# Who's on First? - Abbott and Costello **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 6, 2000, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256 "2000-09-06T18:51:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Yankee\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Yankee\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yankee_Blue)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/21 "2000-09-07T15:06:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Enright3 \* > \*\*Walk this way… \*\* If I could walk that way I wouldn’t need the talcum powder… ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/22 "2000-09-07T15:29:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dragwyr \* > \*\*I think that routine is absolutely funny! > > On a similar note, Animaniacs did a parody of it in an episode of Slappy Squirrel where they were talking about the bands on stage at Woodstock. It went something like: > > “Who’s onstage?” > “No they’re on after the band.” > Or something like that. I was roflmao when I saw it. I believe the episode was entitled, “Woodstock Slappy”. I would love to get a wav or MP3 copy of it if anybody has it. > > \*\* What band’s playing now? The Band. Yes, the band–what are they called? The Band. Yes! What is the name of the band? (later, after a few more loops of the above) Oh, great, there’s a different band on now. Who are they? The Who. The band. The Who. THE BAND! No, the Who. The band. on the stage. That’s who. Yes. It went on like that for the entire bit. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Cool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecb155/32.png) [@Joe\_Cool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Cool)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/23 "2000-09-07T15:43:09Z")
The great thing about “who’s on first” (aside from being utterly hilarious) is how much parody it has spawned. **HELP!!** One of the funniest things I’ve ever heard was a routine on 89.1 WFDU, a college radio station in Teaneck, NJ (Ike can you maybe help me here?), that goes like this: First guy: Tell me the name of the philosopher who said “the object doesn’t make the representation possible; the representation makes the object possible” Second guy: I. Kant FG: Why not? SG: Why not what? FG: Why can’t you tell me his name? SG: I just did. FG: Tell me again. SG: I. Kant and so on. I want to know who did it, where I can find a recording of it, the full text of it, ANYTHING. I almost crashed my car because I was laughing so hard. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/24 "2000-09-07T17:48:02Z")
1b - Who 2b - What 3b - I Don’t Know p - Today c - Tomorrow (or is it the other way 'round?) ss - I Don’t Give a Damn (or Darn) Where’s the outfielders? Also, one of Johnny Carson’s most requested routines for his anniversary specials was his parody of “Who’s on First” with him as President Reagan. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2000, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/25 "2000-09-07T19:44:09Z")
“Who’s on First” is one of the greatest comedy routines ever. Anyone who doesn’t recognize this has no sense of humor at all. It’s silliness is very much in the vein that Monty Python happily mined years later, and is in that sense, a real forerunner. A&C has some real classic routines (the “$28 for 7 weeks at $13/week” bit is also hilarious). Most of their movies, alas, are either dated or uneven, though I think \*The Time of Their Lives[/s] is very good, if vastly atypical. ---
**Author:** ![Scribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Scribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribe)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/26 "2000-09-07T19:52:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jeff Olsen \* > \*\*1b - Who > 2b - What > 3b - I Don’t Know > p - Today > c - Tomorrow > (or is it the other way 'round?) > ss - I Don’t Give a Damn (or Darn) > > Where’s the outfielders?\*\* The book Abbott and Costello in Hollywood includes a printed-out rendition of Who’s On First as done in Naughty Nineties. You almost had it right. The correct line-up: First Base–Who Second Base–What Third Base–I Don’t Know Pitcher–Tomorrow Catcher–Today Shortstop–I Don’t Care, or I Don’t Give a Damn/Darn Left fielder–Why Center Field–Because There’s no Right Fielder in the routine. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/27 "2001-05-12T01:18:12Z")
Currently, there is [a new thread in GQ](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=70669) asking the question **Where did it originate?** Someone linked this previous thread(and we still don’t know except _vaudville_). But, in reading this thread, I have to share: I once asked colleagues the trivia question- **Who sang _96 Tears_?** They gave up. I said, **Question Mark and the Mysterians**. They said, again, _we give up, who did it?_ I said, **Question Mark and the Mysterians!** They repeated, **We give up!** It never dawned on me until quite a few back-and-forths that they didn’t understand. ---
**Author:** ![exchicagoan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/0ea827/32.png) [@exchicagoan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/exchicagoan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/28 "2001-05-12T04:38:15Z")
I had downloaded it off of NAPSTER and subsequently played it for a young friend—she sat there and laughed her ass off! FYI— IMHO the 6.23 version is the better one. If you’ve ever seen the video tape of it from THE COLGATE COMEDY HOUR–it’s that one. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/29 "2001-05-12T06:00:21Z")
My computer science teacher played the “Who’s on First” routine for our class once, and eveybody agreed that it was hilarious. There’s another routine that I vaguely remember where one of them borrows $50 from the other guy and then somehow mathematically convinces him that there’s no reason to pay it back. Does anybody else remember that one? Most of the parodies, or at least the recent ones, are not very funny IMHO. I read one recently called “Abbott and Costello organize the MTV video collection” that used plays on band names like The Who and U2, but it just wasn’t funny. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/30 "2001-05-12T06:13:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pluto \* > \*\*Funniest scene I’ve ever seen in any movie, all time: > > In _The General_, Buster Keaton has stolen his own locomotive, which was commandeered by Yankee soldiers. At one point his locomotive is closely pursued by a mortar on a flatcar. He is trying desperately to get away before the mortar fires, but there’s not much he can do because he’s on rails, right? At one point he bends down to do something and, while his attention is diverted, the flatcar is somehow switched to another track. When he looks back, the flatcar is gone. Keaton is mystified, astonished, disbelieving, but he shrugs it off and gets back to the business at hand. He again bends down to make some adjustment and, yes, the flatcar is switched back onto his track. He looks back. > > Right there. That’s it. The look on his face at that moment. > > It was funny then. It’s funny now. > \*\* pluto, you rock! This is my all-time favorite moment from any comedy. I’ve seen it something like 30 times, and it is still laugh-out-loud funny every time. My apologies, no disrespect intended, but I’m kinda picky about The General. To be sure that I got this right, I fired up the old DVD and jumped to the scene in question. I goes like this: Keaton goes around a bend in the tracks and ends up trapped behind a boxcar filled with northerners, who are in the process of chopping a hole in the wall with an axe. He stops the engine just short of a side rail, pushing the boxcar onto it. He jumps off, throws the rail switch, jumps back in, and busies himself with firing the boiler. Long shot: Keaton busy throwing wood in the boiler, as the boxcar comes to the end of the side rail and back onto the main track. Finally done, he climbs up to the window, only to see the boxcar back in front of him, catching him with his mouth open in a near-perfect O. Blinks several times. Looks behind him. Looks forward again. I laughed out loud, deep and long, just watching it for this post. ---
**Author:** ![Revedge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@Revedge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revedge)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/31 "2001-05-12T06:18:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scribe \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Jeff Olsen \* > > \*\*1b - Who > > 2b - What > > 3b - I Don’t Know > > p - Today > > c - Tomorrow > > (or is it the other way 'round?) > > ss - I Don’t Give a Damn (or Darn) > > > > Where’s the outfielders?\*\* > > The book Abbott and Costello in Hollywood includes a printed-out rendition of Who’s On First as done in Naughty Nineties. You almost had it right. > > The correct line-up: > > First Base–Who > Second Base–What > Third Base–I Don’t Know > Pitcher–Tomorrow > Catcher–Today > Shortstop–I Don’t Care, or I Don’t Give a Damn/Darn > Left fielder–Why > Center Field–Because > > There’s no Right Fielder in the routine. \*\* There is no Right Fielder because Abbott is filling in for Right Field. That is what starts the whole routine. When Costello asks who the rest of the team is. Just thought you’d like to know. ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/32 "2001-05-12T15:25:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sailor \* > \*\* > I have posted it [here](http://www.geocities.com/alfgon.geo/). It is 650Kb WAV \*\* You tease, there’s no link to “Who’s on First” there. You’re just trying to bump up traffic to your site so you can sell advertising, aren’t you? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/33 "2001-05-12T16:32:02Z")
One of the best trivia questions that I’ve ever found consists of asking What two people who never played a single inning of professional baseball are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown? You can even answer questions - no, they weren’t managers, or owners, or umpires or broadcasters or organists at ball parks…It’s a smack-your-head moment when the answer is revealed, ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/34 "2001-05-12T16:58:34Z")
Chef, it was there months ago when that was posted and it remained there for some months. I used to have my personal web site at [homepage.com](http://homepage.com) at that time and put that and other audio files at the linked page at geocities. A few months ago homepage disappeared and I moved my site to this other page, rather than open a new one. I have placed the audio file in DivX format (326 KB) [here](http://www.geocities.com/monroe1809/Downloads/index.html). I have used DivX because it makes the file size much smaller. If you cannot her it it means you need to install the DivX codec which you can easily doenload and isntall. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/35 "2001-05-12T21:31:44Z")
I also remember hearing a rock band version starring David Whatever who played Squiggy, and using bands like Yes, The Guess Who, and someone else I just can’t remember right now. Anyone remember this? ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/36 "2001-05-12T21:54:04Z")
It’s David Lander, as part of the Credibility Gap with Michael Landon, Harry Shearer and the late Richard Beebe. You can listen to it [HERE](http://www.timecast.com/channels/comedy/shearer/gap/). Go to the bottom and listen using Real Player. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256/37 "2001-05-14T15:13:42Z")
Toward the end of A&E’s “Burlesque”, there’s Abbott & Costello doing Who’s on First, and some background on this great bit. The genisis was a bit about a worker in a nut & bolt factory, e.g.: “What do you do for a living?” “Nuttin.” Who’s on First was created in a relative’s garage; another relative heard them working on the routine and said it wouldn’t fly. I’m sure we’re all glad that they didn’t listen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-on-first-abbott-and-costello/32256.md?page=1)