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This topic is for those who enjoy the classic comedy actors and actresses of early film and television, who had cut their teeth, in their youth (or young adulthood) on the vaudeville stage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaudeville).


Most of us would be familiar with the bigger names...the great comedy and slapstick comedy legends: The Three Stooges (which would include Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, Curley Howard, Larry Fine, Joe Besser and Curly Joe DeRita), Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, The Marx Brothers (which would include Groucho, Harpo, Zeppo, Chico, AND Gummo), Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, etc.


But there were others...men and women who later, after the vaudeville medium dried up and lost the public interest for theatrical entertainment, took to Hollywood. They would star first in silent and then the more popular "talkie" movies (all black & white in those days), and some would be seen in news reels which were usually shown as part of a whole-day theater experience (news, cartoons, other small featurettes, and then the big movie). You have seen a sample of that if you watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit, when Eddie Valiant and Roger ditch the Toon Patrol by going into a theater.


These others I mention did not necessarily gain the lasting fame that the bigger names did, but they achieved some second-hand...through being spoofed and caricatured by the classic big-screen short-subject cartoons of the time period (the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, MGM cartoons, and even by Disney).


One of the most famous vaudeville comedians, who was spoofed a few times by Looney Tunes (and the incomparable voice talents of the late Mel Blanc), was Philadelphia Pennsylvania native Lewis Lehr. He was born in the U.S., but developed a character for his routines which quickly caught on...a portly dunderhead with a stereotyped German accent. He wrote and produced several short subject comedy pieces which appeared as "news" on theatrical news reels, always narrated by him in his characteristic (and fake) German accent. He even appeared in a few (as a portly fellow with bad teeth and a scruffy mustache). Sadly, he passed away in 1950...much too soon for so funny and irreverent a fellow as he was! References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Lehr and http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0499861/bio

Lew Lehr's most famous signature line "monkeys are the craziest peoples" was played up to much humor by the Looney Tunes (along with a caricature of his appearance in the cartoons)...and never more famously than in the 1948 Porky Pig/Sylvester Cat short "Scaredy Cat" (http://looneytunes.wikia.com/wiki/Scaredy_Cat). At the end, a mouse character, looking vaguely like Lehr (and with a Napoleonesque military chapeau on his head), pops out of the wall and smacks Sylvester on the head with a wooden mallet, knocking him cold. He then looks at the audience and says (it's an audio clip...click it and listen):

http://www.megawavs.com/play.aspx?id=1944

And here he is:








But what did the real Lehr actually look and sound like? And what were his comedy routines like? Here are a couple of great examples, from some of the shorts he did for theatrical news reels, which were so darned hilarious! These are rare looks into the comedy past of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and of when comedians could be VERY funny without sinking into lewd, profane and offensive humor. And yet, Americans probably loved Lehr's stuff even more because a lot of it featured during World War II, when we were in the midst of fighting Nazi Germany and the rest of the Axis. They certainly got a charge out of humorous caricatures of Germans you realize. lol












Got anything to contribute? Post away!

I don't really have anything to contribute, but I love those videos, the first one especially.

It's my personal favorite too. lol