FReeper Canteen ~ Favorite Comedians - The 1920's ~ 06 NOV 2007

Serving The Best Troops In The World | The Canteen Crew

[laurenmarlowe]

 

 

 

 

The FReeper Canteen Presents

~Favorite Comedians~

The 1920's, Vaudeville, and Silent Films

Welcome to the FReeper Canteen! It's great to have you with us!!
Thank you to all of our Troops, Veterans, and their families for allowing us to entertain you!

Vaudeville was a genre of variety entertainment prevalent in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Developing from many sources, including concert saloons, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums, and literary burlesque, vaudeville became one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America.

Each evening's bill of performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts. Types of acts included musicians both classical and popular, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, acrobats, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and short films.

Blossom Seeley and Bennie Fields

Eddie Cantor

Vaudeville Follies

The term "vaudeville," itself, referring specifically to American variety entertainment, came into common usage after 1871 with the formation of "Sargent's Great Vaudeville Company" of Louisville, Kentucky.

Benjamin Franklin Keith, however, earns the distinction of "the father" of American Vaudeville. Keith began his career in show business working variously as a grifter and barker with traveling circuses in the 1870's, and for dime museums in New York. He returned to his home state of Massachusetts and in 1883 established his own museum in Boston featuring "Baby Alice the Midget Wonder" and other acts. His success in this endeavor allowed Keith to build the Bijou Theatre.

At the Bijou, Keith established a "fixed policy of cleanliness and order." He strictly forbade the use of vulgarity or coarse material in his acts "so the that the house and the entertainment would directly appeal to the support of women and children.

There was no abrupt end to vaudeville, though the form was clearly staggering by the late 1920s. The continued growth of the lower-priced cinema in the early 1910s dealt the heaviest blow to vaudeville.

Lured by greater salaries and less arduous working conditions, many early film and old time radio performers, such as W. C. Fields, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, Edgar Bergen, and Jack Benny, used the prominence they first gained in live variety performance to vault into new media. Other vaudevillians who entered in vaudeville's decline, including The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, Kate Smith, Bob Hope, and Rose Marie used vaudeville as a launching pad for later careers.

Silent comedy films placed a heavy emphasis on visual and physical humor, and what are known as "sight gags", to tell a story and entertain the viewer. Many of these physical gags were exaggerated forms of violence, and came to be called "slapstick".  The term "slapstick" refers to a doubled, or "tricked", hitting stick that makes a loud sound upon (light) contact with another person. The "prat fall", slipping on a banana peel, getting soaked with water, and getting a pie thrown in one's face are all classic examples of slapstick comedy devices.

Mack Sennett (creator of the Keystone Cops) and Hal Roach were two of the most famous producers of silent comedies. Actors from this era are now legendary: Ben Turpin, Mabel Normand, Edna Purviance, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Charley Chase,  and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

Charlie Chaplin and the "Table Ballet"

Buster Keaton in "The General"

Keystone Cops in "Bangville Police"

Harold Lloyd In "A Sammy In Siberia"

Laurel And Hardy in "You're Darn Tootin'"

W. C. Fields in "Pool Sharks"

In the early years of "talkie" films beginning in 1927, a few actors continued to act silently for comedic effect, most famously Charlie Chaplin, whose last great "silent" comedies City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1935) were both made in the sound age. Another late example was Harpo Marx, who always played a mute in the Marx Brothers' films.

Another important legacy of silent film comedy was the humor in animated cartoons. Even as live-action comedy moved towards a focus on the verbal humor of Abbott and Costello and Groucho Marx, animated cartoons took up the entire range of slapstick gags, frenetic chase scenes, visual puns, and exaggerated facial expressions previously seen in silent comedies.

These devices were most pronounced in the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons from Warner Brothers directed by Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, and Friz Freleng and in the MGM Cartoons of Tex Avery and the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

Bosko And Bruno

Felix The Cat - The Stone Age

Chimpy Chimp - Hosin' Around

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT~Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allies military and the family members of the above. Honoring those who have served before. 

Please remember: The Canteen is a place to honor and entertain our troops. The Canteen is family friendly, and please leave politics at the door. Let's have fun!

We pray for your continued strength, to be strong in the face of adversity.
We pray for your safety, that you will return to your families and friends soon.
We pray that your hope, courage, and dignity remain unbroken, so that you may show others the way.

God Bless You All ~ Today, Tomorrow and Always

 

 

 

[swmobuffalo]

“We do indeed, in all its forms. What about it?’

Just needed a clarification. I couldn’t remember what it was.

See #28 for the rest of the story!

[swmobuffalo]

Hey, how are you tonite?

Are you working?

[laurenmarlowe]

[Old Sarge]

Hmmm... if a kid’s getting one in AIT, he’s a screw-up. If he gets one afterwards, it can actually be a compliment: the powers-that-be think you’re salvageable, and are just smacking your head back into adjustment before it gets REAL ugly.

[TASMANIANRED]

Stacked too..

[TASMANIANRED]

Some of the songs were something else.

Don’t ever get the “Monkey,dunky doo” trapped in your head.

[Tanniker Smith]

Another favorite of mine (it's circled the internet more than a few times, but I always chuckle):

Is hell exothermic or endothermic?

Theorem: Hell is exothermic.

Proof:
First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...
Thus, hell is exothermic.

[Kathy in Alaska]

I wish...LOL! Catching up is a good thing. I did a bunch of that yesterday and much of the night.

[TASMANIANRED]

Foster’s Brother...Cactus Tom Brooks was an Icon on local TV in Louisville.

Had a couple of shows..

[MS.BEHAVIN]

*smooch*
Poor Baby!
What happened?

[wizr]

I taped 3 hours of Buster Keaton many years ago (from PBS). I still watch it from time to time.

He got his nickname from a family friend, Harry Houdini. After seeing little Master Keaton doing one of his pratfalls, Houdini said he was a real “buster”.

[Radix]

I have seen every single Marx Brothers movie in a movie house except for one.

Somehow, I have never been able to actually see “Coconuts”.

I think that it was Animal Crackers that was finally released more than 30 years ago that helped make my almost complete viewings possible.

 

From Wikkepedia.......

Forty-four years after its original release, in June 1974, Animal Crackers was once again released in theaters. The film had been tied up in a copyright dispute since 1957, when Universal Pictures -- which owned all pre-1948 Paramount films -- renewed the copyright for the picture but neglected to renew the music rights or the rights to the original Broadway play. The 1974 re-release was big news at the time since the Marx Brothers were enjoying a resurgence in popularity among younger audiences. At the New York City re-release premiere, which Groucho attended, a riot broke out and he required police escort.

[Tanniker Smith]

Stacked too..

Can't argue with you there!

[TASMANIANRED]

Evening Radix.

That kind of Marxist is ok..

[TASMANIANRED]

Cold season is upon us.

[AZamericonnie]

Finally done with dinner!:)

Thank Lauren for this evenings thread! What a cute idea! *Hugs*

[luvie]

My favorite show which just happens to be funny to me
is “Monk”.

I think I relate to him! :D

Great thread, Lauren and a subject that all can “get into”!

[luvie]

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[luvie]

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[luvie]

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