-talking sharpy, a mime, and a scamp
with an Italian accent (as well as a straight man when Zeppo was there),
allowing all sorts of permutations depending on who was paired with whom at any
given moment.
It can be frustrating when younger people won’t watch this
stuff because it’s in black-and-white, or because the content is considered
quaint by today's standards. But those of us who treasure comedy in all forms don’t
give up. One of the reasons I’ve made the Biffle & Shooster shorts is to
prove that this kind of mirth-making can still work in the 21st century, for
older and newer generations alike. But if those unfamiliar with its inspiration
turn their noses up at it, those who were around back in the good old days when
these classics ran on TV every day (or even collected them as home movies) can
revel in the goofiness. Funnymen are funnymen, and fortunately, no amount of
time can ever change that.
Michael Schlesinger is a trustee of the American
Cinematheque, retired movie-studio weasel, scrappy independent film producer,
and is the perpetrator of the Biffle & Shooster shorts. He believes Shemp
Howard was the great natural comedian ever.