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Laurel & Hardy

I don't know, but TCM on cable is running an L&H short every Saturday morning at 9am est/8 am central.
 
ME-TV has announced that they will start carrying Laurel and Hardy this Fall, if you're lucky enough to be in an area that carries them.
 
Laurel and Hardy are timeless. I love the measured pace and long drawn out silent routines.
Also when Stan has a brilliant flash of inspiration, then Oliver asks him to repeat it, and he gets hopelessly muddled.
 
In Georgia we have the Laurel & Hardy museum in Harlem (where's that). Oliver Hardy
was from there. Here's their website with lotsa stuff on it.
http://www.laurelandhardymuseum.org/
 
Harlem, GA, is near Augusta. Ollie started his film career in
the silent days in Jacksonville, which was actually a center
of filmmaking in the 1910s. Stan, of course, was from England
and was understudy to Charlie Chaplin at one time.
 
One thing that few people knew about L&H was, that for foreign-language versions of their shorts, often they spoke the lines in the foreign language themselves, not a dubbing!

I cannot recall which cable net ran an L&H marathon long ago (I think maybe it was A&E), and they showed one totally in Spanish. I was impressed at how well they spoke it. I think they did shorts in 5 languages. (I believe that the one they showed took bits of different shorts and they made 1 story out of all those! Likely they did far less foreign-language shorts than they did for English.)

cd
 
Yes, ME TV is available in Cleveland on 19.2. We also have Antenna TV on 8.2 and RTV on a low-power analog station.
 
it's sad to think how many younger people probably have absolutely
no idea who they were
 
cd637299 said:
One thing that few people knew about L&H was, that for foreign-language versions of their shorts, often they spoke the lines in the foreign language themselves, not a dubbing!

I cannot recall which cable net ran an L&H marathon long ago (I think maybe it was A&E), and they showed one totally in Spanish. I was impressed at how well they spoke it. I think they did shorts in 5 languages. (I believe that the one they showed took bits of different shorts and they made 1 story out of all those! Likely they did far less foreign-language shorts than they did for English.)

cd
Click to expand...

True. While they used foreign language actresses for the female leads, "The Boys" spoke their lines phonetically from a chalk board. BTW, TCM is taking orders for the complete set of L&H talking films made during the Hal Roach era on DVD. They're using the best masters available for this collection.

So if none of the L&H films make it to Me-TV or the other sub-nets, you can enjoy them on DVD. Personally, I think we're long overdue for having L&H and W.C. Fields on broadcast TV.

You can contact Lois Laurel, Stan's daughter, through this site:

http://www.laurel-and-hardy.com/
 
Boy, do I miss the '70s. In 1976 and '77 I was living first in
Athens, GA (where we got Atlanta and Greenville, SC on cable),
then in Dallas. In the afternoons on Channel 4 in Greenville, we
got the post-'48 Looney Tunes (the ones not being shown on
CBS Saturday mornings) plus the pre-Robert Blake Rascals; in the mornings
Channel 17 had the Stooges and Rascals from 7-8 AM, while WLOS
showed the pre-'48 Looney Tunes and the '40s "Our Gang"s (with Blake).
Late nights meant "Best Of Groucho" and the Honeymooners on Channel 46,
if you didn't want to watch Carson on Channel 2 or "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman"
on 11 Alive.

In Dallas WFAA and KTVT were likely to throw in a Marx Brothers
or W.C. Fields comedy (KTVT, especially); KDFW used to run the
Honeymooners and Sgt. Bilko as part of their late-night schedules.

All that plus "I Love Lucy," Andy Griffith, and Dick Van Dyke.

This generation simply does not know what it's missing.
 
Later generations of Laurel & Hardy fans were introduced to the team from seeing their films on television. However, if you ever have the opportunity, try to see one of their films on the large screen at a theater. It's easier to see their various sight gags and the surrounding areas that they are in (on the street, apartment building, etc.). Hopefully, the film will have good enough sound quality to enable you to hear it. One reason that you may not hear everything is because the beauty of loud laughter coming from the live audience that you will be a part of. It may then come to you that what you are watching was filmed some 70-75 years ago, but the comedy is still fresh and new and timeless.
 
bpatrick said:
... plus the pre-Robert Blake Rascals;
Click to expand...

Robert Blake (birth name Michael James Vincenzo Gubitosi) wasn't the major difference in the old Our Gang comedies. Until 1938 Our Gang was owned by Hal Roach Studios. In 1938 Roach sold the rights to MGM and the quality quickly spiraled downward. It didn't help that the major players, like Spanky McFarland, had outgrown their parts and the kids hired to replace them were not nearly as competent. The series continued until 1944 at which time MGM killed it.
 
Tom Wells said:
Laurel and Hardy are timeless. I love the measured pace and long drawn out silent routines.
Also when Stan has a brilliant flash of inspiration, then Oliver asks him to repeat it, and he gets hopelessly muddled.
Click to expand...

In James Bacon's book Hollywood is a Four-Letter Town, a few pages are devoted to Laurel & Hardy.

Bacon wrote that their pairing was a happy accident, and that they hit it off from Day 1. Stan directed everything L & H did, and Ollie was perfectly happy to let Stan be the brains of the operation.

According to the book, whatever Laurel wanted him to do, Hardy would just say "OK, Stan", and do it. Apparently when it came to matters about L & H, Ollie was not insecure.

On one occasion, Mr. Bacon took a young Marcel Marceau to Santa Monica to meet an elderly Stan Laurel, and Marceau later said that it was the biggest thrill of his life. Marcel Marceau worshiped the ground Laurel walked on.

In one of his last interviews, Stan Laurel said that in over 30 years of working together, he and Oliver Hardy never had a single argument. I think that quality shows in their marvelous work.
 
Cincinnati Kid said:
Later generations of Laurel & Hardy fans were introduced to the team from seeing their films on television. However, if you ever have the opportunity, try to see one of their films on the large screen at a theater.
Click to expand...

When I was in elementary school in the 70's the Principal showed us ""Saps at Sea", although critics have panned it, I thought it was the funniest thing I ever saw.
 
L&H and Our Gang were filmed on the same lot (Roach Studios) and there was always an intermingling of actors from both sides with the other. In particular, Stan Laurel was a huge favorite of the Our Gangers. The derby that Stymie (Matthew Beard) wore came as a gift from Stan Laurel.
 
landtuna said:
Robert Blake (birth name Michael James Vincenzo Gubitosi) wasn't the major difference in the old Our Gang comedies. Until 1938 Our Gang was owned by Hal Roach Studios. In 1938 Roach sold the rights to MGM and the quality quickly spiraled downward. It didn't help that the major players, like Spanky McFarland, had outgrown their parts and the kids hired to replace them were not nearly as competent. The series continued until 1944 at which time MGM killed it.
Click to expand...

Spanky was a double edge sword. He stayed much too long with the series, he was just way too old when he left. So was Alfalfa, but Spanky was such a good kid actor and draw they couldn't bear to let him go. After which, Mickey took over the "lead" part from Spanky and it never did seem to click after that.
 
IIRC, Spanky (George McFarland) was about 14 (but undersized) when he finally left. MGM definitely had some weird kids after that (Froggy for one).

Going back to the silent era it seems these kids had a rough time of it. Most died early in life and there was a lot of drug/alcohol abuse as well. There are only a couple of them left now.

There is a pretty accurate list at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Gang_personnel

Hal Roach outlived the majority of the early cast members dying at age 100+ in 1992.
 
anotherguy said:
Wasn't there an Our Gang/Little Rascals short where Laurel and Hardy appeared as oversized babies?
Click to expand...

I think that was one of the L&H shorts. But.....

In researching that I found a L&H short called "Stolen Jools". It is not listed either as an OG or LH short. In fact it was done as a charity bit and included half a dozen OG members, L&H, plus a dozen or so "A listers" from the era. Here is a link to the wiki:

http://ourgang.wikia.com/wiki/The_Stolen_Jools
 
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