Topic: A 1930's comedy history that omits Stooges :<(

[Shemoeley Fine]

This is not the first time I've encountered this, in fact one of my first posts here was bemoaning the fact the Stooges are often overlooked and underrated by many in articles and discussions of great comedy teams, Abbot & Costello are overrated IMO. Here's another case of a Stooge diss. One of the reasons I fell the Stooges get bypassed is that they're difficult to categorize, they are not a 2-man team like most acts are, a straight man and a comic and they are not a group like the Marx Brothers so they fall in between the cracks.

I was reading about an obscure duo of satirists from the 1930's, Wheeler and Woolsley and in talking about the great comedic teams of the 30's, here's what the writers states "They frolicked across the screen--two funny little men, one a sad-faced little fellow with a boyish, quavering voice, the other a skinny character with horn-rimmed glasses, a huge cigar and straight black hair parted in the middle.  For eight years, during the depths of the great depression, this pair of outrageously zany satirists of pretension made millions laugh throughout the world, attaining a popularity comparable to their contemporaries, Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.  Then, in 1938, one of the pair died.  In the succeeding years, their films, although fondly remembered by veteran filmgoers, were seldom revived and this team, once a synonym for wacky humor, was virtually unknown to a later generation.  Although they received their share of favorable reviews in their day, many critics did not appreciate their antics, with the consequence that they were ignored and forgotten by most film historians.  The fact that strong satire was a basis for much of their humor was overlooked.  It was forgotten that the popularity of their films had helped to establish RKO-Radio as a major studio and had provided excellent opportunities for newcomers to the cinema like Joseph L. Mankiewicz, George Stevens and Betty Grable.  Forgotten was the fact that the team and their films retained their hilarious vitality and appeal long after more pretentious and once-acclaimed productions of the same period had faded. ********  Yet the three greatest comedy teams in the history of the American cinema are Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers--and Wheeler and Woolsey."  ************  yeah right.

Further writings explore their movies and it amazed me to see how similar many of the titles of their films are with those of the Stooges. They make comparisons to other comics and events of the 1930's and yet there's not a single mention of the Stooges. How can you talk about comedy on film in the 1930's and not include the tremendous trio?  Check it out for yourself  http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Derby/4720/satirists1.html

Shemoeley

[Pilsner Panther]

I've only seen two Wheeler & Woolsey films, and it was so long ago that I can't even remember the titles (back in the mid-90's, AMC used to show them, very late at night). It sounds to me like this writer has a special affection for the team, and he's trying to make a case for them being better than they actually are. Those two films I saw were moderately funny, but nothing brilliant or memorable; all I can recall at this point is that one was set in a drugstore, and the other on a Southern plantation. As an aside, those round eyeglasses that George Burns wore in his later years looked exactly like Woolsey's, which he may have meant as a kind of tribute.

I don't think Abbott & Costello are overrated— at their funniest, they certainly rank with the best of the 40's-50's comedy teams. However, I do think they put out too much product and stretched themselves too thin, eventually (Bob Hope once remarked, "Abbott & Costello must be sick, they haven't released a movie this week."). For every "Buck Privates" or "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein," there's a turkey like "Lost In Alaska" or "Abbott & Costello on Mars," which looks like it was shot on a budget of about $18.95.

That whole generation of vaudeville-bred comedians were workaholics, though; it seemed to go with the territory. A lot of the musicians of the period were like that, too. Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, and Paul Whiteman all churned out an incredible number of records by today's standards, and what's surprising is that so many of them were good. As with A & C, the Stooges and the Marxes also had their share of stinkers, mainly later in their careers when they perhaps should have retired. But they just couldn't do it, one reason being that both Larry and Chico had major gambling habits so they always needed money.

I'd class Wheeler & Woolsey with a number of other teams whose film work just hasn't held up over time, so they've been forgotten: Olsen & Johnson, the Ritz Brothers, and even Martin & Lewis, who also would have sunk into well-deserved obscurity if it wasn't for the fact that Jerry Lewis is still around.