List of Crap 128, Top 50 Slapstick Comedians and Teams

[stethacantus]

Bite me, I love Tommy Boy, it's great dumb fun, one of those 'pick-me-up when I'm down' types of movie.

There is a big difference between a movie being a good comedy and a movie being a bad comedy that the comedians in it save.  Animal House is an example of a good comedy. If you were to change it's cast you would still get laughs. Same thing with Airplane. Most of the Abbott & Costello films are examples of bad comedies. Take out Abbott and Costello and the Romcom part is the worst. A&C saved those movies by bringing in their own routines, throwing in ad libs,  and generally making their dismal lines funny. You have to ask yourself if Tommy Boy would still be funny if someone else was in the lead role. Was it funny without Farley and Spade, or was it funny because of them?

[George-2.0]

Bite me, I love Tommy Boy, it's great dumb fun, one of those 'pick-me-up when I'm down' types of movie.

There is a big difference between a movie being a good comedy and a movie being a bad comedy that the comedians in it save.  Animal House is an example of a good comedy. If you were to change it's cast you would still get laughs. Same thing with Airplane. Most of the Abbott & Costello films are examples of bad comedies. Take out Abbott and Costello and the Romcom part is the worst. A&C saved those movies by bringing in their own routines, throwing in ad libs,  and generally making their dismal lines funny. You have to ask yourself if Tommy Boy would still be funny if someone else was in the lead role. Was it funny without Farley and Spade, or was it funny because of them?

What I ask from a comedy is that it make me laugh. If it made me laugh then it's a good comedy. Whether it's due to the script, director, or performer, the bottom line, the only thing that matters... did I laugh - period, end of story.

[stethacantus]

#6

Charlie Chaplin

100 points, 8 lists, #1 stansimpson

Born: April 16, 1889 Walworth,  London,  England
Stage Debut:1894
Film Debut February 2, 1914

6th place. Really? Charlie Chaplin came in at #6 on a slapstick comedian list? Lets put this in perspective.  Carlie Chaplin coming in at #6 on a slapstick comedian list is like Citizen Cane coming in at #6 on a Greatest American Movie list.... is like Stairway To Heaven coming in at #6 on a greatest Rock song list.... is like James Bond coming in at #6 on a greatest spy list.  And lets remember that Langdon and Lloyd are already knocked out of the top 10,  So what five slapstick comedians did you people think were better than Charlie Chaplin? Could it be Ben Affleck? Kim Kardashion? Howard Stern? Barnes & Barnes? The My Pillow Guy? Who knows? I can tell you this... Only two artists were on all 8 lists submitted. The artist at #1, and Chaplin. And yet somehow Chaplin didn't make the top 5.

Charlie's parents were both performers. His father, Charles Chaplin Sr., a successful singer. His mother,  Hannah Chaplin  who went by the stage name Lily Harley, an unsuccessful singer. He had an older half brother Sydney who his mother had out of wedlock with another performer and who Charles Sr. had adopted when they were married.  Two years after Charlie was born,  his father left to go on tour in America and never returned. Now estranged from a husband who was not sending any financial support,  Hannah tried her best to support the family herself through odd jobs. With no one else to watch them, she would bring her children along whenever she performed at a music hall. One night when Charlie was five years old his mother lost her voice while singing on stage.  Charlie walked on stage and finished singing for her. It would be the last night Hannah performed,  and the first night of Charlie's career.

After a brief career as a child dancer, and another brief career as a teenage actor, he joined his brother Sydney as a comedy team, performing a sketch called Repairs. He then tried  a solo career which was not as successful.  Sydney had joined Fred Karno' s comedy troupe and had risen up the ranks to feature performer. Sydney asked Karno to audition his 18 year old brother.  Karno was reluctant to hire a teenager,  but was impressed after he saw his audition.  He was given small parts in sketches, but soon rose up the ranks to be Karno's star performer.  In 1912 he was one of the troupe members chosen to take the company on tour in America. His pantomime drew a lot of praise from American theater critics.  In 1913 Karno sent his company on a second tour of America. Halfway through the tour Chaplin was approached by an agent for Mack Sennett who asked him if he wanted to be in the moving picture business.  Six months later he was under contract at Keystone Studios. 

Mack hadn't realized how young Chaplin was, and didn't know if the 24 year old comic was mature enough for the movie business.  Chaplin's first month at the studio was spent observing the film making progress. His first film was a one reeler called Making A Living where he basically played a villain, and dressed the part.  He was then asked to be a drunkard in a Mabel Normand film. In Mabel's Strange Predicament ( 1914 ) she gets herself locked out of her hotel room in her pajamas,  and Charlie the drunk was to harass her. Chaplin was left to decide what sort of costume the drunk would wear. He decided to give the drunk baggy pants and a too tight coat, then continued the theme with a too small hat but giant shoes. In his previous film he had the typical villain bushy mustache.  This time Chaplin wanted a small mustache so his facial expressions could be seen. Chaplin said in his autobiography that once he had the costume and makeup on, the persona of the  Tramp character came out. He decided he wanted to make the Tramp his permanent screen character. 

Chaplin kept wanting more creative control over his films. At one point he got into a verbal fight with Mabel over a film of hers he was costarring in and she was directing.  Bring  Sennett's fiancé at the time, Chaplin was nearly fired.  But Sennett realized his Tramp character had become so popular that he couldn't fire him. So instead Chaplin was allowed to direct his own films. Meanwhile, no studio had ever made a feature film length comedy. Sennett had bought the film rights to the hit Broadway play Tillie's Nightmare to be adapted into a film, and hired actress Marie Dressler who played Tillie on Broadway to be in it. Deciding the play couldn't be condensed into two reels, he decided to take the risk and make the first comedy feature film. To make sure it sold tickets,  he put his most popular comedians in the film, including Normand, The Keystone Cops, and Chaplin,  who would be required to play a role other than the tramp. Tillie's Punctured Romance ( 1914 ) was a huge hit, opening the door for more comedy features o be made.

When the contract was up, Chaplin demanded more money if he was to sign for a second year. He had been paid $150 a week. He now wanted $1,000 a week.  Sennett didn't want to pay him that much money.  Essanay Studios offered him $1,250 a week. So Chaplin went with Essanay. It was during his year at Essanay that Chaplin discovered Edna Purviance,  a beautiful young secretary he asked to change profession to acting so she could be his leading lady in his films. Things started to go bad at Essanay when Chaplin attempted to make a feature film. When Essanay realized it would take Chaplin months to complete. Chaplin finished out his contract and left. His shorts were generating millions of dollars, so he demanded a $150,000 signing bonus from the next studio to hire him. A bidding war broke out between all the major studios, but Mutual gave the best offer. $10,000 a week and they would build him his own studio. At Mutual Chaplin produced most of his best shorts, including The Floor Walker ( 1916 ), The Rink ( 1916 ), Easy Street ( 1917 ) and The Immigrant ( 1917 ). While making these films Chaplin learned that Essanay was rereleasing one of his shorts as a feature film. They had taken Burlesque on Carmen ( 1915 ) and lenghtened mi by  two additional reels, containing deleted scenes and footage Chaplin had cut from the original release, along with repeat footage from earlier in the film and newly shot scenes with a sub plot with a minor character. Chaplin sued to prevent it from being released, but lost when it was ruled that Essanay owned the footage and could do anything they wanted with it. Essanay immediately began working on a brand new Chaplin short called Triple Trouble ( 1918  ). It included the footage from Chaplin's abandoned feature film, deleted scenes from the short  Police   ( 1916 ), and footage of a Chaplin impersonator, cut together it made a new if confusing short. And Chaplin couldn't do anything to stop it.

When the mutual contract was up, Chaplin signed with First National for $1 million, the first actor to ever get paid that much. The contract was for eight films with no schedule, meaning he could take as long as he wanted to complete the contract. However, he began to get despondent over how little First National was willing to budget the films. In January of 1919Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D W Griffith founded United Artists, which would allow each co-owner full creative control over their films. Chaplin offered to buy his contract back from First National. But no matte  what he offered, they refused and demanded he give them the final six films he owed under that contact. One of those films was The Kid ( 1921 ), Chaplin's second feature film, and the first feature film with The Tramp. Because by now Chaplin was taking a lot of time to complete his films, it took him until 1923 to complete the First National contract, after which he shot his first film for United Artists. A drama he wasn't even in called A Woman of Paris ( 1923 ). It was a staring vehicle for Edna Purviance, who he wanted to have her own solo career. Despite the fact that  Chaplin wrote and directed the film, audiences weren't interested in a Chaplin film where he wasn't on screen, especially if it was a drama. So it bombed, along with any chance Edna had at a solo career. Chaplin followed A Woman of Paris with his most iconic feature film, The Gold Rush ( 1925 ), followed by The Circus ( 1928 ). By that time most studios were converting to sound film. Chaplin refused to make a sound film. His  tramp was a pantomime character, and Chaplin believed whatever magic The Tramp had would die once audiences heard his voice. Besides, Chaplin was convinced sound film was only a fad. City Lights ( 1931 ) was made three years into the sound era. While Chaplin did agree to a soundtrack, it would only have music ( which he composed ) and sound effects. Otherwise it would still be a silent film. In 1936 he released his next film Modern Times. The silent era was long dead. No studio on the planet made silent films any more. Everyone including his brother Sydney had tried to convince Chaplin to make Modern Times a sound film. And for a while Chaplin was going to give in. He experimented with shooting some sound scenes with The Tramp. However, upon watching them decided he was right, that giving the Tramp a voice ruined the character. Apparently Chaplin had the sound footage destroyed so no evidence of the Tramp talking would survive. Modern Times would be a silent film. He did make one concession. While he could not have the Tramp talk on screen, he would allow the Tramp to sing. This was the only time the Tramp's voice is ever hears on film.

Chaplin realized Modern Times would be the final Tramp film, and wrote it as a loving farewell to the character. He once again composed the musical score for the soundtrack. This included his most enduring melody, Smile, which was given lyrics in the 1950s and was a big hit for Nat King Cole. Another version recorded by Jimmy Durante in 1965 and was used on Joker ( 2019 ). So basically Charlie Chaplin contributed to that film. And while we are on the topic, another version of Smilewas sung by Robert Downey Jr. for the movie Chaplin ( 1992 ). Oh, and the song was turned into a feature film called Smile in 1972, which was a comedy about a beauty pageant.  Well, so much for that. The Tramp was retired until Hitler's rise in power in Germany. Newsreels and newspapers of he time were portraying Hitler as heroic and a friend of America. But Chaplin had Jewish acquaintances who told him horror stories of how Jew in  Germany wee being treated. Chaplin wanted to make a film that showed the truth about Hitler. Editorial cartoons in Newspapers had already pointed out how Hitler and The Tramp had similar features ( well, a similar  mustache. ) which gave Chaplin the idea of a film where The Tramp and Hitler trade places. Although the Jewish barber Chaplin plays in The Great Dictator( 1940 )  is not officially The Tramp, Chaplin realized he similarities would kill the Tramp character by putting it in a sound film. However, he felt exposing the lie that was Adolph Hitler was more important that preserving a screen character. It was released one year before the United States entered WWII and Hitler was considered our enemy. After the war, when the extent of the Holocaust became public, Chaplin began to regret making a movie that made light of the Nazi's treatment of the Jews. Had he known they wee murdering them, he would have never made the film. 

Chaplin's next film was also a message film, although as an allegory his character explains at the end of the film. Monsieur Verdoux ( 19447 ) didn't have any character that looked like The Tramp. It did have Chaplin playing a murderer who killed women he married to steal their life savings. The idea came from Orson Welles, who had wanted to make a movie about the French serial killer Landru and wanted Chaplin to star in it. Chaplin decided he wanted to do it, but didn't want to be directed, so asked Welles if he could have the idea for his own film. Audiences hated the idea of Chaplin in a black comedy, and the film bombed. It  would be another five years before Chaplin released a new film. Limelight ( 1952 ).  had him playing a sympathetic character, the aging music hall  comedian Calvero,.  Th film also had Buster Keaton who plays Calvero's old partner and performs with him during a comeback performance. The only time Chaplin and Keaton performed together on screen. Barely anyone in the United States got a chance to see Limelight Chaplin wanted to hold the world premier in England. After boarding the steamer to Europe, he received a telegram notifying him that  his reentry visa had been revoked, and he would not be allowed back in the United States. Since he was not a United States citizen, there was nothing he could do. Soon after Limelight was pulled from American theaters. Five years later Chaplin made A King In New York where he played the exiled king of a foreign country that just had a revolution. It was another message film that attacked McCarthyism, as the King tries to help a boy being forced to testify against his parents at one of the anti-communist hearings. Although the message was meant  for United States citizens, once again it was censored from being screened in this country, and would not be screened here until after McCarthyism was long gone.  It would be another ten years before Chaplin made his next film A Countess From Hong Kong  ( 1967 ).  It starred Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, with Chaplin only writing and directing. Although he did play a small cameo roll as a steward. It got mostly bad reviews. ( I have seen it. Decent film, although not very funny. ) It would be Chaplin's final film. He was working on the script for his next film, The Freak, a fantasy about a girl who grows wings on her back. But a series of minor strokes sidelined the film. In 1972 he was invited to the Academy Awards to receive an honorary award. For the first time in 20 years he was allowed back in the United States. After receiving the award and making a speech, he received a 12 minute standing ovation, which is still a record. ( although today it can't be broken as they play people off the stage. ) Chaplin's health continued to decline during the 70s. On Christmas day 1977, Charlie Chaplin died in his sleep from a stroke. On March 1, 1978 his body was dug up, stolen, and held for ransom. A month later the culprits were caught and the body retrieved.

STATUE!

[George-2.0]

I did give thought later, to throwing folks like Lewis and Farley to the back (figuring y'all would take care of them) and push all my silent/early sound people to the front half.

If I had he'd have made the 5 - but I didn't and in truth, I'm not that over the moon for Chaplin, the sentimentalism is a sticking point with me and I'm not wild for the tramp character, much preferring the can-do kid, baby-man, and the great stone face. But there's no denying that he's one of the best at his craft, and a marvel to watch when he plies that craft on film. On that basis, and based on his status as an enduring cultural icon, he earns my respect. I thought he'd be Top 5 easy and would be fighting for that #1 slot. (and that the crude ass Stooges who I can't stand, are going to rank ahead of him, is a pisser.) 

[stethacantus]

#5

The Three Stooges

102 points, 5 lists, #1 linszoid

Members Birth Dates:
Shemp Howard ( Samuel Horwitz ): March 11, 1895 Manhattan, New York, U.S.A.
Ted Healy ( Birth Name Ernest Nash ): October 1, 1896 Kaufman, Texas, U.S.A.
Moe Howard ( Birth Name: Moses Horwitz ) : June 19, 1897   Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
Fred Sanborn: November 3, 1899  Haverhill, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Larry Fine ( Birth Name: Louis Fineberg ): October 5, 1902 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Curly Howard ( Birth Name: Jerome Horwitz ): October 22, 1903 Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S.A.
Joe Palma ( Birth Name: Joseph Provenzano ) March 17, 1905  New York City, New York, U.S.A.
Joe Besser: August 12, 1907 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
"Curly" Joe DeRita ( Birth Name: Joseph Wardell ): July 12, 1909
Stage Debut: 1923
Film Debut: September 28, 1930
Television Debut: March 25, 1950


12 year old Ernest Nash met 11 year old Moses Horwitz soon after Nash's family moved to New York City.  Both boys became friends, and in high school decided they wanted to get into show business. They joined an act called The Annett Kellermann Diving Girls which included four boys among it's ranks. Australian Kellerman originally rose to fame by holding the record for swimming 100 yards, and had turned her fame into an act where she demonstrated feats of swimming and diving, which included the first water ballet in a glass tank. At the time Ernest and Moses joined her act, she was more famous for being arrested in 1907 for wearing a one piece bathing suit in Massachusetts, at a time when men were allowed to wear them but women were still expected to wear dresses as swimwear. Kellerman's latest act, which she performed at Manhattan's Hippodrome, had girls diving from heights as high as 90 feet into a glass tank of water. One evening one of the girls landed on the stage instead of inside the tank, and the act came to a permanent end.  Ernest and Moses were out of showbusiness. Kellerman left the stage, went into the film business, and became the first movie actress to do a nude scene in a movie. That film is unfortunately lost, but the publicity photo of the scene still exists. so....

As soon as Ernest was old enough, he left New York to find work on the stages of vaudeville. He changed his name to Ted Healy and developed a successful act. By the 1920s he had an entire review and was the highest paid performer in Vaudeville, earning $9000 a week. In 1921 a group of acrobats in his review quit, and Healy put out an advertisement for replacements, His old friend Moses Horwitz answered the ad. After Ernest had left New York a decade earlier, Moses and his older brother Samuel had begun singing in bars for money, but that ended when their father found out they were doing it.  When he was old enough to leave home, he began finding the odd role in music acts, but his showbusiness  career went nowhere. When he saw that his friend was now the great Ted Healy, and Ted was looking to hire performers for his act, Moses realized this was his only way to move up in showbusiness. Ted knew Moses was no acrobat, but still wanted him to join the review. He had an idea for a routine that would involve a stooge, which is what they called a performer who was a plant in the audience who is supposedly picked at random to participate in a magic trick. The routine had Moses annoying Ted, ruining the trick, and eventually causing Ted to drop his pants before leaving the stage. Audiences loved the routine, and Moses became a permanent part of the review, changing his name to Moe Howard.

In 1923 while performing the stooge routine, Moe noticed his brother Samuel was sitting in the audience and called out to him. Samuel responded by heckling Moe, and soon both of them were trading insults. The audience loved the exchange, so Ted asked Samuel to join the act. Which he did after changing his name to Shemp Howard. In 1925 Moe's wife was pregnant and convinced him to retire from showbusiness. Shemp moved up to take over Moe's lines while different cast members took turns as the second heckling stooge. In 1928 Healy added a violinist named Larry Fine to the review. One night Larry was asked to be the second stooge, and did it so well that Healy made him the permanent second stooge. Soon after Ted asked Moe to return to the review.  As it turned out, Moe had been terrible at every job he was hired for, and was ready to return to showbusiness. Healy rewrote the act so included three stooges. The stooge act was so successful that eventually Ted got rid of the other performers and crafted is entire show around the stooges interrupting him, adding musician/comedian Fred Sanborn as a fourth stooge. By 1930 the act was called Ted Healy and his Stooges.

In 1930 Ted Healy was offered his first movie. Fox wanted to cast Ted and his stooges in in the comedy Soup To Nuts, which was the first and since then only feature film written by cartoonist Rube Goldberg. Fox only wanted Ted, who insisted the other four stooges be added to the film. While Ted got star billing, the other four stooges were billed last behind all of the other actors in the film, and by their individual stage names. They even managed to get Moe's name wrong, crediting him as Harry Howard. The film didn't do well at the box office. However, the Fox executives loved the four stooges, so offered them all separate contracts to play stooges in other Fox films. When Ted found out his stooges were offered a contract while he wasn't, he informed Fox that he owned the stooge act including the concept and all the material, and he would not allow the stooges to sign with Fox without him. Fox withdrew the offer for contracts. All four stooges were so outraged that Healy ruined their chance at being movie stars that they ended up quitting his act. Fred Sanborn returned to his original solo act, while Moe, Larry and Shemp created their own act called Howard, Fine & Howard. Healy attempted to sue the act, claiming he had a copyright on their material. Meanwhile he needed new stooges for his own act, but new ones he hired didn't receive the laughs that his former stooges did. In 1932 Healy agreed to drop his lawsuit and renegotiated a new contract with Moe, Larry and Shemp to join his act again. A few month in Shemp decided he could not get along with Healy and quit the act, eventually ending up at Vitaphone Studios in Brooklyn where he launched his own solo movie career. Ted needed at least one more stooge for the act, so Moe suggested his younger brother Jerome, who ended up shaving his hair and changing his name to Curly Howard.

In 1933 M.G.M. signed Healy and his stooges to a contract, where they appeared in musical shorts and as comedy relief in feature films. They appeared in five shorts and five feature films as Ted Healy and his stooges, but also as contract players were sometimes required to appear in films by themselves without the other stooges. The contract with M.G.M. expired in 1934 after which Ted and the other stooges agreed to part ways. This time around it was Ted who was offered a second contact by M.G.M. while the others weren't. In 1937 Healy was in a bar celebrating the birth of his first son when he got into a fight with three men, who ended up beating him up. He left the club bleeding and was treated by a doctor, then driven home. The next morning Ted began having convulsions. His private doctor was summonsed. However, he was unable to save him. Ted Healy died of what was ruled as a heart attack on December 21, 1937. The men who got into a fight with him were later identified as  actor Wallace Berry, producer Albert R Broccoli who would produce the James Bond films three decades later, and Broccoli's cousin Pat DiCicco. Only Broccoli admitted to the fight, but claimed Healy had started it, and that it was only a minor scuffle.

After leaving M.G.M., Moe, Larry and Curly signed with Columbia Pictures to make shorts for the studio as The Three Stooges. It would be a successful run which would last for 23 years and 190 shorts. Columbia was a poverty row studio that produced low budget B pictures up until the 30s when they made their move to second tier studio with moderately budgeted films. However, when it came to their short subject films Columbia still insisted on them being low budget and shot fast. The Three Stooges shorts quickly became popular, which studio president Harry Cohn was able to use to book his feature films. If a theater wanted the Three Stooges shorts then they would have to book their feature films as well. The Stooges were clueless of how popular their shorts were, so never negotiated for a better contact than the one they were offered in 1934, which was year-by-year and paid $7,500 per short which was to be split among the team. None of them were to get a cut of the box office, and when the shorts were sold to television years later, did not get any residuals. Since their contract was up for renewal at the end of each year, they never knew if they would be working the next year. And to keep them from thinking about renegotiating their terms, each year Harry Cohn would remind them that shorts were on their way out, that most theaters no longer booked shorts, and most studios had stopped making them. So they should be lucky if Columbia decided to extend their contract for another year. 

Their schedule gave them no time to make their own feature length film, so instead they did guest appearances roles that took fewer weeks to shoot. In 1945 Columbia finally decide to put them in a feature film. Curly was in poor health at the time, and the team wanted to allow him to rest, but now they also had a feature film in their schedule. Whoever wrote the script for Rockin' In The Rockies  ( 1945 ) was not familiar with the Three Stooges, and had Moe separated from Larry and Curly for much of the film, with Moe playing a straight man role while Larry and Curly act as the comedy relief. Fans of the Stooges didn't like the film, and it failed to make a profit. Worse, with the extra workload, Curly's health declined. Moe asked if they could production of the shorts on hiatus, but the request was turned down. And on top of it all, they had signed with Monogram Pictures to do another guest starring role in Swing Parade of 1945 and couldn't get out of it. Despite doctors ordering Curly to leave the Stooges to take a much needed rest, he continued with the grueling schedule, even though by the end of 1946 his voice was horse and he could barely remember his lines. During the filming of Half Wits Holiday ( 1947 ) Curly had a stroke on the set.  With Curly in the hospital, Moe decided to ask Shemp to step in and replace him until he recovered. Columbia had no problem wit this as at the time they had Shemp under contract as a solo comedian. Curly finally left the hospital, but suffered permanent damage from the stroke and could no longer perform. He did frequently visit his brothers on the set, and in one short, Hold That Lion was able to do a cameo as a sleeping passenger on a train. Curly's  health continued to decline. He had another stroke in 1947and again in 1951. He died on January 18, 1952.

Shemp was Curly's permanent replacement, and would be part of the team for another 9 years. In 1949 the stooges shot a pilot for an ABC television sitcom. Had it been picked up, they could have finally left Columbia. But Columbia found out and told ABC  the Three Stooges were under their contract, not mentioning the contract expired at the end of the year. Instead they made a deal with ABC to license them 30 shorts they could air as episodes to a Three Stooges series. In 1953 the stooges became part of the decades 3D craze when Columbia had two of their shorts filmed in 3D. On November 22, 1955 Shemp was in a taxy with friends and in the middle of telling a joke when he suddenly slumped forward. Shemp was dead of what was ruled a heart attack. . Columbia had four shorts in the can, but still owed the theaters who booked the Three Stooges for  the 1956 season eight shorts. The decision was to take footage from old Three Stooges shorts and add new footage with Moe and Larry. To replace Shemp in the new footage, actor Joe Palma was cast as the third stooge. He would go on to be known as the "Fake Shemp". Joe's family owned a funeral home where he worked as a mortician. But what he really wanted to be was a movie star.  So in 1937 headed out to Hollywood where he found work at Columbia playing extras. He was in 147 movies, including Mr. Smith Goes To Washington ( 1939 ), The Bells Of St. Mary's ( 1945 ), The Best Years Of Our Lives ( 1946 ), The Lady From Shanghai ( 1947 ), The Apartment ( 1960 ) , The Great Race ( 1965 ) and The Odd Couple ( 1968 ). All bit parts, most without dialogue, and almost all uncredited. The only reason he got to be a stooge was because out of everyone under contract at Columbia, he was the one who looked the most like Shemp. Of course in the four Three Stooges films he was in, he always kept his back to the camera. Joe retired from  showbusiness in the late 60s He died on August 14, 1994 of natural causes, being the oldest surviving stooge....sort of.

Moe wanted to continue the series as The Two Stooges, but Columbia insisted there should be three stooges, and insisted it be someone already under contract to their studio. Joe Besser was a popular Vaudeville comedian when Columbia hired him in 1944. There he alternated between small parts in Columbia feature films and his own shorts. Apparently Joe was able to negotiate for a non exclusive contract, because he worked outside of Columbia on the Abbott & Costello Show playing the character Stinky Davis, as well as one shot characters on a lot of other sitcoms. In 1956 Columbia installed Joe Besser into The Three Stooges. By this time the series had become so low budget that Columbia was having the trio remake earlier shorts so that footage of Moe and Larry from the shorts being remade could be edited into the remake. because the stooges were essentially shooting half films that would be filled with clips for the other half, they were able to complete 15 shorts in one year. This probably should have been a red flag, as their usual output was 8 shorts a year. As soon as the last short was completed, Columbia officially fired Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Joe Besser, with enough shorts in the can to sell to theaters for the next three years. The final Three Stooges short was distributed to theaters ion June 4, 1959. Not actually being part of the Three Stooges act, Joe declined to work with them ever again, opting instead to work on television. In 1962 he joined the cast of The Joey Bishop Show as Mr. Jillson.  He began  working as a vocal actor in Saturday Morning Cartoons, his best known voices being Babu  in the animated version of Jeannie and Scare Bear in Yogi's Space Race. He was found dead in his home on March 1, 1988 of a heart attack.

Around 1958 Columbia Pictures began syndicating it's shorts to television. The Three Stooges suddenly had a new generation of fans, and their popularity skyrocketed. Columbia was still distributing the final stooge shorts when their resurgence in popularity happened. Only problem, they no longer had the stooges under contract. Moe and Larry had decided they were retired and only agreed to go back to Columbia when the stooges were offered  feature films. Joe Besser was uninterested in returning, so Moe and Larry needed to find a third stooge.  It was Larry who discovered burlesque comedian Joe DeRita. Joe had been in showbusiness his entire life, performing on the stage since he was able to walk in his family's  stage act. He began acting in films in the 1940s, but usually in small parts and for poverty row studios. He actually did work for Columbia making four shorts for them. Because the early shorts with Curly were the most popular among the new Tree Stooges fans,  Joe voluntarily shaved his head and renamed himself Curly Joe. Their first film together was Have Rocket, Will Travel ( 1959 ). They would do four more feature films for Columbia, ending with The Outlaws Is Coming! ( 1965 ), co-starring Adam West just before he became Batman. Some children hurt themselves copying the antics of The Three Stooges on their friends, specifically poking each other in the eye. Moe decided to ban anything from the act that would be harmful if  done in real life, so the act became much tamer with just face slaps. in The Three Stooges Go Around The World In A Daze ( 1963 ) Moe even mentions this as part  of an inside joke. Other studios offered the Stooges work. 2oth Century Fox released Snow White and the Three Stooges ( 1961 )  which was their first film in color. They were also in Stanley Kramer's It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World ( 1963 ) for a split second as part of a throwaway gag.

In 1970 the Three Stooges reunited for a television series called Kook's Tour which was to be a travelogue featuring the trio with them visiting a different destination each week. Halfway through shooting the pilot, Larry Fine had a stroke that paralyzed half his body. The series was cancelled. Moe chose comedian Emil Sitka to replace Larry, but they never got around to working together. A three Stooges film called Make Love, Not War would have had them as POWs in a Japanese camp during The Second World War, but funding fell through for the film. In December of 1974 Larry had another stroke and fell into a coma. He died on  January 24, 1975. Meanwhile Moe, Curly Joe and Emil were signed to co-star in an R rated comedy called Blazing Stewardesses ( 1975 ). However, just prior to filming their scenes, Moe became sick. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and the trio had to pull out of the film. Their roles were recast to the surviving Ritz Brothers. Moe died on May 5, 1975, just four months after Larry. Joe DeRita  died of pneumonia on July 3, 1993.

[George-2.0]

HaHa, speak of the devil's... here they are, edged Charlie by a few points. Oh, the shame (but I tease the Stooge fans). Interesting write-up, interesting history.

[stethacantus]

THE LoC CURSE STRIKES AGAIN!

I had 35 entries written in advance of the list submission deadline. I had calculated the first four lists to get an idea what the bottom 15 would be, and began writing entries for #40 and up until I got to #5, at which time the three last minute lists came in. Many new entries knocking out the bottom 8.  For a second there I thought the Piits/Todd/Kelly teams were at risk, and they just survived elimination by a few points from other lists. Also, a lot of the 35 I had written entries for were knocked down in rank. This left missing entries randomly spaced instead of lumped at the top and bottom. Because of this I was just completing one of the entries a day before posting it, allowing me to post at a pace of four entries a day, with some of those entries being written weeks ago.  For some reason some entries took more an a day to write, having to research conflicting bio accounts on different sites, and sometimes conflicting accounts within the same Wikipedia page.  On average I was able to write two entries a day. Another problem was having no time to write anything. Ever since this pandemic started my days at work were spent sitting around for hours as our clients were using us a lot less. January through March is always our slow month, so I thought it would be really slow during a pandemic year, allowing me plenty of time to write entries. And it was super slow just prior to the 15th. Then all of a sudden we got slammed. I have been writing these entries during the commute, the hours between when I got home and went to sleep, and in the hours after I woke up and was getting ready for work. I got a bunch of shows backlogged on the DVR. Weekends? Out of the blue my past three weekends were blown by having to help my elder relatives return Christmas gifts that didn't fit, which should have not taken more than an hour, but they just ad to examine every shelf in every open store in the mall before we left. And since the fitting rooms are closed? the clothes they exchanged their gifts for didn't fit, so back to the mall again and another blown weekend.

But finally Thursday I completed the last entry for #1.  So today I planned to submit the wo in the morning and the other two in the evening and I was done. But today the wind did a number on the tree hanging over the power lines that supplies electricity o my house. Didn't damage the tree much, just the one limb hanging over the power line. I had just  posted #4, ten realized I had posted #3 in #4's place by mistake, so was about to fix it when the room went dark. Perfect timing, right? They didn't fix the line until an hour ago. So I am just going to post the top 4 right now even though most of you are probably asleep, and get it over with before the rest of the tree decides to attack the power line.

[stethacantus]

#4

Jim Carrey

109 points, 7 list, #1 RVR II

Born: January 17, 1962 Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
Stage Debut: 1977
Television Debut: April 17. 1981
Film Debut: May 6, 1983

A the age of eight Jim was convinced he was a talented stand up comedian after practicing impressions in front of a mirror.  He was so convinced that he wrote a letter to the Carol Burnett Show sating he was a maser of impressions and should be considered for a role on the show. In 1977 a fifteen year old Jim  convinced his father o drive him to Toronto so he could make his debut performance  at the recently opened Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club. And he bombed. He went home thinking that maybe he wasn't  talented after all. It took another two years before he had the courage to try again. This time he made the audience laugh, and his career as a stand-up truly began. In no time Jim graduated from open mike nights to headliner. He decided he had enough experience to audition for Saturday Night Live  for the 1980 season. (  The season Lorne and everyone else left. ) But much like what happened to Paul Reubens, he lost out to one of Jean Doumsanian's friends. Being in New York City allowed him to perform at the Improve, which got him on the show An Evening At The Improv.  Later that year he  was asked to portray one of the comedians in a made for Canadian television movie Introducing... Janet. He was on his way up, and he wanted what was then the ultimate goal of any stand-up comedian. And that was to get booked on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  He finally got booked in 1983. However, the producer of the show came to watch him perform, and did so on a night when he bombed again. By the end of the night he was unbooked from the tonight show appearance. He finally did get booked on the Tonight Show, but in a back door sort of way. NBC cast him as the lead in a sitcom called The Duck Factory where he played a cartoonist. Bing  on an NBC sitcom got him booked on the Tonight Show to promote it. He asked to do standup, but after his routine was finished he was not invited to sit at the couch, which was Johnny's stamp of approval for stand-up comedians. A few months later The Duck Factory was cancelled.

The cancellation of The Duck Factory freed Jim's schedule, allowing him to accept an offer to  be the leading man in a horror themed sex comedy Once Bitten ( 1985 ) which like most 80s sex comedies came and went  and was forgotten about as soon as it left the theaters. It did elevate his acting career from small bit parts in independent films to minor supporting roles in major films, such as Peggy Sue Got Married ( 1986 ), Dead Pool ( 1988 ), Earth Girls Are Easy ( 1988 ) and Pink Cadillac ( 1989 ). None of these movies gave him any name recognition. So he auditioned for Saturday Night Live again for the1985-86 season, got rejected, auditioned again for the 1986-87 season and got ejected again.  In 1989 Jim's friend Damon Wayans asked him to audition for  In Living Color,a sketch comedy series Fox had asked his brother Keenen Ivory to do for their fledgling network. Fox was still not established, and it's series tended to be cancelled after one season. However, In Living Color became one of Fox's first hits. For the first time Jim was able to show his  talents nationwide. He gained national attention from a character he had created called Fire Marshal Bill who caused fires when demonstrating fire safety to school kids.  Real firemen began to protest and the controversy made the news. Jim Carrey soon became a household name and began receiving offers for starring movie roles, but stayed with In Living Color until it's cancellation in 1994. And then his movie career blew up.

Jim had three massive hits in 1994. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was the first. It was a terrible film. Jim co-wrote the script and the gags are terrible.  The highlight of the film is Jim bending over and pretending his butt is talking. That's how terrible it was. However,  as bad as the film was, it allowed Jim to show off his comedic talents,  so his fans loved it, earning more than $100 million at the box office. Still, his career would never have lasted if he continued making films like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. What he needed was to showcase his talents in good movies.  And he got that with The Mask, one of the few comic book movies of the 90s that wasn't crap. The premise was an ancient mask that turns the wearer into a green faced demon with magic powers. Director Chuck Russell wanted the film to be a tribute to animator Tex Avery, basing the demon's tricks on gags from his cartoons.  It is unimaginable that anyone but Jim Carrey could have played the role. But as good as The Mask was, Dumb and Dumber, where Jim and Jeff Daniels play morons on a cross country trip, was Jim's first great comedy. Both films showed exactly what Carrey was capable of if given a good script to work with. Which is probably why he never wrote a movie script again,  and from 1994 on sought film projects written by others.

Jim was still on a roll in 1995, with the sequel Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls which doubled the box office of the first film, and as the Riddler in Batman Forever. And then his career nearly collapsed in 1996 with The Cable Guy. Both critics and fans complained about Jim playing a dark character ( What? The Riddler wasn't a dark character? ) and the film just barely broke $100 million. It became Carrey's most divisive film, with half the critics hating it, and half loving it. Carrey's fans were just as split. He bounced back with Liar Liar ( 1997 ) a comedy where Jim plays an unscrupulous lawyer who, due to his son's birthday wish, can no longer tell lies. It was followed by another hit, the science fiction film The Truman Show where Jim doesn't realize his entire life has been a televised reality show, and his home town is actually a massive set. It received wide critical acclaim,  and there was not only talk of it getting an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture,  but that  Carrey would get a Best Actor nomination as well. Neither nomination happened,  but the chance that Jim could have added an Oscar to his achievements put him on an Oscar chase.

The film Jim hoped would earn him an Oscar  was the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon ( 1999 ). Carrey went overboard with his method acting,  staying in character for months.  The end result was the best performance of his career.  His portrayal of Andy Kaufman was flawless,  and won unanimous critical acclaim.  It's a shame the film didn't as well. Critics gave it mixed reviews.  Worse, it did poorly in theaters, only earning $47 million against it's $85 million budget. Jim Carrey's winning streak had come to an end. And after all of that, the Academy snubbed him for a Best Actor nomination again. Carrey seemed to get back on track with How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000 ) which despite mixed critical reviews, earned $360 million.  But his next attempt at a straight drama, The Majestic ( 2001 ) was another box office failure.

It was clear that audiences had their preferences when it came to Jim Carrey films. Comedies like Bruce Almighty ( 2003 ), Fun With Dick & Jane ( 2005 ) and Yes Man ( 2008 ) which was a blatant retread of Liar Liar, were all box office hits. Family films like Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events  ( 2004 ), A Christmas Carol ( 2009 ) and Mr. Popper's Penguins ( 2011 ) were box office hits. Dramas and dark comedies either underperformed or bombed.  Even the critically acclaimed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ( 2004 ) barely made any money.  Recently he has returned to television with the Showtime series Kidding

[stethacantus]

#3

Marx Brothers

111 points, 6 lists, #3 stansimpson

Members Birth Dates:
Chico Marx ( Birth Name: Leonard Marx ): March 22, 1887 Manhattan, New York, U.S.A.
Harpo Marx ( Birth Name: Adolph Marx ):  November 23, 1888  Manhattan, New York, U.S.A.
Groucho Marx ( Birth Name Julius Marx ): October 2, 1890  Manhattan, New York, U.S.A.
Gummo Marx ( Birth Name: Milton Marx ): October 23, 1893  Manhattan, New York, U.S.A.
Zeppo Marx ( Birth Name: Herbert Marx ): February 25, 1901 Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.A.
Stage Debut: early 1900s
Film Debut: May 23, 1929
Television Debut: March 8, 1959


Minnie Marx was the daughter of show people, her mother a harpist and father a ventriloquist, both who performed at fairs. When her brother Al Shean wanted to get into vaudeville in the early 1900's, Minnie acted as his manager. Realizing her children were talented musicians, she pushed them into showbusiness as well, acting as their agents. The first was Julius, who after being fired from a series of jobs, was encouraged to sing on stage when he was 16. Around 1907 she had another son, Milton, join Julius on stage with another singer named Mabel O'Donnell as a group called The Three Nightingales.  In the summer of 1908 Minnie pushed her son Adolph to join the act when they were performing at Henderson Theater in Coney Island. In 1910 Minnie and her sister Hannah joined the group, which was renamed The Six Mascots.  The group toured the country, performing at small venues and often getting stiffed by the theater managers. One night while performing at a small theater in Texas, the audience got out of their seats and left the theater to watch a mule that had escaped it's owner and was running around the town square outside. Once the mule was captured, the audience returned to their seats. Short tempered, Julius immediately began insulting the audience. Instead of getting angry, the audience laughed. Minnie then realized  the Mascots had a future as a comedic act. Removing herself, Hannah and Mabel from the act and adding comedy routines between the songs, it was renamed The 3 Marx Brothers, soon to be called the 4 Marx Brothers when Leonard joined the group. One night the brothers were in a poker game that included comedian Art Fisher, who tried to distract them by giving them insulting nicknames, calling Leonard  the name Chico, Adolph the name Harpo, Julius the name Groucho, and Milton the name Gummo. The nicknames stuck, and soon became their professional stage names. They began developing individual personas and costumes. Minnie continued to manage the act, and in 1915 briefly pressured her youngest son Herbert to join his brothers on stage, but he soon left to become a mechanic. Gummo never liked performing. He finally left the act in 1918 to enlist in the first World War. Minnie then pressured Herbert to replace Gummo, who the brothers dubbed Zeppo.

Already worried about Gummo, Minnie began to realize all her sons were old enough for the draft. She  found  a loophole where farmers were excluded from the draft, so bought a poultry farm in Illinois and put her sons to work.  Gummo had not actually been deployed before the armistice was signed,  so returned safely, but refused to rejoin the act. Meanwhile, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo were fed up with chickens and eager to get back on the stage. The 4 Marx Brothers gradually became one of the most popular acts on the Vaudeville circuit, each year developing  new routines to add to their repertoire. In 1921 Minnie got an offer from a small film studio called Caravel Comedies to make a series of films featuring the 4 Marx Brothers. A two reel silent film called Humor Risk was shot and screened. And then vanished.  One story was that the only print of the film was left in the projection room when a janitor threw it out. The other and more likely story was the screening was a disaster, so Groucho marched into the projection room, took the only print, and burned it. Whatever happened to the film, the Marx Brothers decided they would never work in the film industry.

When they realized that they were the biggest draw in Vaudeville they decided it was time to make demands on how much they were being paid  to  E.F. Albee, the man who owned the Vaudeville circuits, and instead of getting a raise they got blackballed. They took their act to the competing  Shubert circuit   and managed to piss them off as well. The 4 Marx Brothers were back to performing at small venues when an offer came for them to take their act to Broadway. The idea was to write a musical around some of their routines.  I'll Say She Is  with  music and lyrics written by Will B Johnson and  book written by his brother Tom Johnson, debuted at the Lyric Theater  in Allentown, Pennsylvania, then in May of 1923 moved to Philadelphia where it ran for it's preview shows.  After a year of previews it finally opened on Broadway at the Casino Theater on May 19, 1924. Critics were planning to skip what seemed like a vaudeville act pretending to be theater, and review the opening of another show at the Winter Garden Theater. However, the other show was cancelled at the last minute, so the critics who needed to write an article for the next day's paper had little choice but to attend the Marx Brother's show. The critics loved it, and by the end of the week I'll Say She Is was the number one show on Broadway. It closed on February 7, 1925 after 313 performances. That same year The Marx Brothers debuted their second Broadway review, Cocoanuts, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin  and  book by George S Kaufman. It was also a huge hit, running for nearly three years. It was followed by another successful Broadway review,  Animal Crackers with music and lyrics  by Bert Kalmar  and  Harry Ruby, and  book  by George S Kaufman.

Minnie continued to push her sons into going into the movies.  Zeppo and Harpo had both appeared in movies without their brothers in 1925, but once they had success with their Broadway shows, decided they didn't need to make movies. In 1929 Minnie pushed her boys to sign  a five movie deal with Paramount Pictures. Paramount had studios in Astoria which would allow the brothers to shoot their movie adaption of Cocoanuts in the afternoon while performing Animal Crackers on stage in the evening. The Marx Brothers were mortified when they screened the final cut of Cocoanuts ( 1929 ) and offered to buy the film so they could destroy it. When the film was released to theaters they were relieved to see audiences laughing. On September 13, 1923 Minnie died of a massive stroke. The Marx Brothers were suddenly on their own. After completing their second film Animal Crackers ( 1930 ), Paramount convinced the brothers to move to California. They didn't have any more Broadway shows in production, so agreed to move. The next three films for Paramount, Monkey Business ( 1931 ), Horse Feathers ( 1932 ) and Duck Soup ( 1933 ) were original scripts not based on any previous Broadway show, although many of their Vaudeville routines were put into the scripts.

After the contract with Paramount was completed, Zeppo left the act, taking over as their new manager. There was a non exclusive five picture deal with M.G.M. ,as well as a deal with R.K.O. to adapt the Broadway play Room Service into a Marx brothers film. By the time the Marx Brothers reached the end of their M.G.M. contract they decided it was time to retire the act. However, three years later they were back. Chico owed a lot of money in gambling debts, and the only way to raise the money  to pay them off was making the Marx Brothers film A Night In Casablanca ( 1946 ). When it was completed, the brothers parted ways again, this time intent on having their own solo careers. Groucho was the first with the Carmen Maranda film Copacabana ( 1947 ). Harpo wrote his own treatment for a solo film. Discovering that Chico was once again in debt for gimbling, Harpo invited him to be in his film. However, United Artist refused to finance it unless they could get Groucho to be in it as well so they could release it as a Marx Brothers film. Groucho agreed, but only if his role was limited so he would only need to do a days work.  Love Happy ( 1949 ) would be the final film to be credited as a Marx Brothers movie.  All three brothers were in The Story Of mankind, along  with about 30 other major movie stars, all who shot five minute segments. Each brother appeared in separate segments, so basically does not count as a Marx Brothers film.

All three brothers found work in television, specifically Groucho with his game show You Bet Your Life. In 1959 Chico and Harpo co-starred together in an episode of General Electric Theater called The Incredible Jewel Robbery. The episode ended with a surprise camo by Groucho, who at the time was under contract with another network and could only appear with his brothers on condition he wasn't credited. It would be the only television appearance of The Marx Brothers, and the final time all three appeared together. Chico died two years later, October 11, 1961 from Arteriosclerosis.  Harpo died on September 28, 1964 from heart failure. Gummo died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 21, 1977. At the time Groucho was in such poor health that his family decided not to tell him. He was admitted to the hospital in June where he lingered for two months. Groucho Marx finally died from pneumonia on August 19, 1977, four months after Gummo, and two days after Elvis Presley which is why many news outlets neglected to report Groucho's passing.  Zeppo outlived all his brothers, passing away from lung cancer on November 30, 1979.

[stethacantus]

#2

Buster Keaton

115 points, 6 lists, #1 George-2.0

Born: October 5, 1895 Piqua, Kansas,  U.S.A.       
Birth Name: Joseph Keaton
Stage Name: Buster Keaton
Stage Debut: 1899
Film Debut: April 23, 1917
Television Debut: 1949

Myra Cutler was a performer in a traveling medicine show, where basically performers would attract crowds who were then pitched some sort of cure all medicine, then quickly pack up and leave town before the townsfolk who bought their snake oil figured out it didn't work. During one of the medicine shows stops Myra met Joe Keaton, and they were both soon in love. When Myra's father forbade her from wedding Joe, she and Joe eloped.  They started another medicine show with an up and coming magician named Harry Houdini called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company. While traveling through Piqua, Kansas, Myra went into labor, giving birth to their first child Joseph Keaton.  As a toddler Joseph fell down an entire flight of stairs,  but quickly got up as if nothing happened.  Houdini commented to the Keatons "That was sure a buster" which was slang for taking a fall.  Joe began calling Joseph "Buster" as a nickname,  and it soon stuck. When the medicine show shut down, Joe and Myra decided to take their act into Vaudeville under the name The Two Keatons. When three year old Joseph asked if he could join the act, Joe realized his ability to take a fall could be an asset.  So with Joseph adopting his nickname Buster as his stage name, the Two Keatons became The Three Keatons. At first Buster's contribution was to walk on stage and misbehave while his mother was trying to play a musical instrument,  ignoring his father's demand to leave the stage. Finally Joe would grab Buster and hurl him into the scenery.  Buster would return and begin ruining his mother's performance again when Joe hurled him into the orchestra pit. Finally Buster would return again,  and Joe would hurl him into the audience. Buster always maintained that he was never hurt doing this because he knew how to take a fall. In fact, he had so much fun doing this that he would often laugh when his father threw him. e began o notice audiences laughed a lot less when he laughed, so began keeping an emotionless face. As Buster grew older, the act grew more elaborate as Buster and Joe found different ways to seemingly hurt each other. One routine had Buster swinging a ball at the end of a chain while Joe was shaving with a strait razor, eventually smacking him in the head. The Three Keatons and their roughhouse act became one of Vaudeville's biggest draws. But by 1917 Joe had become an alcoholic.  One night he accidentally knocked Buster out cold during a performance. It was 21 year old Buster's decision to break up the act

No longer a vaudeville performer, Buster decided to start a new career as a Broadway performer. He had just landed a job performing in The Passing Show of 1917 when he ran into a friend from his vaudeville days, Lou Anger, who was working with comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.  At the time Arbuckle was under contract to producer Joseph M Schenck and was working out of Talmage Studios on East 48th Street. Lou invited Buster to the set to watch Roscoe film his latest comedy The Butcher Boy. When Roscoe realized Buster Keaton was on the set, he asked if Buster wanted to film a scene with him. After being explained what would happen in the scene, Buster was able to do his role in a single take. Schenck was impressed with Buster and asked him if he wanted to work in the film business permanently. By the end of the day Buster was under contract to Schenck, and working for Fatty Arbuckle. Within a few films he wasn't just a supporting player in the Arbuckle films, he was his partner, and Arbuckle and Keaton became  best friends. In 1918 Schenck moved production of his films to California to be part of the booming Hollywood film colony. Buster and Roscoe eventually made 14 films together when Schenck announced he was breaking the team up. He wanted Fatty Arbuckle to begin making feature films, and since there would no longer be Fatty Arbuckle shorts, he wanted to spin Buster Keaton off into his own series of shorts.

Keaton signed a new contract with Schenck. But his first film as a solo artist was not a short. The distributor of Schenck's films was Metro Pictures. Metro was currently producing the feature comedy  The Saphead  ( 1920 ) which was meant to be a Douglas Fairbanks  film. For scheduling reasons Fairbanks couldn't do it, but suggested to Metro they cast Buster Keaton in the role. So Metro asked Schenck to lend them Keaton. With The Saphead out of the way, Keaton moved into his own studio, which was actually formerly Chaplin's studio, and began work on what would be his classic 19 silent shorts. With such imaginative shorts as One Week ( 1920 ), The Playhouse, ( 1921 ) and Cops ( 1922 ), Keaton soon became just as popular as Chaplin himself.  In 1923 Schenck decided it was time for Keaton to begin making his own full length feature films. The first, Three Ages ( 1923 ), had three parallel   stories, one taking place in the stone age, one during roman times, and one in modern times, which were intercut. Keaton designed the film this was so that if it failed, he could take the three individual stories and release them as three shorts. The film was a success, so Buster went ahead with his next feature. In 1926 he made his masterpiece The General,  Reenacting the Civil War was  expensive enough, but Keaton inflated the budget with the most expensive scene shot in the entire silent era. It was a real locomotive and cars rolling over a real bridge that was really set ablaze and really collapsed into the river with bringing the entire real train down with it.

The General was so expensive to make that it needed to be a huge hit just to break even. Which was impossible because Schenck had just changed distributors to United Artists, and United Artists, for whatever reason, was having problems getting Keaton's films booked into theaters. Hmm, could it be that UA was co-owned by Keaton's rival Chaplin?  So basically The General underperformed and lost Schenck money.  Keaton could have made the film cheaper. Such as using models for the train wreck instead of building the train tracks leading from the main line to the river, building a bridge, setting fire to that bridge, and sending a real train over the bridge. Keaton had no idea how to budget his films, so Schenck hired a production supervisor to oversee Keaton's films.  The supervisor's name was Harry Brand, and because of him Keaton ended up making a film that was almost as expensive as The General, Steamboat Bill Jr. ( 1928 ). A period film that takes place in the old  South, it was to originally end with the river flooding the town.  Buster had worked out a way to make the film inexpensively, only needing to flood a coupe of sets. He was midway through shooting the ending when Schenck told him to stop. Harry Brand had just seen a newsreel about a flood on the Mississippi River that had killed a number of people. He immediately warned Schenck not to have a flood in Steamboat Bill Jr.  because it would be in bad taste to make fun of floods so soon after the tragedy. Worried, Schenck told Keaton to lose the ending. Keaton asked if he could change the flood to a hurricane, The few scenes already shot with flooded sets could be explained as storm surge. Schenck gave the green light. However, changing the ending meant having to build new sets that would breakaway with the high wind of the hurricane. Before Schenck knew it, the production cost ballooned, and once again Keaton had a film that was destined to lose a lot of money.  He was now facing bankruptcy. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was offering to buy Keaton's contract which would make up for the production cost. So Schenck sold Keaton to M.G.M. Keaton found out about this just as the were shooting the final stunt of the movie.  He knew that at M.G.M. he would no longer have any artistic freedom over his films. Despondent, he decided to go ahead with the stunt. It would involve the side of a building falling on top of Buster. They had saved the stunt for last just in case Buster got killed doing it, so they would still have the rest of the film without any vital missing scenes. Keaton wasn't even sure he would do it. But once he found out he was losing his freedom, he decided what the hell.

Keaton's first film for M.G.M. was The Cameraman on an idea Keaton pitched to the studio heads. It was to be shot on location in New York City,  but after crowds kept showing up at the locations M.G.M wanted to shoot in, Keaton convinced the studio to allow him to throw out the script and make the film the way he wanted to. Keaton's fist film for the studio allowed him creative control. The Cameraman ended up being a massive hit for M.G.M. Yet that was the end of creative control for Keaton. The studio kept handing him scripts he didn't like. Keaton knew the films he was doing for M.G.M. were well below the quality of the films he had done for Schenck. But he could not convince the studio there was anything wrong with the films as they were all box office hits. Just including his own gags into the films was a daily battle as the studio insisted he stick to the script. They also insisted on using stuntmen instead of allowing Keaton to do his own stunts. When Keaton was first notified of this, he responded by going to the set of a Lew Cody film, saying he was the stuntman,  then doing a stunt where he fell down a staircase.   Studio head Irving Thalberg was furious when he found out. Keaton got a $7.50 for doing the stunt, which he never cashed, but kept it hanging on his wall like a trophy. His marriage began to fail, and trouble at home combined with the frustration of doing films he didn't like drove him to drink. By 1932 he was an alcoholic. This eventually lead to M.G.M. firing him.

After going through rehab, Buster mad a couple of films for studios in Europe, Le Roi des Champs-Élysées ( 1934 ) in France and The Invader ( 1935 ) In England. Returning to America he found work at the only studio that would take him, Educational Pictures. There he made 16 low budget two reel comedies. In 1937 he returned to M.G.M. who took him back, but only as a gag writer.  Since he wasn' a performer at M.G.M., he was free to accept roles at othwer studios. In 1939 Columbia Pictures hired him to make a series of 10 shorts.  The same year 2oth Century Fox asked Buster to play a small role as himself in Hollywood Cavalcade ( 1939 ), an Alice Faye comedy that takes place during the silent era. In 1940 he got fourth billing in the film The Villain Still Pursued Her, a parody of a melodramatic play. However, this is as fat as Buster got to having a comeback. As soon as he finished his 10 contracted films for Columbia, he decided to retire from making shorts.  It wasn't that he didn't like making short films, but that Columbia and the other studios insisted on low budgets and short schedules for their shorts, which made it impossible to make anything near the quality of his silent shorts. He was still getting roles in major films, but with each film the size of the role decreased. In 1946 he had an offer from a Mexican movie studio to make the comedy El Moderno Barba Azul ( The Modern Day Bluebeard ) which ended up being the final feature film to give him star billing. In 1950 he was asked to play himself again. Tis time in the movie Sunset Blvd. where he was on screen for a few seconds, portrayed as one of Norma Desmond's washed up former Silent Film stars. His movie career had bottomed out. He was once one of Hollywood's biggest stars, now he was a has been just barely making enough to survive on the meager money he made writing gags for M.G.M. films,

While his movie career was over, he found a brand new career in the new format of Television. For a while he had his own sitcom, The Buster Keaton Show  ( a.k.a. Life With Buster ) but gave it up for the same reason he stopped making shorts, because of low budgets and needing to churn out an episode a week. In Britain episodes from the series were edited into a  feature film The Misadventures of Buster Keaton     He was more than willing to guest star on other television shows, mostly to be interviewed and/or perform his old vaudeville routines. On Rheingold Theater he did a half hour drama called The Awakening, the first and only time he did a strait drama, proving he had untapped acting ability. He had a chance to work with Charlie Chaplin in the movie Limelight, but as already mention, it was pulled from theaters early in it's run. By the mid 50s advertising companies were asking him to make television commercials. While no linger than a minute in length, he was given decent budgets and was not rushed on time. Television commercials became his newest passion, and his commercials aired a lot during the 50s and 60s.

He began getting offers to write, direct and star in industrial films. So many were made that to this day Buster Keaton films historians didn't know about keep turning up. In 1957  Paramount paid him $50,000 for the rights to do a film about his life, The Buster Keaton Story starring Donald O'Conner as Buster. He was also hired to be the film's technical advisor, but didn't really listen to him, and ended up making a film that is factually inaccurate, and bares  little resemblance to Busters actual life story. Buster didn't seem to mind as the money he made on the film allowed him to retire in comfort. However, he continued to work anyway. He continued to work on his commercials and industrial films, continued to guest star on television, including an episode of The Twilight Zone, and his movie career began to rekindle. He was asked to be the comedy relief in most of the Frankie and Annette Beach Blanket movies, making him popular with yet another generation. He was once again getting small roles in major films like It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World ( Which was unfortunately cut short during the editing process ) and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum ( 1966 ). He was busy working up until his final days. On February 1, 1966 he died of Lung Cancer.

STATUE!

[stethacantus]

#1

Laurel and Hardy

129, 8 list, #1 Stethacantus

Team Birth Dates:
Stan Laurel ( Birth Name: Arthur Jefferson  ): June 16, 1890 Ulverston, Lancashire, England
Oliver Hardy ( Birth Name: Norvell Hardy): January 18, 1892 Harlem, Georgia, U.S.A.
Film Debut: October 8, 1927
Stage Debut: 1940

This is a shock. I know I had Laurel and Hardy at #1 on my list, but I was fully expecting them to be in the mid 20s on this LoC at best. As far as I  can tell, there are only two other Laurel  and Hardy fans on this site. Of course,  this entire LoC doesn't make sense. About the only entry that is where they belong are the Three Stooges. Any normal slapstick list would be Chaplin at #1, Keaton at #2 ( or possibly tied for first ) Lloyd at #3, Langdon at #4 and The Three Stooges at #5. It wouldn't be missing  Ben Turpin, Fatty Arbuckle, Anita Garvin,  Max Linder, WC Fields, Ford Sterling,  Eric Campbell, Margaret Dumont or The Ritz Brothers. It wouldn't have.... well, let's not mention any more names as it tends to offend those kind enough to send in a list. But it wouldn't have comedians normally not associated with slapstick.  Thank God I thought of the rule of no animated characters or puppets, because otherwise I think this LoC would end up being one third Muppets. Am I happy Laurel and Hardy came in at #1? A  little, but a bit more annoyed. Because when I did the Laurel and Hardy LoC  I wrote just about everything  about them.  Had they ranked outside the top 5 then I could have gotten away with just writing a paragraph, like I did with Monty Python, because I had already written extensively about them  and their history in the previous LoCs. But at #1? Now I have to write quite a few paragraphs, and somehow come up with something that wasn't mentioned in the Laurel and Hardy LoC.

Lets start with a brief recap of how Laurel and Hardy came to be.  Laurel came from the music halls of Europe where he was part of the Fred Karno troupe that also included Charlie Chaplin. After the troupe toured America, Stan decided to stay here as a solo act. He eventually made his way rom Vaudeville to motion pictures, eventually ending up at Hal Roach Studios. Hardy went into the movie business mostly because is friends dared him to, began as a heavy in many Chaplin rip-off films, and ended up at Hal Roach Studios. Both Laurel and Hardy ended up as the stock players for James Finlayson, a comedian Roach was grooming to be the next Harold Lloyd. Laurel and Hardy worked so well together that they decided to turn  Finlayson, Laurel  and Hardy into a team. And then the studio decided to only have Laurel and Hardy in the team, and  reduce Finlayson to their foil. And that is basically  how Laurel  and Hardy was born.  Their fourth film as Laurel and Hardy was one of the greatest comedies of the silent era, Battle of the Century. For a half century it was considered a lost film, with only the boxing match from reel one and an edited version of the pie fight from reel 2 still existing. However, in 2015 a copy of the second reel was discovered. So here is the nearly complete version of Battle of The Century with the complete unedited pie fight.

At Roach studios Laurel and Hardy made 21 silent shorts, 40 sound shorts, 13 feature films, 1  guest appearance in another comedian's feature film, 4 guest appearances in other comedians shorts, 4 lend outs to M.G.M for three feature films and one promotional short, and one lend out to R.K.O. for a feature film. Not to mention the 11 films they appeared together in prior to Roach officially teaming them. In the end Roach and Stan Laurel began fighting over the production of the feature films, and Laurel ended up leaving Hal Roach studios, taking Oliver Hardy with him. They signed a  non exclusive contract with 20th Century Fox and made 6 features there. However, unlike at Roach Studios where they crafted their own comedy routines, Fox wanted Laurel and Hardy to be just actors in the scripts they handed them. The comedy quality of the Fox films wee way below the comedy quality of the Roach films. During their days at Fox Laurel and Hardy did two films for M.G.M. While they did give them script writers they approved of, they were still stuck with sticking to a script. And M.G.M. insisted on their scripts following a strict formula.  And there was interference. Government officials removed jokes from Air Raid Wardens ( 1943 ).   The M.G.M. films were just as bad as the Fox films. Fox discontinued their B film division, which meant Laurel and Hardy's contract was  cancelled. Laurel vowed not to sign with any studio unless he was allowed the same artistic freedom he had at roach. The problem was, no studio was willing to allow them that freedom.  In the meantime, NBC  made them an offer for their own weekly radio show. They recoded a pilot episode on March 6, 1944.

Ultimately, NBC decided not to pick up the radio show as a series. The pilot never aired. The final film Laurel and Hardy made for Fox, The Bullfighters turned out to be a hit. 20th Century Fox  asked Laurel and Hardy to sign a new contract with them. Stan wanted creative control or he would not sign, and Fox refused to give it to them.  So Stan and Ollie went to the only place left they still had creative control over their comedy. The stage. They first began performing on stage  for benefits in 1940.  They developed a stage show that included The Drivers License Sketch where  Stan and Ollie go to a police station to renew a drivers license and end up irritating the cop interviewing them.  In 1947 they did a tour of Europe, during which they announced their next film would be called Robin Hood. But the film never happened. The tour took a toll on Stan's health. He spent a year recuperating, during which he encouraged Hardy to accept film roles without him. Hardy ended up partnering with John Wayne for one film, The Fighting Kentuckian ( 1949 ). In 1950 Laurel and Hardy signed to do a movie in Europe called A-Toll K. Stan took ill before filming began, showed up to the set not fully recovered, and contracted other illnesses during the filming.  Yet completed the film feeling obligated to honor their contract. Besides, the European producers were giving them creative control of their scenes and allowed Stan to have rewrites to his satisfaction on the script. The only problem was Stan looked so sick and elderly during the film, it is almost impossible to find it funny. They were suppose to star in a film for R.K.O. called Two Tickets To Broadway, but A-Toll K ran four months behind schedule, so R.K.O. had them replaced. Once Laurel recovered they went back on tour with a live version of their short Night Owls  adapted for the stage calledA Spot Of Trouble. Hardy's health began to decline and he had trouble walking, so Stan wrote a stage adaption of their short  County Hospital  under the title Birds of a Feather  which had Hardy bedridden for the entire sketch. Their last stage performance was on May 17, 1954. On December 1, 1954  friends of Laurel and Hardy tricked them into appearing on an episode of This Is Your Life,which would be their only American television appearance. Hal Roach's son, Hal Roach Jr. developed a television series for them called Laurel and Hardy's Fabulous Fables , each episode to be shot on color film and would give Stan full creative control. However, the show was postponed when Stan had a minor stroke and needed to recuperate. On September 14, 1956 Oliver Hardy suffered a major stroke which left him bedridden and unable to talk. He had two more strokes and fell into a coma, dying on August 7, 1957. Stan survived him by eight  years. He died on February 23, 1965 after having a heart attack.

STATUE!

ALSO CONEY ISLAND'S SPOOK-A-RAMA!

[George-2.0]

Weird list, really weird list. Not that there weren't some greats here, but some of the rankings and the missing are surprising. I mean, I never was into WC Fields, but I'd have thought he would have had enough popularity to have made the 50. And Keaton being left off 2 lists is baffling.

But thanks for hosting stethacantus and for the informative write-ups. It was an entertaining read.

Mine

1. Buster Keaton
2. Harold Lloyd
3. Abbott & Costello
4. Marion Davies
5. Harry Langdon
6. Ossi Oswalda
7. Gilda Radner
8. Jerry Lewis
9. Charley Chase
10. Bebe Daniels
11. Pitts & Todd (Zasu Pitts & Thelma Todd)
12. Todd & Kelly (Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly)
13. Mabel Normand
14. Vernon Dent
15. Jim Carrey
16. Chris Farley
17. Charlie Chaplin
18. Lucille Ball
19. Laurel & Hardy
20. Colleen Moore
21. Max Linder
22. Rowan Atkinson
23. Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
24. Carol Burnett
25. Our Gang (specifically "The Little Rascals" troupe I grew up watching on TV: Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Buckwheat, Porky)

Others considered: Constance Talmage, Snub Pollard, Lupe Velez, Lloyd Hamilton, Catherine O'Hara, Red Skelton

[RVR II]

1-Jim Carrey
2-Chris Farley
3-Chevy Chase
4-Mel Brooks
5-John Candy
6-Lesslie Nielson
7-Bill Murray
8-Benny Hill
9-Penn & Teller
10-Robin Williams
11-Steve Martin
12-Will Ferrell
13-Tim Conway
14-John Ritter
15-Martin Short
16-Monty Python
17-Tom Hanks
18-Dick Van Dyke
19-The 3 Stooges
20-Abbott & Costello
21-Laurel & Hardy
22-Seinfeld
23-Groucho Marx
24-Red Skelton
25-Charlie Chaplin

[stethacantus]

Thanks to everyone who contributed a list, no matter what was on it.  Here is my list

#1 Laurel and Hardy
#2 Jacques Tati
#3 Buster Keaton
#4 Harold Lloyd
#5 Charlie Chaplin
#6 Mae Busch
#7 James Finlayson
#8 Mable Normand
#9 Jackie Chan
#10 Tim Conway
#11 Lucille Ball
#12 Harry Langdon
#13 Peter Sellers
#14 ZaSu Pitts ( solo )
#15 WC Fields
#16 Marx Brothers
#17 Carol Burnett
#18 Arthur Housman
#19 Edgar Kennedy
#20 Abbott and Costello
#21 Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle
#22 Cantinflas
#23 Rowan Atkinson
#24 Anita Garven
#25 Lincolon Perry ( Stepin Fetchit )

[Charles Castle]

Bite me, I love Tommy Boy, it's great dumb fun, one of those 'pick-me-up when I'm down' types of movie.

There is a big difference between a movie being a good comedy and a movie being a bad comedy that the comedians in it save.  Animal House is an example of a good comedy. If you were to change it's cast you would still get laughs. Same thing with Airplane. Most of the Abbott & Costello films are examples of bad comedies. Take out Abbott and Costello and the Romcom part is the worst. A&C saved those movies by bringing in their own routines, throwing in ad libs,  and generally making their dismal lines funny. You have to ask yourself if Tommy Boy would still be funny if someone else was in the lead role. Was it funny without Farley and Spade, or was it funny because of them?

This all sounds like a case FOR them being a good comedy team. Elevating an otherwise average project.

No?