Laurel & Hardy

A Paean to Laurel and Hardy

This always happens, doesn't it?  Last week it occurred to me that I hadn't seen a single Laurel & Hardy short in years, despite there being 6,000 cable channels scrambling for content.  They are my all time favorite comedy team, and while it's difficult to separate nostalgia for my own experience from honest merit, I think their comedy is timeless. As a tad we spent Christmas day at relatives where us kids watched the annual showing of Babes in Toyland (1934), a Laurel and Hardy that had too much singing for my taste, but since it was only shown once a year, it was relatively fresh.  My favorites, like A Chump at Oxford, Saps at Sea, and many others were a daily staple on Chicagoland television, and kids could, and did, reenact scenes verbatim .  Imagine my glee when, on this Christmas day, I landed on a channel about to show The Bullfighters, a L&H feature I had never seen before.  That's amazing.  I recorded it, and clipped two scenes that pretty much contain all the elements of their brand of humor.  Here's another short clip I found too.