Eh, it’s OK. Nothing stellar but definitely of interest for my curiosity for Columbia comedy shorts. It’s 1936, so again, we are in the era where it looked like these shorts had something resembling a budget. Outdoor scenery, cabins, barns - funny this should be a big deal but when you watch so many of these things from the 50’s, it actually is. AY TANK AY GO also benefits from having Phyllis Crane in a decent role, who I’ll cherish any opportunity I get to see her in. She was underused in her Educational Keaton roles but again is prominent here at Columbia, so a thumbs up for that.
As for El Brendel himself, he is from a long line of dialect comedians. It’s a club that, from what I can gather based on my present viewing experiences, includes Chico Marx and then everybody else. Chico had the dialogue, talent and charisma to make his dialect character entertaining and the accent becomes part of the character, not a distraction. With El Brendel, half the time, I’m wondering what the Hell he is saying and even when I do know, the accent always distracts. He’s an OK physical comedian, I do wonder what he’d be like in silents. He does the old warhorse of tie a stool on a cow’s tail gag OK and makes a decent facial expression when called for. The chase at the end is ludicrously entertaining in its own way as are those big sunflowers, so the film is not a total loss. But man, that accent, it just distracts. It may be the kind of thing I can overcome if I ever had an El Brendel marathon, but that’s not in the cards anytime soon.
