# Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-or-buster-keaton/46047>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [December 17, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-or-buster-keaton/46047 "2000-12-17T19:50:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-or-buster-keaton/46047/41 "2000-12-19T19:30:07Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \*  
> \*\*But Tillie was considered a feature _at the time it was released_.  
> \*\*

Well, if you can forgive me beating a dead horse…

Let’s get away from that term then. My original post was  
trying to point out that Chaplin revolutionized…stuff.

_The Kid_ was qualitatively different from that which  
had come before. It was deeper, told a bigger story, and  
a much more substantive movie than any comedy before.

_The General_, _The Navigator_, _The Freshman_,  
_The Gold Rush_, and comedies released today have a lot  
more in common with _The Kid_ than they do with  
_Tillie_.

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-or-buster-keaton/46047/42 "2000-12-19T23:54:57Z")

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I agree with you there. But Chaplin was revolutionizing screen comedy long before _The Kid_. Take a look at his Mutual comedies of 1916-17. They were started before Keaton even entered films, and Keaton learned a lot from Chaplin.

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