Comedy influences (the early years part 3)

My final comedy influence from my early years were some great old comics from the 1930's and 40's. No, not Bob Hope, I never found him that funny especially as he got older, or Bing Crosby, or any of those types. A huge influence on my young comic mind was these three:

Larry, Moe, and Curly. It did not come any funnier to me than these three. They still crack me up today. I knew the violence they comitted on one another was not real and that it was for comic effect and boy did I love it. The set ups were classic, the delivery was gold, and the pay off was out of this world to me. It was all funny, everything from the opening music to the end credits I was hooked. Other kids liked the Little Rascals, I was a Stooges kid, still am, in fact until just a few years ago I carried a Three Stooges fan club card in my wallet, pretty hot huh ladies. No. no, don't all of you line up at once.

Unfortunately not all Stooges were created equal. Shemp was no Curly but he was okay.


This one was a simply not funny to me ever.

And this one was a crime against nature, an abomination in the eyes of comedy.

Other old comics I loved and that they showed alot on the TV stations in Detroit in the mid and late 60's were Laurel and Hardy. They cracked me up too but the fat one scared me sometimes, I was afraid he was going to blow a gasket and snap Laurel's pencil neck.

And finally, I also loved these two, Abbott and Costello. Not only did they do physical comedy, they also had great dialogue. Their Who's on first? routine is nothing short of comedy brilliance. Some of their later movies sucked, hell they looked so tired in some of them that when you watch them you worry that they might die on camera, but when you need the filthy lucre, you need the filthy lucre and they must have needed the filthy lucre badly.