Ilsa, what is the name of that famous Lloyd short where he climbs up the building and hangs off the clock face, allegedly all improvised and in one take?
That will never be equaled.
Burns and Allen will endure because of Gracie’s original blonde personality.
Laurel and Hardy remain pretty damn funny today.
Some Buster Keaton has gotten really dry, but some of his shorts, combined with his physical dexterity, remain funny. What’s the one where the house spins around at the end, and ends up totally demolished?
Chaplin’s facial expressions and physical mannerisms are immortal.
PG Wodehouse. Sure, the social millieu he wrote about doesn’t exist any more (not that it ever really existed), and his plots are simple musical-comedy plots put into novels. But two things occur to me. First, he had a good enough ear, and enough sense, to realize that if, for example, something has to be stolen, you don’t make it a diamond necklace, you make it a cow creamer, wich is an inherently absurd object. Second, of course, is his mastery of a light, comic language, mixing a mock-learned tone with slangy words and phrases to great effect:
There are some Tracy Ullman sketches that are still uproariously funny. The clothes they wear are a bit out of date, but the heart of the skits are still universal enough to cause you to bust a gut.
One that slays me is Tracy Ullman is in a latin dance competition, and her arch-nemesis stole her panties to sabotage her. She gets pulled onstage by her dance partner before she has a chance to tell him. Has to do the entire dance routine while trying to prevent her skit from flipping up and exposing her nether regions.
All the while she is trying to communicate the situation to her partner before the grand finale. Hysterical!
Tons of posts and no one has yet mentioned the Three Stooges?! :dubious:
There is no one – NO ONE – I know who hasn’t at least chuckled over the Stooges, even if it isn’t necessarily high art. I plan on showing it to Baby Chastain as soon as she’s here.
Truly standing the test of time. Still funny after 60 years.
Within the limits set by the OP, I would submit Bob Newhart’s early routines. Listen to the one where he’s portraying Sir Walter Raleigh on the phone to Queen Elizabeth, explaining to her what tobacco is That routine brings tears to my eyes, it’s so funny! ("…you stick it between your lips…you set fire to it?"). Or the inexperienced Empire State Building security gurd reporting King Kong’s climb (“Yes, sir, I looked in the handbook index under “unauthorized personnel” and “people without passes” and “apes”, and “ape’s toes”, but it’s not in there…”). His stuff is priceless.
Carol Burnette is one classy lady and has the power to be in re-runs and still make me/ us laugh twenty five years later.
The Scarlett O’Hara sketch is one of the funniest pieces on TV. " Oh it was just some thin’ in the window I saw…"
[Shirley 's Hollywood Conspiracy Du Jour ]
Hollywood doesn’t give alot of chance to the women. It’s ok for the men to be funny, smart, coarse, smartass, but ladies, until not so long ago, really only could be like Lucille Ball: whining, ditzy. I can’t stand I Love Lucy.
If they were funny i t was a dippy funny and needs a man to get her out of another mess. If they were smart-funny the women were delegated to headstrong female in a supoort character, the one that never married and smoked cigerettes. Kinda like the message they are sending out that if you are a smartass and smart ( and most funny people are rather bright.) you *won’t get the guy and get married and have baaaabies. So keep your trap shut and marry a nice boy cause men don’t like women that are too smart. * That’s my take on it. I’d much rather watch the lead actresses best friend smartmouth her way through a flick than the ‘oh woe is me’ lead role hysterics. But, that’s just me, YMMV.
Thus I conclude my semi-coherent conspiracy rant Du Jour. This rant has been sponsored in part by XOX Metal Colanders. Nothing Keeps Out Alien Space Rays like an OXO Colander ™.
The Three Stooges
A hearty “hell yeah!” to this. The Stooges work on an international level - you don’t need to speak a word of English to appreciate them. And it’s not just because of all the violent slapstick; they were such talented physical comedians that they could fully express their personalities with just a gesture or look.
Bill Hicks
Hicks isn’t so much “funny” as he’s “whiny” and “wrong.”
Where the hell is the funny there? If he was around in the 40’s would he have routine about “did you hear about how Roosevelt gave France and England weapons? What the fuck, is he trying to start a war? FUCKER!”
It’s funny in the same way that the joke about the guy on trial for killing his parents who pleads for clemency on the grounds that he’s an orphan is funny.
I bought an old photo last summer, specifically for the frame. I used it to frame one of my photos for a show. I kept the photo that was in the frame though because it’s a well preserved old portrait of a woman in…erm, uh…late teens/early twenties clothing. At the bottom of the mount is the studio name, Witzel’s Studio, Hollywood California.
I hopped on line and did a search for that studio name and came up with this little nugget about Harold Lloyd:
