Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog

And This Blog Loves Raymond Scott

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 13:22:08 +0000

Yes, you know him, you love him - this guy, the leader of the CBS Orchestra and composer of Powerhouse, the one, the only Raymond Scott!

Posted a birthday tribute to Raymond Scott way back in 2010.

Missed his 100th birthday by two years!

Love him madly for such amazing and catchy compositions as the following, all brought to the masses courtesy of one Carl W. Stalling. Massive and unending kudos, bravos and huzzahs to Irwin Chusid for his fantastic work on these restorations.

In the 1940's, on the radio, Raymond Scott and crew performed unconventionally swinging big band tunes, some of which re-imagine and revamp his 1930's "Quintette" compositions.

They present Scott's unique spin on the big band sound.

"Junkman's Shuffle" is especially catchy.

Did not, unfortunately, find a recording to post with Raymond Scott leading the CBS Orchestra as the CBS Jump Band on the show Jump Time in August 1942. This was the first racially integrated studio orchestra for radio at CBS and featured jazz giants Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Shavers.

Today's post spotlights a few of the 20 stellar tracks that were uploaded to the Works For Orchestra 1934-1960 volume 9 YouTube playlist in January of this very year. The following has a wistful Ellington/Strayhorn vibe.

Here, none other than mid-1930's #1 box office star Shirley Temple sings The Toy Trumpet!

Raymond Scott turned his attentions to inventing and developing new electronic instruments.

The Ectoplasm album, recorded in 1948-1949, features the innovative electronic instruments and synths Scott had been building for years, paired with the vocals of Dorothy Collins. It is up on YouTube in its entirety.

The Manhattan Research album presents further electronic music featuring instruments designed by Raymond Scott and the voice work of Dorothy Collins (Mrs. Scott).

The 1957 album This Time With Strings is as cool, highly creative and astonishing as all his other recordings. The incomparable Ron Carter, still with us and performing in 2026, rocks the upright bass on this album - he played with Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy and Raymond Scott!

We extend extended, respectful and extraterrestrial hat tips to Raymond Scott, Dorothy Collins and all the super talented musicians who worked with Scott's various ensembles.

There have been many additions to his discography on Raymond Scott.net. These include:

THREE WILLOW PARK: Electronic Music from Inner Space, 1961-1971

The Raymond Scott Big Band - Hemidemisemiquaver CD

AND, by all means read Raymond Scott: The First 100 Years by Mark Frauenfelder

As well as Corey Goldberg's outstanding career overview of Raymond Scott.

And don't forget to read the Powerhouse 80th anniversary from Cartoon Brew.

With big time thanks to Raymond Scott.net, lots more Raymond Scott goodness is available via the Quintettes Or Less 1937-1950 volume 7 and Quintettes Or Less 1937-1950 volume 8 playlists.

Labor Day Weekend 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 20:45:48 +0000

Labor Day Weekend is here! Our first Labor Day cartoon, Mess Production (1945), features the ever-industrious Popeye, not aided by rat bastard Bluto. There's a clever and funny re-use of concepts central to the Fleischer Popeye cartoons A DREAM WALKING (1934) and LOST & FOUNDRY (1937).

Next up, a not exactly subtle pro-business time capsule created for the Chamber Of Commerce in 1954 by John Sutherland Productions. Thanks, Prelinger Archives for posting!

The following Labor Day opus, a song of praise for hard workin' roller ball bearings and how they protect locomotives from the dastardly Kid Friction, was produced by UPA and narrated by Stan Freberg. It's just one of many terrific animated films on Mike Kazaleh's YouTube channel.

What would Labor Day be without commercials?

Portafilms in Ann Arbor, Michigan produced the following short film, very in the Cartoon Modern style, as the previous commercials were. Thanks for discovering and posting, Steve Stanchfield/Thunderbean Animation!

And, speaking of Cartoon Modern, am a big fan of the Terrytoons produced by Gene Deitch, especially in CinemaScope. Jerry Beck wrote about 'em here and we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog wholeheartedly agree! While none of these imaginative and unusual cartoons are specifically about Labor Day, they're included today because we love 'em.

For more specifically Labor Day themed animation, check out Jonathan Boschen's Industrial Cartoons posts on Cartoon Research.

Every Labor Day Weekend, the Cinecon Classic Film Festival rocks the vintage celluloid. This year's festival, the 62nd Cinecon, is at the Nuart Theatre on 11272 Santa Monica Blvd. Hope this blog's readers can make it to West Los Angeles, enjoy the big screen fun and the special guests the festival books. Kudos to all involved!

Santo - Jack - Back In Black

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 06:57:03 +0000

After a week in which, holy Toledo, freakin’ glaciers melted in Nepal and all-world all-star champion megawatt entertainers Dolly Parton and Tim Curry passed, the question of how the heck Monsieur Blogmeister can write today’s post arises. The answer is. . . NACHO LIBRE!

After all, wrote a Happy Birthday, Jack Black post back in 2022.

Something about this bit involving The Lord's Chips cracks me up.

Yes, Jack Black is clearly a fan of luchador movies, which definitely number among the favorite psychotronic cinema goodies of the gang here. The B-movie devotees at Dark Corners Reviews and The Cinema Snob concur!

The utter cheesiness of the killer robots and grotesque Aztec mummies battling El Santo remains something to behold.

The lucha libre genre was definitely influenced by such robot-filled American B and C studio serials as The Mysterious Dr. Satan and The Monster & The Ape. Did Mexico's professional wrestlers don masks because they saw them in Republic serials?

These productions, regardless of budget (or lack of one), GO FOR BROKE! Pedal to the metal!

Mexico's amped-up answer to American horror films/monster movies and sci-fi feature masked wrestlers, mummies, mad scientists, robots, vampires, werewolves, zombies, extraterrestrials and derriere-kicking wrestling women started in 1957. It resulted in delirium.

The many lucha libre movies include an offshoot genre involving wrestling women and are even more bizarre when dubbed into English. In such enjoyably demented ultra-psychotronic films as The Wrestling Women Vs The Aztec Mummy, doubly deranged mad scientists and robotic ladies who transform into derriere-kicking wrestling wonders are the order of the day. Would double billing this with A Touch Of Evil work? Think so, although both might have to be preceded by The Three Stooges in Grips, Grunts and Groans, plus Bugs Bunny in Bunny Hugged.

The psychotronic and B-film lovin' crew at Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in particular has had lots of fun with luchador flicks. MST 3K has happily roasted The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy, Santo Vs. The Aztec Mummy, Santo In The Treasure Of Dracula and Samson Vs. The Vampire Women, among others.

Are there lots and lots of Santo flicks?

Yes, there are lots and lots of El Santo flicks - check out this Santo playlist.

The masked wrestler starred in 52 films!

Now, getting back to Jack Black, the following may be the single funniest, rudest sketch I have seen from SNL in quite some time. Jack spoofs his own over-the-top persona and "take it to the extreme" ethos.

Love the trifecta of SNL stalwarts Kenan Thompson, Ashley Padilla and Jack Black in the following sketch. They are three brilliant comedy performers.

Now, just how the segue from Jack Black to Santo to Lewis Black happens, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog have no idea! So. . . enjoy, on Jack Black's birthday, the satiric, caustic, biting and hilarious comedy of Lewis Black.

Here are some amazing Lewis Black stand-up sets.

Have been aficionados of Black's "The Rant Is Due" videos for quite a few years.

This Lewis Black clip from 20 years ago strikes the gang here as weirdly like 2026. While the names have changed, the story persists - and Lewis Black enthusiastically skewers all miscreants in his path.

How can we close this incoherent post while still feeling pretty darn heartbroken that the great Dolly Parton and Tim Curry have left us? With a Back In Black playlist from The Daily Show!

Celebrating Ice Cream on National Spumoni Day

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 18:40:30 +0000

That's right - there actually is a National Spumoni Day, August 21. It's also absolutely correct that the blog has clearly been having difficulty coming up with a topic today, so what the heck, let's eat some spumoni!

The Zack's Beyond Our Plate YouTube channel refers to the Italian dessert as The Magic Of Spumoni!

Love spumoni and ice cream in general? Yes!

Indeed, lots of us like ice cream a great deal. This fact was most eloquently expressed by comedy king Eddie Murphy.

Naturally, spumoni and ice cream have found their way to the cartoon world, especially in vintage 1950's TV commercials. Found a few on the Thunderbean Video Cartoon Commercials Blu-rays.

To suggest that Homer Simpson and Spongebob are ice cream fans would be quite the understatement. Without a doubt, Homer could go for some spumoni 365 days a year!

Thanks to an animation genre started by the Walt Disney Silly Symphonies, cartoons back in the 1930's were almost as dessert-obsessed as The Simpsons and Spongebob Squarepants decades later. Importantly, the denizens of Cartoonland can eat unlimited ice cream and not gain weight!

A fantasy world filled with ice cream and other confections transporting 1930's movie audiences away from The Great Depression and directly to Happyland is particularly notable in the Max Fleischer Color Classic SOMEWHERE IN DREAMLAND.

Love the message stressing pitching in to help neighbors that characterizes this Great Depression opus, as well as the inventive 3-D stereoptical process backgrounds seen in many 1936 Fleischer Studio cartoons.

Since this blog has been primarily focused on movie comedians over the past few months (and admits how stuck Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog is for an actual topic today), we'll close today's post with one of the comics featured in Leonard Maltin's books THE GREAT MOVIE SHORTS and THE GREAT MOVIE COMEDIANS, that stalwart from the Hal Roach Studio (a.k.a. The Lot Of Fun), Charley Chase, in the following ice cream-laden opus, I'll Take Vanilla. He is supported adeptly by Our Gang's inimitable Tommy "Butch" Bond, who could play an obnoxious brat better than Jane Withers!

Big time thanks again to Kit Parker, Richard M. Roberts and others at The Sprocket Vault for making these classic 20th century Hal Roach Studio comedies available on Blu-ray here in the misbegotten 21st century!

On August 14, 2026, Soupy's On!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:20:18 +0000

How the blog somehow missed the centenary of the birth of wacky, imaginative and marvelously goofy comedian Milton Supman, known professionally as Soupy Sales, back on January 8, we'll never know!

Oh well, at least Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog remembered our pals Dick Van Dyke and Mel Brooks, both of whom lived to see that 100th birthday.

Let's rectify that grevious error of overlooking the fabulous Soupy Sales RIGHT NOW, shall we!

Here's Frank Nastasi, one of the supporting players from The Soupy Sales Show.

Do we love Soupy? YES!

Do we love Soupy and White Fang? YES!

Do Soupy and Black Tooth rock the house? YES!

Do we love Pookie the Lion? YES!

Love the unabashed lunacy in The Soupy Sales Show? Absolutely!

Soupy was an avid jazz and blues fan, so the guest on the following show is virtuoso guitarist, master of the Gibson ES-335 and king of vibrato B.B. King.

Soupy Sales is responsible for the ONLY television appearance of trumpet genius Clifford Brown!

Entertainer Trini Lopez and Rat Packers Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. co-star in the following Soupy Sales Show! Where's Dino?

Even Alice "Welcome To My Nightmare" Cooper was a guest on The Soupy Sales Show!

Must buy the following DVDs from RHINO VIDEO!

Undoubtedly, music mavens, jazz and blues fans, and the comedy-centric love him! The splendid Detroit Historical Society website adds:

Soupy Sales was a lifelong jazz fan who used his late-night Detroit program, Soupy's On, to champion legendary jazz artists. Hosted a late-night adult-oriented talk show in Detroit during the 1950s. Partnered with local venues like Baker's Keyboard Lounge to feature touring acts. Used Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite" as his theme song. Featured heavyweights like Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong.

The gang here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog love jazz, blues, rock n'roll, comedy, Soupy and his talented rocker sons Hunt and Tony.

The Sales brothers:
Formed the teen band Tony and the Tigers as children and secured a record deal by age 11
Todd Rundgren: Played on Todd Rundgren's early 1970s albums, backing the hit "We Gotta Get You a Woman".
Provided the iconic, driving rhythm section and famous drum groove on Iggy Pop's 1977 album Lust for Life.
Tin Machine: Reunited as the rhythmic backbone for David Bowie’s hard rock project alongside guitarist Reeves Gabrels from 1988 to 1992.

Produce Like A Pro posted the following interview with Hunt Sales.

Cheers to the Sales family! Kudos, bravos, huzzahs and thanks for the music and laughs!

Remembering Allan Sherman

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:30:01 +0000

Today's hat tip goes to one of a favorite comedian and wordsmiths from my misspent youth, a TV producer who was also a lyricist, musician, satirist and prolific recording artist, the great Allan Sherman (1924-1973).

Here, Allan Sherman is the guest on The Mike Douglas Show, a very popular 1960's - early 1970s daytime TV variety program.

Allan goes international with British pop group Herman's Hermits.

Mr. Sherman was a frequent guest on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Dean Martin Show in 1965-1968.

Well, whatdaya know - found The Allan Sherman Show (1968) on Internet Archive - yippee kai-yoh kai-yay!

Love seeing Allan Sherman meet Hans Conreid in a Jay Ward Production! Allan enters at 13:52, after Fractured Flickers has thoroughly spoofed cowboy William S. Hart.

The latest Allan Sherman material this scribe has seen is the following 1970 appearance at UCLA.

We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog respectfully tip our hats to Allan Sherman - and an old friend who gave us a splendid 120 minute cassette of the song parody king in concert way back when. Miss you!

Acme Corporation Meets Will Forte

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:07:34 +0000

In a few weeks (on August 28), a new movie based on Warner Brothers Animation and desert dwellers Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner hits movie theaters.

While well aware that Warner Brothers Animation and Road Runner stalwarts Chuck Jones, Mike Maltese, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris, Phil Monroe and Ben Washam are long gone, this trailer looks pretty darn good. Nonetheless, the Coyote vs. ACME preview emphatically sparks an uncontrollable urge to watch Road Runner cartoons!

Also involved in this Wile E. Coyote - Road Runner opus: one of our favorite current comedians and comic actors - Will Forte. Last Saturday's post spotlighted Saturday Night Live, and the MacGyver sendup MacGruber remains a favorite among recurring SNL sketches.

MacGyver meets MacGruber in the following sketch.

Will's over-the-top performance in the Fly High Duluth sketch is a personal favorite and the ultimate statement on bad bands, enhanced by Fred Armisen as the group's animated and overenthusiastic drummer. Love the fact that both host Scarlett Johansson and the entire SNL cast are involved.

When everyday life, the annoyances of old age and unrelentingly lousy 2026 get the gang here feeling down, a fantastic way to get to that better place involves vintage Warner Bros. cartoons from 1935-1955 and the both gloriously unhinged and intergalactic country singers Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad.

And, in closing, we respectfully tip our Michigan J. Frog top hats to the desert dwellers and all involved in making Warner Brothers cartoons and the high-wire sketch comedy at Second City, Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade, etc. Thanks to all who bring the laughs!

Saturday Morning Slapstick

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:40:33 +0000

This blog has recently profiled 1920's and 1930's comics Harry Sweet, Lloyd Hamilton, Joe Rock's Three Fat Guys a.k.a. Ton Of Fun series and such Columbia Shorts Department stalwarts as The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde, Leon Errol and Harry Langdon in search of laughs. Now we travel across the pond and leap several decades later to 1980's and 1990's with French & Saunders and The Vicar Of Dibley.

Enjoyed the Comic Relief Special 2015 - The Bishop Of Dibley.

Dawn French gets this comedy fan thinking of Melissa McCarthy, another amazing physical comedienne, whose six times hosting Saturday Night Live were invariably hilarious.

Among the numerous prominent comedy performers from The Groundlings on Saturday Night Live: Melissa and Kristen Wiig. There was a point when SNL, the late 1970's - early 1980's ABC sketch comedy show Fridays and (later) Mad TV were competing for ex-Groundlings. Surprises me that Melissa was not hired to be in the SNL cast.

One of my favorite bits from the past quarter century of SNL is the Lulu Diamonds sketch. It's both an extremely funny sendup of Mae West and exceptional physical comedy. Melissa and supporting cast Jason Sudeikis, Taran Killam, Andy Samberg and Bobby Moynihan are all excellent.

Her last stint hosting Saturday Night live was on December 6, 2025.

While all the sketches were excellent, the following one is particularly riotous.

The following SNL sketch written by Streeter Seidel & Mikey Day is quite funny and downright Monty Python-esque.

That sketch brought to mind the UK Slapstick Festival! The 2017 recipient of the Aardman Slapstick Comedy Legend Award at the festival was (drum roll) . . . French & Saunders!

Last question of this post is . . . how can I attend the 2027 U.K. Slapstick Festival in Bristol?

Can't imagine anyone, including our pals the Brits, will want visitors from the United States anytime soon. 2026 still looks like this.

Hat Tips To Edward Bernds and the Columbia Shorts Department

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:18:23 +0000

Today we conclude an extended focus on Jules White's Columbia Shorts Department with a tribute to director Edward Bernds.

Finishing this extended plunge into the slapstick of The Shorts Department, the spotlight shines on the guy who cranked out numerous Three Stooges shorts in the latter 1940's and early 1950's, longtime Columbia Studio soundman Edward Bernds.

Chicago-born Edward Bernds was a pioneering soundman who, after working with Frank Capra and Howard Hawks, would become a prolific director of silver screen comedies, television series and psychotronic B-films. He lived to be 95 and thus gave numerous interviews.

Mr. Bernds had the unenviable task of directing Three Stooges comedies when Curly Howard's health was rapidly declining in the mid-1940's.

He did a remarkable job working around the NYUK NYUK NYUK king's health issues and getting Curly's last great comedy performances on film.

He also did a stellar job handling the comedy team's transition from Curly to Shemp.

Greg Hilbrich's historical overview of The Shorts Department adds: "In 1944, Edward Bernds, a sound mixer at Columbia since the shorts department's beginnings, began writing scripts for the shorts, only later to find himself in the director's chair. Bernds is responsible for some of the finest two-reel comedies Columbia made."

His Columbia comedy short subjects featured unusual choices of headliners. For example, Billie Burke, ubiquitous character actress known for, among numerous parts, Glinda The Good Witch from The Wizard Of Oz, starred in Columbia 2-reelers. While Billie remains the least likely to headline a Three Stooges style knockabout comedy, it happened!

Ex-pugilists Max Baer and "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom swapped taking punches in the ring for Moe Howard style mega-slaps in the movies!

Edward Bernds directed several short subjects starring character actor and cartoon voice artist Sterling Holloway.

Harry von Zell, radio star and subsequent cast member on The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show, headlined Columbia comedy shorts in 1946-1950.

The slapstick team of Gus Schilling & Richard Lane made a series of very funny and very over-the-top comedy shorts in the Three Stooges knockabout school.

Future "3rd Stooges" Joe De Rita and Joe Besser also starred in 2-reelers directed by Edward Bernds at Columbia.

After leaving the Columbia Shorts Department in 1952, Edward Bernds directed films for Allied Artists, including The Bowery Boys Meet The Monsters, starring Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey and Guy In A Gorilla Suit.

Edward Bernds' extended career in movies and TV included psychotronic B-films.

Including the classic SPACE X-7!

Hard not to love a guy who directed Queen Of Outer Space!

For more about Bernds and the Columbia Shorts Department, read Archives West/University of Wyoming collection of Edward Bernds papers and the McFarland Classics book The Columbia Comedy Shorts: Two-Reel Hollywood Film Comedies, 1933-1958 by Ted Okuda and Edward Watz.

Andy, Walter & Harry at the Columbia Shorts Department

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:40:59 +0000

Last week's post on rubber-legged slapstick master Leon Errol and silver screen humor essential Mel Brooks, as well as the previous one on The Three Stooges, has profoundly immersed this blog in the pratfall-packed world of physical comedy.

We've been heavily into Slapstickland, both silents and talkies, for the past three months. And many moons ago, back in 2013 (which now feels like 1913), wrote an extended series of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write a Blog posts paying tribute to the Columbia Shorts Department and Jules White.

Lee Weinstein's 2023 article The Rivals Of The Three Stooges adeptly covers the comedy headliners from Columbia 2-reelers at length and gets us thinking of the guy who spent 20 years with The Shorts Department before going on to a successful career in television, former silent slapstick perennial and Mack Sennett stock company player Andy Clyde.

In I'M A FATHER, Andy plays the "cranky old stick in the mud" to perfection.

2-reel comedy heavy hitters Vivien Oakland, Bud Jamison and especially Our Gang's Tommy Bond get big laughs in the following.

In such Columbia 2-reelers as OLD SAWBONES, a collaboration between prolific silent comedy creators Del Lord and Jack "Preston Black" White, Andy presents a down-home variant on the physical comedy formula of Moe, Larry and Curly.

Now it's on to character actor supreme, the guy who coached none other than Kate Hepburn in comedy chops during the making of Bringing Up Baby, the great Broadway and movie comedian Walter Catlett.

Along with Leon Errol and the comedy team of George Sidney & Charlie Murray, Walter Catlett actually preceded The Three Stooges as headliners of Columbia comedy shorts, beginning with Elmer Steps Out (1934).

Here's Walter in Get Along Little Hubby (1934). (Note: the following transfer is very out of sync). He co-stars with Vivien Oakland, very much a key player in the first year of The Shorts Department (and a take-no-prisoners character actress here), as well as ubiquitous slapstick comedy stalwart, future Columbia 2-reelers headliner and Three Stooges co-star Monte Collins.

In case you're wondering why Walter Catlett seems more than vaguely familiar. . .

Indeed, that is a wonderful performance in Pinocchio as J. Worthington Foulfellow A.K.A."Honest John."

In between his numerous character roles in feature films, Catlett turns up periodically in Columbia shorts through the early 1940's; he even co-stars with the popular Guy In A Gorilla Suit, who torments Walt and Dudley Dickerson (the talented African-American comedian invariably cast in grotesque stereotyped parts) in YOU'RE NEXT.

BLONDES AND BLUNDERS has a pronounced Moe-Larry-Curley style knockabout approach throughout, in no small part due to the presence of irreplaceable Three Stooges supporting comics Bud Jamison and Vernon Dent.

Walter Catlett had prominent roles in comedy and musical short subjects long before working for Columbia. Here he is, teamed with none other than gravel-voiced Eugene Pallette.

One of the most memorable Walter Catlett performances is in Mark Sandrich's 1933 RKO opus SO THIS IS HARRIS (1933).

Have devoted many blog posts to the unorthodox and original comedian Harry Langdon over the years.

Like Buster Keaton and Charley Chase, Harry was among the former silent movie headliners making 2-reelers at Columbia. Langdon was one of two Harrys - the second was Harry von Zell in 1946-1950 - to headline short subjects for The Shorts Department.

The Columbia Langdon comedies remain a mixed bag; some - SHIVERS, HIS MARRIAGE MIX-UP (the 1935 predecessor to Saturday Night Live star Mike Myers' 1993 feature film So I Married An Axe Murderer) - are still lost films.

Langdon, an unique and idiosyncratic performer, was especially ill-suited to Jules White's tendency to make Three Stooges comedies with all Shorts Department headliners.

At that point Harry, who was pushing 40 when he debuted in movies, was in his fifties and no longer able to do strenuous physical slapstick. Nonetheless, the comedy-crazed gang here find Langdon's appearances in features and short subjects, more often than not, to be quite funny; check him out in Lewis Milestone's Hallelujah, I'm A Bum (1933).

The following, directed by frequent Langdon collaborator Arthur Ripley and written by the inventive and prolific Harry McCoy, is a sendup of Warner Brothers' Warren William vehicle and courtroom drama The Mouthpiece (1932). Harry sports a mustache!

Harry works quite well with the marvelously and unabashedly over-the-top Hal Roach Studios comedian and cartoon voice artist Billy Gilbert in this 1935 2-reeler. Langdon's the straight man here! Billy reprises the raving loony he portrayed with relish in the Three Stooges opus Men In Black.

For more on this great movie comedian, check out Chicago historian Nicole Arciola's terrific Harry Langdon Archive YouTube channel, a classic comedy treasure trove.

Rubber Legs Leon and Mel Brooks' 100th

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 17:42:33 +0000

On the comedy beat from Broadway to vaudeville to movies, thinking of two terrific icons of silver screen humor, both of whom crack us up, only every time. One is star of stage, screen, Ziegfeld Follies, etc. Leon Errol, born in Sydney, Australia on July 3, 1881. Here's Leon with Lou Costello in The Noose Hangs High (1948).

The other is Mel Brooks, because the gang here somehow missed the comedy maestro's 100th birthday last Sunday!

While Leon Errol is arguably best known for his later work - his appearance in W.C. Fields' hilarious 1941 opus Never Give A Sucker An Even Break, the Joe Palooka series and the eight Mexican Spitfire feature films co-starring comedienne, singer and dancer Lupe Vélez, he had a lengthy and illustrious show business career as comedian-singer-director-writer before 1930 and even appeared in several silent films (in the following co-starring with stalwart comedienne Dorothy Gish).

Mentioning how expertly the thorough Forgotten Australian Actors website chronicles Errol's five decade show business career, we note that the rubber-legged comedian began performing on stage, acting, singing and directing theatrical troupes as he worked in burlesque and vaudeville, starting at the turn of the 20th century.

He toured Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain and Ireland, worked extensively as a director and writer with Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. and co-starred in sketches with the legendary Bert Williams in the Ziegfeld Follies.

The talkie feature films Leon appeared in included a starring role in Only Saps Work (1930 Paramount) and a slot alongside several supporting comics (W.C. Fields, Ford Sterling and Chester Conklin) in Her Majesty, Love, a vehicle for Marilyn Miller, celebrated dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies and megastar of Broadway musicals.

Mr. Errol is also among a slew of comedians in the enjoyably eccentric and unrelentingly grotesque version of Alice In Wonderland directed by Norman Z. McLeod and produced by Paramount Pictures in 1933.

We are quite fond of the 2-reelers Leon starred in during the first year of Jules White's Columbia Shorts Department, consider the uninhibited group to be slapstick masterpieces.

ONE TOO MANY is quite the curio, directed by Our Gang series creator Robert McGowan (on a break from the Hal Roach Studio) and written by the insanely prolific Harry McCoy.

Also love the two Technicolor Vitaphone musical shorts from 1934, both directed by Roy Mack, later a producer of very enjoyable Soundies.

The wonderfully cheesy time-traveling Vitaphone musical GOOD MORNING EVE (1934), one of the last gasps of pre-Code naughtiness, in glorious 3-strip Technicolor, is a personal favorite Leon Errol flick.

Greg Hilbrich of the The Columbia Shorts Department wrote, "upon completing HONEYMOON BRIDGE for Columbia, and after an argument with studio executives who cited "creative differences", Errol left for Radio Pictures."

So, in 1934, Leon began starring for RKO in a series directed and written by legendary gagmeister Al Boasberg.

There are LOTS of RKO Leon Errol short subjects on YouTube. In one produced in 1936, none other than Lucille Ball (who has a cameo as Leon's secretary in the 1934 Columbia 2-reeler PERFECTLY MISMATED) plays a housekeeper. No doubt Lucy was taking notes when working at the Columbia Shorts Department in 3 Stooges and Leon Errol 2-reelers.

Errol's co-star in ONE TOO MANY, ONE LIVE GHOST and many other films is the always formidable former Ziegfeld Girl and Hal Roach Studios stock company player Vivien Oakland, who, along with the equally formidable Dorothy Granger, would be a frequent collaborator.

Our favorite of all the Leon Errol RKO short subjects is THE JITTERS (1938), an astounding version of his rubber-leg routine.

Leon starred in 2-reel comedies for RKO through the 1940's, long after Mack Sennett and Educational Pictures closed and Hal Roach Studios ceased making short subjects. He often played a lecherous philanderer who unsuccessfully attempts to conceal booze, broads and gambling from his wife. Would expect no less from a comedian who starred in the 1933 Paramount short subject Three Little Swigs!

Once in a blue moon, one of the Mexican Spitfire features Leon co-starred in with the extremely funny Lupe Vélez will turn up on Turner Classic Movies, invariably after 3:00 a.m.

As of July 2026, clips from this series are practically nonexistent online. Fortunately for comedy geeks, all eight Mexican Spitfire features are available as a 4-DVD box set.

Too bad Lupe wasn't around 30 years later to bring her wacky and unabashedly over-the-top sensibility to western deconstruction Blazing Saddles - which brings us to Mel Brooks.

We're thrilled and delighted that comedian-writer-director-producer Mel Brooks made it to his 100th birthday last Sunday!

Here, Mel celebrates his 100th with TV producer-writer (Everyone Loves Raymond), documentary host (Somebody Feed Phil), actor and enthusiastic gastronome Phil Rosenthal.

Noting our June 28, 2021 post celebrating Mr. Brooks' 95th birthday and Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog's February 21, 2026 tribute to the mighty and ridiculously talented comedy writers and performers who created Admiral Broadway Revue, Your Show Of Shows and Caesar's Hour, in closing, here's one of our favorite Mel contributions to a movie, approved enthusiastically by the Psychotronix Film Festival!

Thanks for the laughs, Leon and Mel! Now it's time to re-watch the four Columbia 2-reelers, then watch those Video Yesteryear compilations of Leon Errol comedies, starting with volume 1. Then on to The Flustered Comedy Of Leon Errol volumes 2, 3 and 4.

Big Guys Rock with Joe Rock!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:13:27 +0000

Needing laughs big time today, along with guffaws, chortles, chuckles, giggles and howls, so slapstick scenarios involving funny fat guys falling down sound FANTASTIC! Thankfully, film historians, authors and silent movie experts have posted a bunch of pratfall-packed Ton Of Fun 2-reelers from the late 1920's on YouTube.

These slapstick flicks star the rousing and rotund trio of Kewpie Ross, Frank Alexander and Hilliard Carr, a.k.a. Ton Of Fun, and were produced by former Vitagraph star Joe Rock (from the comedy team of Earl Montgomery and Joe Rock) for Standard Film Corporation/F.B.O.

Do the cheerful yet corpulent stars of the Ton Of Fun comedies remind this always too-enthusiastic slapstick fan of any funmakers from more recent memory? YES - this guy!

While Mr. Farley loathed and detested being typecast as a “fat comic”, he was an inspired slapstick performer who, like fellow comedians Roscoe Arbuckle and John Candy, left us way too soon.

We're thrilled and delighted that the exploits of A Ton Of Fun still survive 100 years after they were first produced.

Film historian Dave Glass has posted a bunch of the trio's absurdist adventures on his silent movie-filled YouTube channel.

Our only unfulfilled slapstick wish here is that the very funny plus-sized comedienne Babe London, hilarious in the role of Oliver Hardy's fiancée in Our Wife (1931), did not co-star with Carr, Alexander and Morgan in Ton Of Fun adventures.

As remains the case with the "slapstick ballets" by Comique Productions co-starring Roscoe Arbuckle, Buster Keaton and Al St. John, these comedies deliver numerous sight gag-filled belly laughs.

Along with the slapstick series he and Earl Montgomery co-starred in for Brooklyn's Vitagraph Studios, Joe Rock is best known for the twelve Stan Laurel solo comedies he produced in the mid-1920's. He would go on to produce documentaries in the sound era.

These Stan Laurel solo comedies featured talent both behind and in front of the camera who would subsequently be key contributors to the Hal Roach Studio's Laurel & Hardy series.

Hopefully, these vintage comedies shall be enough to tide us over until National Silent Movie Day this fall.

Just Say Moe!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 07:55:47 +0000

Today we tip a battered top hat worn by a boisterous and three sheets to the wind Ted Healy to the great Moe Howard, ace of slapstick!

After a decade performing in vaudeville and stage and films as part of the popular knockabout act Ted Healy & His Stooges, Moe succeeded Ted as "the head stooge" when the team and Healy parted ways and The Three Stooges began starring in short subjects for Columbia Pictures in 1934.

Still hear the comedy team's various theme songs whenever I see the "A Screen Gems Film Presentation: Television Subsidiary" logo.

And now for some choice slapstick snippets. . .

As we continue having a rough go through 2026, a bit of "laughter is the best medicine" from Moe Howard, born on this day in 1897, and the Three Stooges, starting with the following excellent documentary by his son Paul, proves a most worthy Rx.

Love this interview with Moe.

Moe's daughter, Joan Howard Maurer, appeared on Late Night with David Letterman in February 1983. The early 1980's NBC incarnation of Letterman's freewheeling program frequently booked guests representing the golden age of classic comedy from movies, TV and radio.

Now it's time, on Moe's natal anniversary, for some big time Stoogery! This comedy fan is especially fond of the first 2-reelers they made for Columbia in 1934-1935.

The blonde in the following opus looks vaguely familiar. . .

To Moe and his bros, thanks for the laughs!

Dawn Of Talkies Comedy

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:15:21 +0000

Thinking, as we do often, of movie comedians who successfully transitioned from silents to talkies.

Some studios and funmakers did better than others. Mack Sennett had his problems adapting to the new medium but did employ the likes of Harry Gribbon, Vernon Dent and Andy Clyde - and a couple of years later, the brilliant W.C. Fields.

Next: comediennes in early talkies, led by the following bravura performance of Marie Dressler in Hollywood Revue Of 1929. She must have been devastatingly great on stage!

Marie & Polly Moran both made Mack Sennett comedies back in the WW1 era and actually worked as a comedy team in 1927-1931 MGM features. Here they are in the Al Christie talkie DANGEROUS FEMALES.

Another actress who got big laughs in both silents and talkies was "baggy pants comedienne" Louise Fazenda, former star of Universal Joker, Mack Sennett and Educational (Jack White) Comedies - and later a key supporting player in Warner Bros. musicals. She plays a Calamity Jane gunslinger type in the following "when men were men and sheep were nervous" scenario.

While the spotlight on silent movie comediennes who successfully transitioned to sound should definitely include Marion Davies, there are no short excerpts from her early talkies available via YouTube, Daily Motion and Internet Archive, just complete features. Alas, Mabel Normand, Wanda Wiley and Alice Howell did not make any sound movies. Have read that Fay Tincher's last film, All Wet (1930), was a Universal Pictures talkie 2-reeler starring Syd Saylor, but have never seen it.

Then there's Educational Pictures, which featured the often inspired and memorable comic Lloyd "Ham" Hamilton, then in his second run with the prolific comedy films distributor, in 1929.

Lloyd Hamilton's sound pictures from 1929-1931 represent a comeback after a stretch in which personal problems including multiple injuries, homelessness, unfortunate presence at drunken brawls and hard partying in general got him banned from the screen for a year.

In Toot Sweet, Hamilton does a good job of bringing his unrelentingly snakebit, shabby sad sack character from silents to sound.

Don't Be Nervous, featuring Ham in a dual role, would be my favorite of the Lloyd Hamilton Talking Comedies, along with the extremely funny Prize Puppies from 1930.

Hamilton continued starring in very funny talkie 2-reelers through the early 1931 Educational releases.

Before his decades as a megastar of British movies and stage shows (Me & My Girl), Lupino Lane starred in short comedies through the teens and twenties.

A favorite of the musical comedy aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog remains this very wacky number co-starring the ever-charming Lillian Roth with the ever-tumbling Lupino from the Ernst Lubitsch feature The Love Parade.

Now it's on to the Hal Roach Studio. A bunch of the Lot Of Fun stars and stock company members, including Max Davidson, Thelma Todd and Eddie Dunn appear together in this Edgar Kennedy 2-reeler.

100 years after his heydey, Harry Langdon remains both among the funniest and most polarizing of all movie comedians.

The gang here are among the few who are not only okay with Langdon's utter oddity and consider it his m.o. as a performer, but actually find his much maligned Hal Roach talkies quite funny in a very unorthodox way.

Devoted an entire post to these films - here's one of them!

Robert McGowan created the Our Gang series and helmed the films in silents by speaking the directions to the child actors, so these first talkies, in which he absolutely could not do that, are fascinating.

They are also interesting in blending the series' silent era stars, a.k.a. Hal Roach's Rascals, with the group that would increasingly carry the first season of sound Our Gang comedies.

Can't omit Laurel & Hardy from this mix. Berth Marks is notable for establishing something of a Guinness World Record for the amount of screen time devoted to one bit. The unrelentingly claustrophobic scene in the Pullman car features rather amazing extended physical comedy by Stan & Babe.

Our favorite of this bunch of early talkie comedies by far is Charley Chase and Thelma Todd in CRAZY FEET!

Are Charley and Thelma irreverent, extremely goofy and hilarious? Yes.

Acknowledgments: Weirdo Video, Geno Cuddy, Ralph Celentano, The Library of Congress, Dave Glass and all those involved at Sprocket Vault (Kit Parker, Richard M. Roberts especially) in making the 1929 Hal Roach talkies available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Charlie Chaplin Celebrates National Name Your Poison Day

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:48:46 +0000

We're not kidding - June 8 indeed is National Name Your Poison Day.

Charlie Chaplin kicks off Name Your Poison Day with this boozy bit from PAY DAY.

Here, a bon vivant version of Charlie celebrates with fellow inebriate Roscoe Arbuckle in the 1914 Keystone comedy THE ROUNDERS.

Charlie plays both a bamboozled bon vivant and a rowdy ruffian in a filmed version of the Fred Karno troupe "Mumming Birds" sketch that brought him to prominence.

Following Keystone and Essanay, Charlie fights a losing battle with the DTs in one of his Mutual masterpieces, One A.M.

In another Mutual masterpiece, THE CURE, Charlie attempts to get un-inebriated, 20 years before 12 step programs and over 60 years before the Betty Ford Center.

This scene from MODERN TIMES gets one wondering if by happenstance The Little Tramp knew Errol Flynn!

That noxious powder will, before it takes a person out entirely, inevitably prompt one to sing a song like this for no apparent reason.

Farewell and Peaceful Journey

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:34:42 +0000

We continue reeling in no uncertain terms from bad news from last week. Our friend Dorothy Bradley, President Emeritus of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, always friendly and always on hand at Niles' Edison Theater, passed at 80.

Missed writing a post last weekend due to grief over Dorothy's passing. This is an incalculable loss to the historian and film preservation communities, Niles, CA - and to an increasingly doltish nation struggling to remember anything for more than 5 minutes.

The gang here are still - and with much difficulty - processing the passing of Silent Locations author John Bengston, the guy who knew where EVERYTHING was filmed, earlier this year.

While the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog have not yet visited the British Institute or the George Eastman House, we had the tremendous good fortune to see the reels roll at Niles on numerous occasions.

The museum website adds: We are sad to announce the passing of Dorothy Bradley, Museum President Emeritus on Tuesday, May 26th, 2026.

Dorothy was born, raised and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for her entire life. She graduated from UC Davis with a degree in chemistry, and worked in that field until retirement. Dorothy moved to the historic district of Niles, located in Fremont, in 1996.

Wanting to learn more about the community, she became a member of the Niles Main Street Association, where some members were interested in focusing on the film history of the district. The Niles Essanay Preservation Committee was formed, and the first Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival took place in 1998.

After a few annual events, the planning group for the festival decided that they wanted to form their own independent museum. The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum was incorporated in 2002 with Dorothy serving as president until 2024.

Dorothy's dedication to history, the sciences and the arts cannot be overstated. We will miss her dearly. She had turned 80 this past December. A memorial will be planned in the near future. Those wishing to send condolences can do so to the museum via email, or via our Facebook page.

For the silent movie lovin' gang here, it is a fond and premature farewell to Dorothy.

We wish her a peaceful journey and send all at NESFM our condolences.

The Edison Theater was a home away from home for the guy who writes Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, whose Infiniti G20 sedan can be seen here in 2012 parked in front of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum and ready for big screen fun.

Was it more than we could stand to say goodbye to the wonderful Dorothy Bradley and also bid adieu to an all-time favorite from the world of music, Sonny Rollins, on the same day? Yes! So today, the Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog movie and music mavens raise a respectful toast to Dorothy Bradley, followed by a second one for Sonny - and a third in which we hoist one for Broncho Billy!

Since vintage silent films and maestro Sonny Rollins' melodic, mellifluous and marvelous sounds have been reliable go-tos for the gang here, it's time to enjoy tunes from Rollins' 1957 classic Way Out West album, followed by splendid G.M. Anderson films photographed in Niles Canyon back before World War I (and screened frequently at the museum as part of the Broncho Billy Film Festival).

Vintage Cartoons For Memorial Day Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 22 May 2026 05:42:34 +0000

Memorial Day Weekend is here. 2026 still looks like this.

So that means it's time to cheer up by watching lots of vintage WW2-era cartoons on Memorial Day Weekend.

A good way to celebrate Memorial Day a few days early is with the World War II version of Popeye. In particular, we're big fans of the early Famous Studios Popeyes and Noveltoons directed by Dan Gordon!

And Private Snafu. . .

Snafu's close cousin was Mr. Hook.

In addition to all-time favorite World War II propaganda cartoon Der Fuehrer's Face, Walt Disney Productions made numerous wartime flicks, some as theatricals, others as training films.

The following, Donald Gets Drafted, was part of Duck and Cover: Donald’s World War II Short Subjects, a very good Cartoon Research post.

The best closer for Memorial Day Weekend after all those service comedies starring Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis, etc. is Bugs Bunny.

Spoiler alert and best line from the following Chuck Jones cartoon: "so they're inducting rabbits".

These cartoons cheer the crew up here as we wish we could have trekked out to Ohio for big screen fun at this weekend's Columbus Moving Picture Show film festival and also bid farewell to The Late Show, one of our favorite TV programs going back to the 1990's David Letterman years.

Poodles Hanneford: Bareback Rider Movie Comedian

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sat, 16 May 2026 17:58:58 +0000

As the gang here in the Hudson Valley wishes we could take a Star Trek teleportation device - used or new - directly to the San Francisco Bay Area to enjoy the annual Charlie Chaplin Days event presented by the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum this weekend, we doff our Max Linder top hat to a lesser known but marvelous silent movie comedian, the great Poodles Hanneford (1891-1967).

We'll start with the following presentation by the Chapman Museum (pride of Glens Falls, NY) on the bareback ridin' movie comedian.

Edwin "Poodles" Hanneford, king of the circus bareback riders, entertained audiences for 4+ decades; his last onscreen appearance was in Charles Walters' 1962 film Billy Rose's Jumbo. Grizzled baby boomers may recognize Poodles as one of the circus performers from the 1935 Shirley Temple - Joel McCrea flick Our Little Girl.

The bio posted by the Chapman Museum adds: Originally from Ireland, Poodles was described by Life Magazine as “the world’s greatest equestrian clown.” He began working for Ringling Brothers in 1917, and appeared in films and on many popular U.S. television shows. He lived on Ridge Road and Kattskill Bay.

Wikipedia adds, "Praised by Buster Keaton as "the only trained acrobat I ever saw who could take a fall and make it look funny," Poodles is considered among the greatest trick riders in history. He was the first to perform a somersault from one running horse to another. He held a Guinness Book of World Records record for performing a running jump onto a horse and stepping off 26 times in a row."

Notably, in the following excerpt from Ain't It The Truth (1928), Poodles is wearing a Buster Keaton style porkpie hat.

Poodles did somersaults, handsprings and other acrobatics thought to be impossible (on or off of a horse) and even worked with slapstick king Roscoe Arbuckle when the big fella was directing 2-reelers as "William Goodrich." Here's Poodles with frequent Buster Keaton co-star "Big Joe" Roberts.

His astonishing skills as a bareback rider are the core of several classic comedy shorts Hanneford starred in, such as Circus Daze.

In the opinion of the silent comedy fans here, the very best 2-reelers produced by the Weiss Brothers/Artclass Productions are those starring Poodles Hanneford. With apologies to the frequently hilarious Ben Turpin and Snub Pollard, as well as the Hairbreadth Harry melodrama spoofs, the Poodles Hanneford comedies are the reason we recommend VCI Entertainment's Weiss-O-Rama 2-DVD set.

And, yes, it's true - Poodles Hanneford, acrobat, rider and comedian supreme, met Charlie Chaplin back in 1917. Happily, the beat goes on in 2026 with Tommy Chapay Hanneford, the latest generation of the Royal Hanneford Circus tradition.

In closing, and with another Max Linder top hat tip to physical comic and bareback rider supreme Poodles Hanneford, by all means, San Francisco Bay Area residents, do head over to the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum and the Edison Theatre at 37417 Niles Boulevard in Fremont this weekend for the 2026 version of Charlie Chaplin Days.

Harry Sweet Was Sweet

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sat, 09 May 2026 16:18:00 +0000

Obscure or lesser known movie comedians, anyone? Here's one of our favorites: Harry Sweet (1901-1933).

Harry Sweet was an uber-goofball slapstick artiste and writer-director-star in the 1920s and early 1930's.

Harry Sweet, gifted physical comedian and acrobat, starred in zany short subjects for Mack Sennett, Joe Rock, Century Comedies and most memorably RKO Radio Pictures.

Here he is with comedy queen (and prototype for cartoondom's Olive Oyl) Gale Henry in WHAT, NO SPINACH?

Why are we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog wild about Harry? Because his starring vehicles, especially the early 1930's talkies, are wacky beyond belief! His uninhibited style is akin to comics from many decades later, from Jerry Lewis to the Pythons to Rik Mayall to Chris Farley to Melissa McCarthy.

Readers will note quite a few familiar faces from Hal Roach Studios and the Columbia Shorts Department in the supporting cast of the following opus from Sweet's starring series for RKO.

Am taken aback by how few Harry Sweet starring vehicles, both silents and talkies, have been posted on YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo, Internet Archive, even given that he passed over 90 years ago.

While he didn't, as Harold Lloyd did, headline a gazillion films, those Harry Sweet starring vehicles the gang here have seen (most via prolific YouTube poster Joseph Blough and San Francisco Bay Area filmmaker and vintage comedy expert Lory-Michael Ringuette) are riotously funny.

Sweet was most adept in the pratfalling art of physical comedy.

Invariably, Ed Kennedy 2-reelers written and directed by Harry Sweet are a hoot!

Shortly after writing and directing the hilarious Next Door Neighbors, Harry launched the "Mr. Average Man" series starring slow-burnin' Edgar Kennedy in 1931.

For more info, read the following Harry Sweet bio from the long gone but insanely informative Hollywood Oblivion website.

Meanwhile, we hope more long lost films Harry Sweet directed and/or starred in will miraculously turn up, as a Fox short subject starring wiseguys Bobby Clark & Paul McCullough did.

Starting Wednesday: The 29th San Francisco Silent Film Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sat, 02 May 2026 16:40:00 +0000

Photo by Tommy Lau

Classic movie aficionados lucky enough to both be within a close distance of San Francisco and have some dough-re-me on hand to spend will get quite the treat when the San Francisco Silent Film Festival hits the Castro Theatre from May 6-10.

Returning to the big screen from 100+ years ago ready to rock the house - silent movies at their operatic best, accompanied quite literally by a symphony orchestra. San Francisco's 29th Silent Film Festival will return to the hallowed "movie palace" aisles of the Castro Theatre after presenting at the Orinda Theatre in 2025.

This Wednesday evening the San Francisco Silent Film Festival returns in high style with Erich von Stroheim's wonderfully indulgent epic QUEEN KELLY (1929), starring Gloria Swanson at her unapologetically over-the-top best, with musical accompaniment by composer Eli Denson conducting the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra.

Among the international lineup of cool classic movies at the 29th San Francisco Silent Film Festival: King Vidor's innovative THE CROWD

The last film of F.W. Murnau, his collaboration with documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty, TABU: A STORY OF THE SOUTH SEAS

Also on the 29th SFSFF bill: William Wyler's western BLAZING DAYS, Abram Room's time capsule tale of life in 1927 Russia BED AND SOFA, the 1926 "Lubitsch touch" charmer and Roaring Twenties piece SO THIS IS PARIS

And. . . William de Mille's MISS LULU BETT, the British sci-fi flick HIGH TREASON, Carl Dreyer's 1922 film LOVE ONE ANOTHER and two "city symphony" pieces from Nice and Paris, Á PROPOS DE NICE (co-directed by Jean Vigo and Boris Kaufman) and RIEN QUE LES HEURES, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti.

Matinee idol star power will be provided by the aforementioned Gloria Swanson, director/actor Harry Piel, a pre-Josef Von Sternberg Marlene Dietrich, megawatt It Girl Clara Bow in HULA, an early appearance by the great Myrna Loy and THE CAVEMAN, a witty farce featuring the tragic albeit wonderful comic character actress Marie Prevost.

Our pals Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy will headline the Saturday morning show.

Animation, this blog's favorite cinematic genre, will be represented by the Japanese Paper Film Project. The Bucknell University-based initiative worked with Japanese museums, film archives, and individual collectors to digitize and preserve more than 200 films, in this program early animated works made on paper, not celluloid.

Chicago film preservationist Kyle Westphal adds, “the project has successfully recovered the world of lost paper print movies made expressly to be exhibited on home projectors manufactured by Osaka’s Katei Toki and Tokyo’s REFCY and Tsukiboshi firms from 1932 to 1938. With the Japanese animation industry facing hard times, these firms bypassed theaters and took their wares directly to consumers."

The free AMAZING TALES FROM THE ARCHIVES program will be back to highlight film preservationists and the great work of film archives around the world. Presenting: Kyle Westphal of the Chicago Film Society, the Danish Film Institute’s Thomas Christensen, Filmmuseum Düsseldorf's Andreas Thein and Carlo Chatrian of the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin.

Spectacular silent movies in big screen glory are never (in 1926 or 2026) actually silent, so the San Francisco Silent Film Festival presentations feature a wide array of terrific accompanists, including the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Duo Yumeno, Stephen Horne, Mas Koga, Guenter Buchwald, Frank Bockius and Wayne Barker.

The official San Francisco Silent Film Festival press release adds:

Germany’s Weimar period was one of the most vibrant and influential moments in cinema history. Stretching from the end of WWI until the Nazi takeover, Weimar films were at the forefront of stylistic and technical innovations and created narratives that underpin film genres like horror, film noir, and sci-fi to this day.

Our friends at WeimarCinema.org write, “[Weimar] is also shorthand for all things modern, not only in its promotion of gender equality and sexual emancipation, but also in its spirit of experimentation in the arts.

Weimar is still associated with urban modernity and the ever-present dangers of a backlash. Whatever the final verdict, Weimar's tumultuous 14-year period is one of the richest and most consequential in modern history."

We are excited to present four very different, very rare, Weimar titles at this year’s festival, all in beautiful new restorations, all with live musical accompaniment!

Deutsches Filminstitut’s restoration of SENSATION IM WINTERGARTEN demonstrates Max Green’s gorgeous camerawork featuring Berlin’s fabulous Wintergarten (it didn’t survive WWII) and other Berlin locations. This rousing melodrama about a world-famous trapeze artist stars Austrian actor Paul Richter who played Siegfried in Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen.

Proof that film restoration can be as exciting, with as much down-to-the-wire pacing as modern film production, Filmmuseum Düsseldorf just found additional material to add to their superb restoration of HIS GREATEST BLUFF and archivist Andreas Thein is working round the clock to prepare the film for its closeup at the festival.

We’re pleased to introduce San Francisco audiences to a major star of the Weimar period who is virtually unknown today, actor/director Harry Piel. Piel’s action films were huge box office draws—this one involves priceless jewels, slick-haired crooks, and Piel in dual roles as twin brothers! And a star turn by Marlene Dietrich in one of her earliest screen appearances.

Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer, known for his silent-era masterpieces The Passion of Joan of Arc and Vampyr among others, travelled to Germany to make LOVE ONE ANOTHER in 1922. Based on a best-selling Danish novel, the film is set during the Russian revolution of 1905, a time of massive anti-Jewish violence. We are grateful to the Danish Film Institute for restoring this rarity and returning Dreyer’s moving depiction of anti-Semitism’s sinister harms to the world.

BOOKKEEPER KREMKE is the story of vainglorious payroll clerk (Hermann Vallentin) who loses his job to automation in a Germany plagued by inflation and unemployment. Ukrainian-born Anna Sten has her German film debut as his daughter Lene. This was director Marie Harder’s only narrative film, and it is a vivid portrait of its time. Harder, who was a Social Democrat went to Mexico after the Nazis banned the party and died in a plane crash near Popocatépetl in 1936. Thanks to the Deutsche Kinemathek for this dazzling restoration.

Imogen Sara Smith writes in our program book, “Watching films from the late Weimar era is both poignant and suspenseful, like watching people skate on thin ice in the last rays of sun before an approaching storm front.” There are parallels to our own time.

For more, go to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival website.

It's Walter Lantz Weekend at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 03:19:46 +0000

This weekend, we pay tribute to pioneering animation producer and director Walter Lantz (1899-1994). Posted a Lantz cartune-filled salute to Walt and Woody back in December 2024, but dang it, that ISN'T ENOUGH!

Do we LOVE Woody (both the woodpecker and San Francisco Giants curveballing LHP Kirk "Woody" Reuter), Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Andy Panda, Buzz Buzzard, Chilly Willy, and the excellent Swing Symphonies and Musical Miniatures series?

Yes, emphatically!

Here's Walter with his wife and ace cartoon voice artist Gracie Stafford Lantz (the voice of Woody Woodpecker after the departure of voiceman/storyman Ben Hardaway).

Walter Lantz began producing cartoons for J.R. Bray back in the silent era, with the Dinky Doodle, Unnatural History and Pete The Pup series. Walter appears in many of his silent era productions!

Over his many decades producing animated cartoons, Mr. Lantz was assisted very aptly by, to name just a few extremely talented collaborators, directors Shamus Culhane, Tex Avery, Dick Lundy, Alex Lovy, Don Patterson, Sid Marcus and Jack Hannah, animators Pat Matthews, Grim Natwick, Emery Hawkins, Manuel Moreno, Bill Nolan, Clyde Geronimi, Ray Abrams, Les Kline, Laverne Harding, Paul Smith, Art Davis, avatars of layout, backgrounds and character designs Philip DeGuard, Art Heinemann, Ray Huffine and Art Landy, storymen Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, Milt Schaffer and Cal Howard, voice artists Dick Nelson, Lionel Stander, Daws Butler, Dallas McKennon and (sometimes, before 1941) Mel Blanc, plus excellent music men Jimmy Dietrich, Frank Marsales and Darrell Calker.

Now, let's bring on the Walter Lantz "Cartunes", starting with WOODY THE GIANT KILLER.

LOVE the terrific Swing Symphonies by the Walter Lantz Studio, especially The Greatest Man In Siam and Abou Ben Boogie!

Indeed, our mission, just a few days short of Walter's 127th birthday on Monday, is to continue deluging you with vintage Walter Lantz "Cartunes", starting with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit.

The gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog remain enthusiastic about the Lantz Ozzies of the early talkie era.

Here's the color segment (preceding the Ted Eshbaugh Studio's Goofy Goat Antics and the Disney Silly Symphony Flowers And Trees) starring Ozzie from the 1930 Universal feature THE KING OF JAZZ.

A caricature of Paul Whiteman, bandleader and star of The King Of Jazz appears in an Oswald The Lucky Rabbit cartoon, My Pal Paul.

Lantz' Oswald cartoons from 1929-1931 are filled with wonderful, cartoony, imaginative, way-out ideas and Bill Nolan's extra rubbery animation.

We close this too brief homage to the great Walter Lantz with cartoons directed by the equally great Tex Avery during his brief second stint there. That's right, the Tex Avery, whose first act after leaving the employ of Walter Lantz and joining the ragtag Leon Schlesinger Studio, producers of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, was to create "Termite Terrace" and give the middle finger to that other more famous Walt. Avery directed Porky's Duck Hunt (1937) and A Wild Hare (1940), effectively throwing down the gauntlet.

As always, the blazing and ever-inventive comic genius of Tex Avery is quite something to behold. Too bad Tex never met Buster Keaton when they were both working on the MGM lot.

April's Silent Comedy Kings And Queens

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:25:00 +0000

As fate would have it, the month of April is notable for birthdays of outstanding comedians and comediennes from silent movies.

Born between April 16 and April 20: Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), Wanda Wiley (1902-1987), Fay Tincher (1884-1983) and that "glasses guy," Harold Lloyd (1893-1971).

That guy responsible for the first 20th century British Invasion and the international popularity of both going out to the movies and buying home movies (on 8mm, 9.5mm, 16mm, 28mm, etc.), Charles Spencer Chaplin, was born on April 16, 1889. Let's celebrate his 137th birthday belatedly by binge-watching a slew of Charlot clips and films, shall we!

The Chaplin Mutuals are still incredibly funny after all these decades.

And Chaplin's subsequent First National short subjects have their moments as well.

Even Chaplin's earliest films for Mack Sennett's Keystone, produced in 1913-1914, can be quite hilarious.

Some Chaplin Keystones co-star the great silent movie comedienne Mabel Normand.

One favorite Chaplin Keystone is The Rounders, in which Charlie's teamed with the rotund yet graceful and inspired slapstick funmaker (as well as the filmmaking mentor of Buster Keaton) Roscoe Arbuckle.

Now MUST watch Photoplay Productions' (Kevin Brownlow and David Gill) outstanding Unknown Chaplin documentary yet again.

The athletic and winsome Wanda Wiley was among several groundbreaking women in the rough and tumble world of slapstick comedy.

She headlined a series of fast-paced action comedies for Universal Pictures.

Starting her movie career doing stunt work in westerns, Wanda, the excellent "daredevil comedienne", stuntwoman and comic actress headlined her own series for Century Comedies and J.R. Bray Productions.

A rare blend of silver screen comedienne and action hero, Wanda made 50 films between 1924 and 1927.

One of the funniest extant Wanda comedies, A Thrilling Romance, was featured on episode 16 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party.

How Wanda did not attract the attention of Universal head Carl Laemmle after these 50 films and continue her career, we'll never know.

For a stretch in the teens and early 1920's, Fay Tincher, born on April 17, 1884, was one of the top comediennes in motion pictures.

She had a 15 year movie career that spanned stints with The American Eclair Company, Komic Komedies, Triangle, Christie, and Universal.

Fay's funny and outrageous performances as the over-the-top Ethel The Stenographer in the Bill The Office Boy series for Komic Komedies made Fay a major movie star in 1914.

Fay, a reluctant comedienne of stage and screen whose background was in musical theater, went on to co-star in a series of 5-reel dramas and comedies with DeWolf Hopper at Fine Arts Film Company.

After leaving Fine Arts, she formed The Fay Tincher Comedy Company.

Fay, with ambitions to work behind the camera, produced and starred in a series for World Film Corporation.

Unfortunately, none of the three Fay Tincher Comedy Company films (Main 1-2-3, Some Job and Oh, Susie, Behave) survive. All that exists from the 1918 productions are stills.

Since film comedy in the silent era was frequently regarded as undignified and unladylike, not acceptable as a stepping stone to prestigious dramatic roles in feature films (or, for that matter, producing and directing), Fay hated getting cast as a comedy headliner and was very disappointed to see her World Film Corporation series end after three films. She headlined Christie Comedies beginning in 1919.

ROWDY ANN (1919) remains her best known film.

Most of her starring vehicles do not survive, so this diehard film buff is thankful for the few that do.

A super talented actress and comedienne, Fay retired from movies in 1930 after playing Min Gump in Universal's The Gumps series. She left show business, dropped out of the public eye and successfully evaded all interviews for the last 50+ years of her life.

And then there's that most swashbuckling of movie headliners, Harold Lloyd, whose films are still unequaled in their blend of comedy and thrills with the action hero ethos exemplified by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.

Lloyd, the always indefatigable go-getter, regarded as one of silent comedy's Big Three, along with Chaplin and Keaton, was born on April 20, 1893.

Starting with Lonesome Luke and "glasses character" 2-reelers produced by Hal Roach's Rolin Co. in 1915-1917, Harold starred in numerous classic comedies.

In closing, here's Harold Lloyd's World Of Comedy - enjoy!

The diehard classic movie aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog salute silent comedy royalty big time! Laughs are our friend!

And This Blog Loves Norman McLaren

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 16:51:00 +0000

Today we salute the innovative producer, director and animator Norman McLaren.

A splendid post from Scotland.com adds: Norman McLaren (1914–1987) was a pioneering Scottish-Canadian animator, director, and producer renowned for his innovative work at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

A pioneer in hand-drawn, abstract, and pixilation animation, he won an Oscar for Neighbours (1952) and a Palme d'Or for Blinkity Blank (1955).

That means it's time to get pixillated!

NEIGHBORS may be the first pixillated film this film buff ever saw in which the menacing creatures were humans and not prehistoric monsters!

A few years before the Beatles discovered Ravi Shankar, his soundtrack is a cornerstone of pixillated McLaren opus A Chairy Tale.

Along with the films of Oskar Fischinger, McLaren's work got this movie buff, unlike the viewer played by Mel Brooks in The Critic, to be just fine with colors, shapes, lines and movement synchronized to music as the beating heart of a short film, as seen in BEGONE DULL CARE.

Also admire anyone who would think of scratching the emulsion of the film and seeing what the heck happens! No budget, no problem!

Submitted for your approval, a selection of vintage Norman McLaren art films - he made over 60 - that make this blogger want to see them again.

Why are these shapes and designs so hypnotic? I don't know - play it again!

For more, see the documentary Creative Process: Norman McLaren (1990) and read The Sprightly Civil Servant: Norman McLaren at the National Film Board of Canada, Michael Cicinski's essay that accompanies The Criterion Collection's McLaren box set.

Easter 2026 Means Wascally Wabbits

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:32:00 +0000

Here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, today's holiday means Easter movies, rabbit-laden cartoons and TV show clips.

Kicking off the compendium of rabbit-packed Easter cartoons, here's the Easter egg-filled and downright rabbit-infested Silly Symphony Funny Little Bunnies.

The unequalled gold standard of Easter cartoons, not surprisingly, stars the Oscar-winning rabbit, Bugs Bunny.

That would be Easter Yeggs (1947), one of the very best cartoons ever helmed by director Robert McKimson.

We're delighted that METV has shown the Walter Lantz Studio's contribution to the Easter cartoon genre, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit in The Egg Cracker Suite (1943).

The Egg Cracker Suite is the last of the theatrical Oswald The Lucky Rabbit series.

Ozzy was subsequently purloined, along with all but a couple of the Disney animation staff, by Charles Mintz.

After a year of Winkler Oswalds, Mintz received the heave-ho from Carl Laemmle and Walter Lantz took over the character and made a gazillion Ozzy toons for Universal Pictures.

Happy Easter to all from Oswald, Bugs Bunny and Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog!

Goons, Pythons, Beyond The Fringe

noreply@blogger.com (Paul F. Etcheverry) — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 20:41:00 +0000

Today we spotlight the post-WW2 UK heroes of comedy: the British invasion that preceded the Rickenbacker-brandishing lads from Liverpool, beginning with The Goon Show

And Beyond The Fringe

And Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

In over 200 radio shows and a few TV and film appearances, The Goons - Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe - for all practical purposes threw out the comedy playbook and invented a new one.