The Abbott and Costello Show

Sitcoms had been around for a few years when this show premiered, but none of them were anywhere near as funny (Jerry Seinfeld is on record as saying this show was the inspiration for his creating "Seinfeld") as this one. The premise of the show lent itself to Bud & Lou's reprising many of their most famous routines, and it was good to see them back in action. The two of them--especially Costello--seemed to have regained the spark they once had before a string of movie failures and the team's personal and physical problems (Lou's infant son had fallen into their backyard pool and drowned several years previously, a tragedy Lou never got over; Bud--unknown to many at the time--had epilepsy and his seizures were becoming more serious) combined to send their career into a tailspin, and this show was their chance to revive it. Even though Costello was no longer a young man (he was in his mid-50s when the series debuted) he could still take the pratfalls he was famous for, and the team's exquisite sense of timing seemed to have resurfaced (in one episode they did their famous "Lemon" gag that was simply amazing to watch). A first-rate supporting cast and a somewhat more adult atmosphere (Costello had a major--and completely understandable--case of the hots for beautiful Hillary Brooke, and he and Joe Besser's wonderful Stinky had some quite nasty fights) elevated this show beyond just kid's fare.

Although it lasted only two seasons, this is a very fondly remembered show. It holds up well and is just as funny today as it was back when it was first shown.

The A & C show is one of the funniest comedy shows in the history of television. All of the skits that made this comedy team American comedy icons are in this series. And what adds to the shenanigans is the cast of those inimical characters that we still talk about - Mike the Cop, Mr. Fields the landlord, Hillary Brooks (Lou adored her. And how could anyone not react with a smile when she would condescendingly refer to Costello as "Louis?"), Mr. Bacigalupe and Lou's "friend" Stinky. Every episode is funny; every character is funny, and this show is proof that humor does not have to be dirty to be funny. Bud Abbott's sneer, Lou's whining, Mike's indignation, all that and more is what is to be found in this treasure chest of comedy, brought to you by one of the greatest comedy teams of all times - Abbott and Costello.

In the 1950's and 1960's, I believe these were run for an hour in the morning on WPIX in New York. This means I would watch ten episodes a week and after five weeks and one day, I saw every episode. Being born in 1953, I probably saw every episode ten times by the time I was five years old. I continued to watch them whenever I was home from school - sick, on holidays and during the Summer. I probably saw every episode 30-40 times by the time I was ten.

In 2012, I bought the complete set DVD. Watching most of them for the first time in fifty years, I was amazed. They are as fantastically funny as they were back then for me. The only difference is that now I can appreciate the true brilliance of Lou Costello. This is the height of vaudeville comedy, an art-form developed and practiced from the 1860's to the 1940's in the United States. It was fast and witty and filled with slapstick kicks, slaps, punches and falls.

Many films of the 1930's and 1940's was filled with this kind of material as was many television variety shows of the 1950's. The Three Stooges were perhaps the purest expression of it in movies, but Danny Kaye, Bob Hope and many others also put it in their movies.

We get much of it in many Abbott and Costello films too, but it is generally mixed with songs, romance and many other plot elements. In the television series, the vaudeville elements dominate. We get about 20 minutes of straight vaudeville routines in many of the shows.

Lou Costello produced the series, while Bud Abbott was just a hired hand on it. So the series really showcases Costello. Yet, he generally shows off all the other performers wonderfully. There are a half dozen other brilliant comedians like Sid Fields, Joe Besser, Joan Shawlee, Joe Kirk, Gordon Jones, and Hilary Brooke who are given a chance to shine. Even the chimpanzee, Bingo, the chimp, may be the funniest animal performer ever on television.

The show creates a warm and beautiful world, where eccentricity is the norm. It is a place where violence is silly, not painful. The normality of this world breaks up swiftly into the absurd almost every minute.

The only sad thing about this series is that there are only 52 episodes.

The raison d'etre of these 52 shows is the desire of Lou Costello to leave behind definitive versions of all of their burlesque and vaudeville routines. Most of these were not original, some having circulated since Plautus. Floogle Street (also known, incorrectly, as the Susquehanna Hat Company), Crazy House,

Niagara Falls (Slowly I Turn) were all such staples that every new burlesque comic was expected to know them in case they were needed to fill in at a moments notice. They were part of the stock repertoire. What Abbott and Costello did was present the absolute perfect version of each bit. It was this absolute perfection which caused them to rise to the very top of burlesque, and to, uniquely, make the transition to the mass medium of films.

They did these bits in their films but they were usually compromised by having plots and sub plots and romance and songs and whatever the studio executives or their agents (actually the same person) thought people who went to the movies wanted. Comparing their late films with the TV series is night and day. They look old and tired and out of shape in the films but crisp and perfectly timed on TV. The big difference with the TV series is that Lou Costello was in complete charge and did things his way. Absolutely the ne plus ultra of the burlesque comic genre, pardon my French.

One day the National Film Registry will have to list the entire series as a national treasure. Lou Costello was right and their act was for the ages and this black and white series preserves it perfectly. Meanwhile watch that bit again where Mr. Bacciagalupe (I still call my greengrocer Mr. Bacciagalupe) convinces Lou that two bananas are really three bananas. Also the routine where Abbott convinces Costello not to let Mike the Cop push them around which keeps getting Lou hit on the head which is so much like modern international politics that it's frightening.

P.S. Doing my Joe Besser ('Stinky') impression got me out of the draft.

I remember watching these shows at a very young age, and laughing until I felt my side would split. These are certainly the best programs ever to ride the airwaves! Collect the tapes and let your childern enjoy this trully," Good, clean, fun."