Topic: Abbott and Costello Show - Season 1 Ep. 1 - The Drugstore (1952)

[metaldams]

      Alright, so begins our next lengthy bi-weekly journey and our next Bud and Lou journey - THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO SHOW.  2 seasons, 26 episodes per season that were shot between 1952 - 1954.  We’ve already done all the features, every gosh darn one of them, with all the romantic couples, musical numbers and monsters your heart can desire.  Well all that can be thrown out the window for this part of the journey because here we have unadulterated comedy with Bud and Lou along with a cast of other comic misfits.  The only pretty much straight character in this whole thing is Hillary Brooke, but she provides the beauty and charm and is an excuse for Lou to be childishly bashful around a pretty lady.  I’m a big fan of Ms. Brooke.  Along with Bud and Lou we get Gordon Jones as Mike the Cop, Sidney Fields as the landlord or whatever other role suits him, Joe Kirk as the gloriously un-PC Italian stereotype Mr. Bacciagalupe (being quarter Italian myself, I’m allowed to make fun one out of every four days) and of course, the future Stooge himself, Joe Besser as Stinky, the childish little boy in the Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit.

      So onto the first episode, which according to my Passport DVD set, is called THE DRUGSTORE.  The format of the show is here right away.  Start out with Bud and Lou on stage.  Have a pretty girl walk in front of them holding a sign showing the special guest cast members.  Have Lou either comment or gesture about being blocked by the sign.  Then we get Bud and Lou working their magic with some old verbal routine.  For this first episode, the stage stuff lasts about five minutes and is the gem where Lou tries to tell the story of Jonah the Whale.  We get Bud interrupting Lou about the most inane things, like what kind of apples are being used, if Lou knows what “capsize” means, etc.  The timing of Bud’s interruptions and Lou’s frustrated reactions can’t be done justice in writing.  A nice kicker is when Lou interrupts himself about the details of a stool later on because he knows Bud is going to do it anyway.  Then there’s the end when Bud just deflates Lou so slowly about the story in general.  Love the lonely way Lou walks off the stage dejected.  Great opening to this show and series.

      Now that the stage stuff is done, we get the basic story.  Nothing complicated like some of the features.  It’s simply Bud and Lou can’t pay the rent, so to avoid going to jail, landlord Sid Fields suggests they work for the money in his relative’s drugstore, the relative also played by Sid Fields.  That’s it.  That’s all we need for an excuse to make comedy.

      They seem to have most things figured out already on episode one, the only exception being Hillary Brooke.  Hillary is normally a neighbor Bud and Lou know but here she seems to be a stranger.  She shows up twice, first as a woman Lou runs into on the street where she gaslights Lou about asking directions to the library and secondly, as the pretty customer Lou flirts with for kisses (the latter scenario you’d never see in a comedy today).  All fun stuff, though.  But yeah, Hillary will become a more known and sweeter character soon enough.  I can’t picture her in later episodes calling Lou a fat masher.

      Sid Fields get dual roles as the landlord and drugstore owner.  Classic scene where Bud and Sid argue about the rent and all the physical frustrations from Mr. Fields get taken out on poor Lou through punches - multiple punches.  It’s funny the way Bud gets Lou in the middle just in time for each punch, a funny scene.  Also great dialogue with Mike the Cop over Bud and Lou being taxpayers who pay his salary.  Questions the real role Mike should play, like getting Lou a glass of water and whether Lou can fire him!  Great frustration comedy here.

      The drugstore?  Simply an excuse for great Lou comic situations.  The brilliantly set up scene where Lou gets the three boys candy.  The frustrated customer that throws money away as Lou throws ice cream away to match him.  The ice cream, of course, lands on everyone in the store.  The already mentioned flirting scene with Hillary, the insomniac customer - all great stuff.  Just put them in a simple setting like a drugstore and let the comedy fly.

      Finally, I of course have to mention Joe Besser!  He works WAY better with Lou than he does with Moe and Larry.  I think it’s because here, Joe is literally a child and in that role, he makes Lou Costello look like the more mature one.  Think how hard that is to do.  The playing hopscotch, the wimpy little hits and punches to Lou’s arm, the vocal inflections, the lollipop stuff, the castor oil speech - this is why Joe Besser was put on this Earth as a comedian.

      So yes, a very enjoyable first episode, as they all are.  This is going to be a fun ride and I can’t wait to hear your comments.

[Umbrella Sam]

Alright, THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO SHOW. I’ve seen a few episodes of this show, mainly from the second season, but have never done a real deep dive into it. As far as TV goes, I’m more familiar with their work on THE COLGATE COMEDY HOUR, as I saw compilations on PBS when I was younger and eventually got the DVDs with them. In fact, for a time, I assumed that THE COLGATE COMEDY HOUR was THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO SHOW. It’s still a nostalgic series for me, and I consider many of the routines there, including “Who’s On First?” and “Higher and Lower” to be the definitive versions.

And, just to have a chance to mention it, I’ll also bring up the radio version. It’s interesting because this episode, and I assume some of the upcoming ones too, actually does kind of play like a radio program with its cutting back and forth between the episode and Abbott and Costello on a stage addressing the audience. There obviously are differences; the supporting casts are different, and unlike the radio show, this doesn’t cut to an obligatory singing number. But the general idea of Abbott and Costello trying to survive in a crazy world remains the same in both shows. After all, the radio version literally has an episode where Bugs Bunny commentates a race between Lou Costello and Lucille Ball for nylon stockings.

But let’s actually get to the episode we’re talking about today. Again, I like how it actually opens on a stage, and they perform a very excellent rendition of Jonah and the Whale. I agree, that part with Lou interrupting himself in anticipation of Bud asking was a really funny twist on the formula, really stands out. The actual “plot” starts out with a very funny routine involving people thinking Lou is asking them about where the library is. Then we get into the standard stuff we’d expect. Bud and Lou are behind on their rent and have to deal with an angry landlord and Mike the Cop. I says “standard”, but I mean that in the best possible way. It’s a simple setup that just allows Lou and Bud to talk their way out of things, which is what they do so well. The whole business with Lou getting punched is great. I especially like the moment when he gets himself in the way of the punch, with no assistance from Abbott.

They then get a job offer from Fields to work for a relative at a drugstore. This is where we’re first introduced to Joe Besser, and, yeah, he is really good here. A great childish counterpoint for Lou; I love that whole hopscotch thing where they keep just getting in each other’s way and get more and more mad at each other. What makes it even better is that Elvia Allman is playing Joe’s mother. Elvia Allman is a very underrated comic actress; she’s probably most remembered for playing the candy factory boss in an iconic I LOVE LUCY episode and even appeared on the ABBOTT AND COSTELLO RADIO SHOW, among many other radio shows. She was great at playing stern types, which makes her a perfect fit for this role. Very small role, but she makes the best out of it; I love her delivery when she is yelling at Joe to stop biting Lou’s finger.

Most of the drugstore business is more for spotlighting Lou, with Abbott taking a backseat to his physical antics. One routine has him grabbing licorice from a top shelf for a kid and consistently putting it back before realizing the next kid also wanted licorice. Love his reactions there, constantly getting more and more hopeless as he realizes the repetitiveness of it. I also really like the whole argument he gets into with the guy about the ice cream, a great way to climax the episode with something along the lines of a Three Stooges pie fight ending, although obviously on a much smaller scale. It all ends with Lou running from a cop, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Great first episode, and looking forward to more as we go along.

[HomokHarcos]

I've heard the Colgate Comedy Hour shows are a must watch for Abbott and Costello fans, and if they are anything like these stage routines on the Abbott and Costello show, I can get that. The opening theme song for show is very catchy, must better than the second season's theme. Their performance of Jonah and the Wale here is much better than One Night in the Tropics, with Bud and Lou making a routine entertaining despite, in my opinion, not being a great routine. Their chemistry and charisma makes it shine.

Sidney Fields is my favorite Abbott and Costello supporting actor, I really like his role as the landlord. The sequence at the apartment when he is smacking Lou around is my favorite, and the funniest part is I can't even tell is Bud is purposely egging him on. Mike the Cop is also a very fun character as a police officer.

It's funny hearing Bud ask Lou if he knows anything about drugs, it makes it sound like we're going to get an edgier version of the pair before he brings up a funny line about being drugged. The drug store bit has a formula that works well with about any comedian, them making a mess of their job, especially when he is getting into an ice cream fight with customers. Hillary Brooke is not playing her usual character, and instead feels more like a character actress.

[metaldams]

      I think I may have seen bits and pieces of The Colgate Comedy Hour with Bud and Lou at some point.  I even have a VHS tape I inherited from my grandmother when she passed with some stuff, but alas, no VCR any longer to play it in.  I’m going to have to do a YouTube search at some point.

[NoahYoung]

Rating: 2 out of 4.

OK I watched this one a few days ago. I had given it only 1 star in my old notes, noting that it was a very weak episode. I enjoyed it more this time, but it is still very average.

Joe Kirk appears at the counter, but not as Bacciagalupe. The licorice sequence I loved as a kid, but is one of those routines that once you see, it isn't that funny the next time. That's the first scene I think of when someone mentions this episode.

Jonah and the Whale is funny, and one of the longest opening-stage scenes they ever did, which usually lasted 30 seconds to a minute.

The whole episode has the feel of a "first episode", much like just about every sitcom ever made until this very day.  I don't believe this was filmed as a pilot, since it was a syndicated show.  In the Mulholland book, he claims that the series was filmed totally out of sequence  -- e.g. all the boarding house scenes were filmed together, then all the street scenes, etc., and later in editing these were put together to make up episodes. Watching this episode, I believe Mulholland was manufacturing this idea in his head -- many other "facts" about the show have subsequently been proven wrong. Mulholland also claims that Costello gave Joe Besser real castor oil to drink during filming!

Other routines:
- I'd like to see you do that again -- with Mr. Fields. (They did similar scenes in BUCK PRIVATES and HERE COME THE CO-EDS, and probably in a few more that I can't remember off the top of my head.)
- "How dare you remind me of someone I hate" with Iris Adrian. (I think they did this somewhere with Bobby Barber possibly as well.)
- Some of the stuff at the counter is reminiscent of a similar scene in WHO DONE IT? -- like Lou asking Abbott for an egg and one is thrown from off-screen into his face.)
- Public servant routine with Mike the Cop (lifted from IN SOCIETY.)

Iris Adrian had a long career, I think almost always in small roles. She is one of the flirty girls Stan and Babe meet in Denker's Beer Garden in OUR RELATIONS. (Babe almost went out on a date with her in real life at the time.) She was in a few Disney films like THAT DARN CAT, and was in THE ODD COUPLE with Matthau and Lemmon as the waitress in the diner that Oscar flirts with. (Joe Palma was in that movie, too, as a butcher in the supermarket.)

Hillary disappears from the counter, never to be seen again in this episode.  She looks really good in those close-ups -- some of the best from the show. She was pushing 40, but you would never know it -- especially since this was the early 50s, when 40 was considered oldish, unlike today. Some of her lines could definitely be interpreted as double-entendres. She loves whipped cream!