Three wonderful minutes of Stan & Ollie.

[Glebe]

Laurel and Hardy - The Masters Of Comedy.

Absolute tonic.

[ishantbekeepingit]

Those are some spectacular collapses.

[Endicott]

Typewriter --> glass of water --> into hat. Perfect.

[the science eel]

Oh God, I love them so much.

It looks like we're going to get to a full hundred years of appreciation - can you say that about any other comic(s)?

[gilbertharding]

Very good, obviously - but that video just brings it home that at least 50% of their comedy comes from the timing. Very often, it's the pause *after* the fall. The slow, lingering look at the aftermath. Ollie pulls a face. And then gets another brick to the bonce.

[Glebe]

It looks like we're going to get to a full hundred years of appreciation - can you say that about any other comic(s)?

They still make me laugh out loud, the heart-gladdening legends!

[Video Game Fan 2000]

The bit from Help Mates (I think) where the flour falls on Babe's head, love it. Except also the end the drum falls on his head with a wince inducing crunch. Not the middle landing with a hollow bomp!, but the firmest bit near the bottom followed by the "whole life flashing before his eyes" scrunched up face and howl of frustration. Classic L&H "top that" logic. Not even a microsecond gap for a laugh from the flour - the overconfident "i'll get it", then covered by flour and absolutely brained by the drum in the same second of motion.

[the science eel]

The County Hospital montage there had me breathless with laughter.

[Twonty Gostelow]

A well known image but their friendship shines through in it. The Bull Inn in Bottesford, 1952.



A few months ago the pub was refurbished and now has a Laurel and Hardy wall.

[non capisco]

Very often, it's the pause *after* the fall. The slow, lingering look at the aftermath. Ollie pulls a face. And then gets another brick to the bonce.

The timing of the falling bricks in 'Dirty Work' will never fail to get me good. Ollie just sitting there, looking up the chimney in resigned expectation at his lot. Love 'em.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

One of the things that L&H mastered is when timing has to be precise, and when it can totally be disregarded. Big Business is like this - full of stuff with set ups, reactions, pay offs and also just outright chaos where shit is smashed immediately. After a century of imitation the element of the unexpected is still there.

I rewatched Help Mates because of the montage, and the final sequence is one of the funniest series of images of ever put on film.

But whats get me about it is the effect on ending those slow, visual and absurd gags after the madness of them destroying the kitchen. Up until that point the short is chaotic so by the time you get to the Python/Mr Show-esque finale its even funnier because you're exhausted by what you've just seen. The stillness and slowness of the final scene is downright arty by their standards. One of the gags is that Stan doesn't fall in the hole and strides out of it like its not there. After the chaos and childish violence of the middle part of the short, its almost unbearably funny to me. Their routine pushed to its most absurd, destructive extreme and they're still hanging on to their dignity at the very end. Seems corny to say this but - Beckett must have loved it, surely.

[Blumf]

The timing of the falling bricks in 'Dirty Work' will never fail to get me good. Ollie just sitting there, looking up the chimney in resigned expectation at his lot. Love 'em.

That line by the stiff afterwards is brilliantly over the top in it's harshness too "Somewhere an electric chair is waiting"

I'm quiet partial to the escalating retaliations in Tit for Tat, the way it's all very polite and everybody watches and waits as each act of petty aggression is enacted.

[Nowhere Man]

^
Ollie was looking really good in 1935

I really wish they could have continued to make those Hal Roach shorts forever, although I absolutely love the likes of Sons of the Desert, Way Out West and Blockheads (their three most perfect feature length movies)

Anyway, thanks to Glebe for starting this thread, L&H are the perfect antidote to the shiteness in the world

[the science eel]

I came late to Blockheads, probably because the other two you mention were (are?) the two that fans and critics talk up the most.

But it's such a wonderful film, kind of a 'greatest hits', really. Not a moment wasted, so much to love.



Actually...maybe it takes a while to get going, with all the war stuff.

[the science eel]

[Artie Fufkin]

I can feel an L&H-athon coming on this weekend....

[Nowhere Man]

The first Laurel and Hardy thing I watched was Brats when it aired on BBC2 in the early-mid 00's as a bit of early afternoon entertainment. I was probably about 7 years old and utterly mesmerised. Not only by these strange characters, but also by the almost dreamlike quality of the world they inhabited. That's a feeling I get everytime I watch a classic L&H short or film. Suddenly I am transported to this completely different place. The most beautiful thing about their world is that no matter how much trouble these characters land themselves in, there is always the sense that they have a huge affection for each other. I was very relieved to find out that was true of them in real life as well, as heroes in reality can fairly often disappoint.

No matter how nice of a mess Stan and Ollie find themselves in, they stick together through thick and thin, come what may. That was the most comforting thing in the world to me when I was 7, and I still feel that same way at 27, after knowing all of the shit that life can throw at you. Those films are like a portal to an alternate universe for me, everytime life gets a little heavy, L&H are always there. Not of this time, and not of this place. But in their own little dreamlike 30s world, just waiting to be rediscovered.

I watched all of those films with my Grandma growing up, who had been a huge fan herself since she was very young. Those were some of the happiest memories of my childhood. Five years ago, during her final days in a hospital bed with dementia, I went to see her knowing it would be the last time I saw her. But the moment I started playing her favourite Laurel and Hardy clip, (the dancing scene from Way Out West) her eyes lit up. The years rolled back, and she was laughing with joy as we did years before, and how I imagine she herself would have when she was much younger. It was a wonderful moment, because it was further proof of how time stands still when you enter the dreamlike world of Laurel and Hardy.

[Bronzy]

love it when the fat one gets cunted in the head

[Dr Rock]

I watched all of those films with my Grandma growing up, who had been a huge fan herself since she was very young. Those were some of the happiest memories of my childhood. Five years ago, during her final days in a hospital bed with dementia, I went to see her knowing it would be the last time I saw her. But the moment I started playing her favourite Laurel and Hardy clip, (the dancing scene from Way Out West) her eyes lit up. The years rolled back, and she was laughing with joy as we did years before, and how I imagine she herself would have when she was much younger. It was a wonderful moment, because it was further proof of how time stands still when you enter the dreamlike world of Laurel and Hardy.

Beautiful, beautiful..they spread so much happiness. There's nothing more pure and good than spreading happiness.

I also really liked the recent Steve Coogan/John C. Reilly biopic.

I'm off to have L&H marathon. Nobody touches them.

[Glebe]

^Ollie was looking really good in 1935

I really wish they could have continued to make those Hal Roach shorts forever, although I absolutely love the likes of Sons of the Desert, Way Out West and Blockheads (their three most perfect feature length movies)

Anyway, thanks to Glebe for starting this thread, L&H are the perfect antidote to the shiteness in the world

Thanks man, accidentally stumbled on that clip and immediately though of posting it here! I think Blockheads might be my fave L&H film, thought I've not watched it for yonks.

I watched all of those films with my Grandma growing up, who had been a huge fan herself since she was very young. Those were some of the happiest memories of my childhood. Five years ago, during her final days in a hospital bed with dementia, I went to see her knowing it would be the last time I saw her. But the moment I started playing her favourite Laurel and Hardy clip, (the dancing scene from Way Out West) her eyes lit up. The years rolled back, and she was laughing with joy as we did years before, and how I imagine she herself would have when she was much younger. It was a wonderful moment, because it was further proof of how time stands still when you enter the dreamlike world of Laurel and Hardy.

That's really lovely NM, and something I can relate too (don't want to get all personal and stuff though it's a bit too much).

I can feel an L&H-athon coming on this weekend....

Good idea Artie! I maybe should have chucked this in Replies' A Laurel and Hardy watch-along thread, but I was so overwhelmed with joy at that little clip selection I gave it it's own thread!

[kalowski]

This is beautiful. The timing is stunning. When Stan steps on the accelerator as the ladder rests on the car...the helplessness and bewilderment is palpable.

[Old Thrashbarg]

I always find it amazing that so early in the life of film, these two mastered a genre, have never been bettered and never will be.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Nothing makes me happier than Laurel & Hardy.

[SpiderChrist]

Probably going to watch a load of L & H today, seeing as I'm laid up with a (nother) cold. Never trust anyone who doesn't love (or at least like) Stan & Ollie. Oh yeah they exist, the fucking savages.

[keir]

Probably going to watch a load of L & H today, seeing as I'm laid up with a (nother) cold. Never trust anyone who doesn't love (or at least like) Stan & Ollie. Oh yeah they exist, the fucking savages.

I'm married to one! tbf she's great apart from that.

[Glebe]

It looks like we're going to get to a full hundred years of appreciation - can you say that about any other comic(s)?

Imagine you're already aware of this Science Eel, but looking up their filmography on Wiki, their first short, The Lucky Dog was released on Dec 1, 1921, so yes indeed, coming up on a century! And still making us laugh out loud and filling our hearts with joy, the lovable pair!

[the science eel]

I wasn't aware, no. That's wonderful.

[Uncle TechTip]

Stan & Ollie is still on iPlayer if you haven't seen it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000sdz8

[Bobloblawslawbomb]

https://twitter.com/thatsimonrose/status/1068639730319990784?s=21

I love this joke so much.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Stan & Ollie is still on iPlayer if you haven't seen it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000sdz8

In its sweet, touching, modest little way, that's quite possibly the best biopic ever made about comedy performers. It's usually painful whenever actors try to emulate classic comedy routines, but Coogan and Reilly deserve so much praise for the way in which they closely studied Stan & Ollie. You can tell they spent hours and hours watching them, just to make sure that every little gesture and inflection was correct (and, crucially, funny).

It's a beautiful film.