Morton & Hayes

I don't get it to this day. One week, I'm watching a show doing a brilliant parody of those old "lost jungle goddess" films in flawless Abbott and Costello style, the next week, it's gone.

Any show with Rob Reiner directing and Christopher Guest and Joe Flaherty writing should be the biggest thing on television. The episodes I saw were sure funny enough to compete with anything I ever saw. Sadly, it's been reduced to a quick mention in Rob Reiner's resume, which is sad because I could tell that Rob really loved this one.

Any chance there's a video of this floating around somewhere?

I remember seeing "The Lost Comedies of Chick Morton and Eddie Hayes" during the Summer of 1991. These were newly-produced shows, shot in black and white (complete with scratches) to look like the comedy "short subjects" that would have played at the local movie house back in the late 1930s-early 1940s, sandwiched in between a newsreel, cartoon, and feature film. Sort of a cross between an Abbot and Costello movie and an old Honeymooners episode. Each week, Rob Reiner, would introduce one of these comedies as a "newly discovered" film. My personal favorite was "Society Saps", where Morton and Hayes decide to break into high society by crashing a fancy party and cozying up to a couple of débutantes. In the best tradition of the 1930s movie musical, deadpan crooner Augie Gibbons (Christopher Guest) and His Orchestra introduce the latest dance craze -- "The Cold Potato"-- the steps of which involve the motions of digging up invisible potatoes with an invisible shovel (at one point, bandleader Gibbons exhorts his drummer to, "take it" and it cuts to a shot of the drummer just tapping on the cymbal with a blank expression on his face). If I remember correctly, each episode would end with Chick and Eddie singing their theme song, "We're Morton and Hayes, we'll always be friends..." while doing a little vaudeville shuffle. This was followed by a little "interview" at the Reiner would have with one of the "actors" from that week's episode (in the case of the aforementioned show, Reiner interviews bandleader Augie Gibbons, now a surly octogenarian who keeps telling Reiner to shut up and ends the interview showing Reiner how to do the Cold Potato while whizzing in and out of camera frame in his electric wheelchair). Guest appeared in most (if not all) of the episodes -- sometimes as the villain. It looked like he (and everybody else in the series) was really enjoying themselves. A single DVD reissue containing all six episodes would definitely find space on my shelf.

I remember being one the few people to watch this show and thinking how different and clever it was. It was one of those shows that did not fit into one particular television category or genre. It had elements that were similar to "This Is Spinal Tap" which was also directed by Rob Reiner.

Reiner would narrate each episode about a fictional Laurel-and-Hardy-esquire comedy act from the golden age of television whose archive footage was lost and recently found. All episodes were in black and white and were made to look exactly like the 1920s. Like early television, episodes had little dialog and were thin on plots.

If you enjoyed watching the "Three Stooge" or "Abbott & Costello", this was great show for you. Unfortunately, CBS was not too high on this show and aired it in the middle of the summer. Despite having some recognizable names attached to it (Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Kevin Pollack), the network did little to promote the show. Predictably, no one really watched. Even had it aired in the fall, it is doubtful that it would have found an audience as viewers at the time were into younger shows like "Beverly Hills 90210" and have shown that they will not watch nostalgic shows from before like 1960 (ie."Brooklyn Bridge","Clubhouse", "I'll Fly Away").

This was a somewhat unusual series. During the 90's, when sitcoms were about to take over entirely, but before reality television had taken root, this series appeared. It was a modern black and white series that was done in the style of films, like Laurel and Hardy & Abbott and Costello.

I have not seen this series in years, but it did provide some chuckles. It was generally pretty good, as I remember it, but there were aspects that I felt could have been better. There were times, where I felt that the representation was a bit over-simplified. Many of the elements were there. Singing, stock footage, slapstick, simulated low budget effects, etc.

These were combined with plots and acting that were a bit too stereotypical, in my opinion -- along with some modern computer effects that reminded you that it wasn't really vintage. Occasionally, I felt they over-did certain aspects, like repeated footage of a woman being chased against a scrolling background. While this did seem clever, they repeated it so many times, it got annoying -- more than was necessary to get the point across.

Even so, I know I'm being picky. I just felt that it could have been even better, if they had tweaked it a bit. Here's a little bit of insight, that could explain why this series was so short, and why it was "cancelled" after only six episodes. It might also explain the format, and why more effort wasn't put into it.

When this show was broadcast, it was shown as a companion to Police Squad!, which was another very short series that was only six episodes long. Together, the shows filled out an entire hour. 30 minutes seems short for an Abbott and Costello type show, but it seemed fine, when paired with Police Squad.

Police Squad was a parody police series from the 70's. It was a brilliant, but short series. It was one of the few shows, when I was a kid, that made me laugh until I couldn't breathe. I suspect that Morton and Hayes was only created to compliment the re-showing of Police Squad!, and it was never intended to be any more than that. I think they even repeated it about 1 1/2 times, before the run was over.