You're Darn Tootin'

You're Darn Tootin' has Laurel and Hardy as members of a municipal band, known for causing the conductor ample amounts of grief with their incompetence and clueless way of going about things. After their antics cause them to be kicked out of the band, they come home to realize their landlady has evicted them because of their lack of employment. The men try their luck at being street musicians, scraping by by the courtesy dimes and nickles people throw into the cups adjacent to them, but to little avail, as the two consistently argue and even engage in arguments with innocent passersby.

Noted Laurel and Hardy scholar Randy Skretvedt notes You're Darn Tootin' not so much as a comedy but as a painfully honest display of friendship and helplessness. Even when Laurel and Hardy are without a job, a home, and knowledge of where there next meal will come from, they cling to each other, and even if they fight and bicker with one another, one pretty quickly realizes these two couldn't live without one another by their side. It's an paradoxical friendship that has stood the test of time and cinema, but Laurel and Hardy deserved to be bound together for eternity, through all the needless slap-fighting and goofball situations.

You're Darn Tootin' is less a comedy short and more a nimble exploration at the kind of paradoxical friendship these two characters embody. While, of course, being humorous and delightfully unpredictable, Laurel and Hardy's relationship has pals is explored in a richer sense and, with that, we get a short that embodies really what it's like to have that one friend that you can't live with but can't live without.

Starring: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Directed by: Edgar Kennedy.

This amusing, clever short feature is a pretty good example of the way that Laurel & Hardy, at their best, could get a lot of mileage out of a few simple ideas. While many of the gags have been done before, frequently by Stan and Ollie themselves, the material works and provides good laughs thanks to their expert timing, funny mannerisms, and creative use of props. The wild sidewalk fracas is probably the best-remembered part of "You're Darn Tootin'", but perhaps the wittiest sequence is the opening scene on the bandstand, which packs quite a few laughs into a short time. Any Laurel & Hardy fan should enjoy this one.

This is a highly entertaining Laurel and Hardy short from the silent era.

Plot In a Nutshell: Two unemployed and recently homeless musicians turn to panhandling, with disastrous results.

Why I rated it an '8': Simply put, it had me laughing or at least smiling throughout the entire 20 minutes. I don't know if any moment reaches the heights of their absolute best work, but there are plenty of funny moments here. From the band stand to the lodging house to the city streets, Laurel and Hardy bring their "A" game to this loose collection of sketches woven into a story. The highlight is unquestionably the finale, where no less than 15-20 men engage in a pants-ripping melee that will leave you in stitches. I sure was!

8/10. Would I watch again (Y/N)?: Yes, absolutely. Good stuff!

More of a collection of loosely linked sketches than a plot, You're Darn Tootin' builds to a crescendo which finds a dozen men doing battle in the street without their trousers.

You're Darn Tootin', released in 1928, is one of Laurel & Hardy's last silent shorts. There is no high-brow humor, no Andy Kaufman what's-he-really-doing-here angst, and the closest thing to sophisticated word play comes when Stan throws Ollie's horn under a steam roller and, after trying to get the now half-inch thick instrument to toot, Ollie deadpans to the camera and a placard announces "It's flat."

You can see the fine hand of legendary comedic actor Edgar Kennedy in his direction. Kennedy's fortes – the slow burn and intricate interactions with props – are the centerpieces here, from the fiddle bow and music sheet sequence early on to the gradual acceleration from annoyance to mayhem and utter anarchy at the end.

Stan and Ollie destroy a band concert, get fired, evicted, and fight with each other and everyone else who so much as passes by. The big finale is the infamous pants-ripping scene. "You're Darn Tootin'" is pure slapstick and low-brow humor. It's also the funniest twenty minutes ever committed to film.

Warning: do not watch this film without a change of underwear available.