Meet Mr. Mischief

I know Harry von Zell as a member of the George Burns-Gracie Allen TV cast and, before that, as a radio announcer. I was surprised to see this Columbia short, one of about ten he starred in for Jules White's unit at Columbia. He's pretty good in a role that looks like it was written for Shemp Howard when he was doing solo shorts. Now Shemp was back with the Three Stooges and, if this is not a retread of an earlier script -- they did a lot of that in Columbia's shorts department -- then Harry was being tried out as a replacement.

It's not much of a stretch for Harry. He plays an announcer at a radio station. The gimmick is that he is a practical joker, which annoys everyone, which sets up the second half of the comedy and makes the outcome fairly obvious. There is a fine chase sequence through the radio station and old pro Vernon Dent gets the final and best joke. The result is pretty standard for Columbia and if you like the Stooges or Shemp, you'll enjoy this.

Apart his duties as an announcer and character on the "Burns and Allen" television show, Harry Von Zell also made a few shorts for Columbia Pictures. I've only seen three or four of them and wasn't particularly impressed. For some reason, and it certainly escapes me, I decided to watch "Meet Mr. Mischief".

In this short, Harry is an obnoxious practical joker and he's easy to dislike because he's so obnoxious and his jokes are so unfunny. So, the wife concocts a bizarre plan to scare him into giving up practical jokes forever....and it involves enlisting a friend to pose as a man who wants Harry's head!

This is not an especially cerebral comedy. There is LOTS of slapstick, including tossed cakes, chairs being broken over folks' heads and more. In many ways, it feels like a Three Stooge's outing...which isn't surprising since they, too, made shorts with Columbia. To me, this is just watchable...but not especially funny...which is what I think of most of the studio's shorts.

By the way, when Harry opens a door and stuff comes pouring out, he says "Doggone that Fibber McGee". This is because the story takes place at a radio station and a running gag on "The Fibber McGee and Molly" program is McGee's messy closet.